Virtual Variety: Teen Game Nights!

Please welcome our newest monthly columnist Lindy Liedl from the Rice Lake Public Library. She will be posting on the fourth Thursday of each month. We're happy to have her on board.

Hi, I’m Lindy! I work at Rice Lake Public Library mainly as a teen program host, a content creator for our social media, and I’m always on the lookout for fun ways to connect with our community virtually. I’ll be sharing what we’ve been up to monthly.

In Fall of 2020, our library had a teen reach out to us about a gaming program! They asked if the library could host a virtual gaming event so that she could stay in touch with friends who had moved to another city – and invite other teens to join in too. She suggested Jackbox Party Pack as a game idea, but was open to trying any other games too! A dream come true after losing our teens to age-outs and pandemic times.

How we set up:  If you haven’t played them, Jackbox Party Packs just require one person to purchase the game, then others can take part on any device at the web address “Jackbox.TV” using a private game code. So we purchased the game, set up a recurring Zoom meet and shared the link with our teens. Then, I publicized the weekly event, inviting teens to join in (and to share their game ideas with us). Once we’re all on Zoom, I screen-share the game with everyone, and they chat and participate on their devices from home. Be sure to turn on family-friendly mode in settings before programs.

When posting about the program on social media, I invite teens/parents to email me for the Zoom link. At first, there was concern about screening ages so that no random people can ask for the link, but the emails we’ve gotten have been from parents, or from friends of teens who already take part. There’s always the ability to boot people out of Zoom calls if needed, but we haven’t had any issues yet. If it came to it, we could instead create a Google Form asking teens for their library card numbers, name of schools, and other screening questions before sharing the link, but I think (so far) troublemakers are too lazy to email library staff.

Since then, Game Nights have expanded to three rotating games each week: Minecraft, Among Us, and Jackbox, with 6 kids taking part at most, and a Discord server of 10 teens hanging out and chatting together all week! Going from 0 teens, to 10 teens having a safe space to hang out virtually, and new friends to chat with has been a lot of fun.