Live-streaming a game - an experiment

With the lockdown continuing I've not been able to travel to Fishponds for any games recently. So as an experiment we tested out livestreaming a game over video chat. The setup is below and we was fairly simple.

We used Zoom as the bridge to connect the devices used. A tablet provided the view of the players in the main room and can be used to show the remote players. A phone was focused on the board game and also provided the mic used in the main room. We also used an external speaker to give sound to the main room.

One player dialled in and was able to view the board plus speak to the two players in the room. We could though have supported multiple dial-ins    

For this experiment we used a board game as it has a grid which makes it much easier to do movement and LOS determination for the remote players. We opted for the D&D Boardgame as its a quick multiplayer game and the materials each player needs can be printed out.   

We played through two scenarios over about 90mins play. The remote player reported no difficulty in seeing the board ok and the sound was good. In this instance they did nt have the dice so we rolled those in the room.  

We'll certainly be playing again and it works fine for board games. Wargames would really need an overhead camera to give a decent view of the table and allow some judgemet of distance.