The COVID-19 pandemic has forced a lot of us to work from home, or in the case of the kids, to experience distance learning. While the situation does have its advantages (no suffering through horrendous traffic jams, no need to dress up for work), it can also start becoming tedious really fast, with everyday tasks seeming to get boring with each passing hour.

What you need then is to spice things up without going out and risking your health. There are a lot of superb ideas that you can get from the internet that can give some much-needed excitement to your day, but one that has been proven to be effective and doesn’t need much fuss to do is to hold a game night with family members or friends.

Game nights are the perfect opportunity for some fun family bonding especially when the kids (and you!) have been spending a lot more time on your smartphone or computer or tablet. You can, of course, also invite friends over for some adult-kind of bonding that should be as riotous as you could imagine (just make sure they are also observing safety protocols and are not showing any health issues—you don’t want to have some nasty virus coming into your abode).

With schedules cleared and everyone on the same page and excited over the prospect of having some friendly but you can be sure to be an intensely competitive night, here are three things that will make your game nights always the best.

 1. AGREE ON THE GAMES TO BE PLAYED BEFOREHAND

This means you’ll need to coordinate with those who have confirmed their attendance either through email, phone call, private messaging, or even video call on what games they prefer. To make the process as painless as possible, get ready with a list of possible games to be played and then present them to the participants. You can have them choose three and the top three games voted will be the ones you are going to play on game night. This way you’ll avoid having to spend the first few hours of your get-together arguing what game to play.

Just as important, though, are the kinds of games you and your friends will choose. Make sure what you offer  are the ones that everyone enjoys. Do they go for card games, board games, party games, games of chance or skill? You can also make your game nights not only a source of fun and excitement but also an opportunity for some great conversations and to build relationships. One great game that achieves this is Kulture Kards. It’s a card game consisting of 80 trivia questions that refer to black sitcoms and movies in the 1990s such as “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” and “Major Payne.” Even as it is guaranteed to create lots of fun and thrill and to arouse some good old competitive spirit, Kulture Kards celebrates black awareness and increases culture consciousness.

2. PROVIDE FINGER FOODS, DRINKS, AND DESSERT

As you would have deduced from the title of this paragraph, you don’t need to prepare a full-course dinner for your game nights. Your guest competitors are not there to share a meal with you but to have a fun night of games. They are expected to have taken their meals elsewhere before they come to your place. The finger foods are there just because playing games seem to be more enjoyable with chips and dips and other  easily munched on treats. As for the drinks, wine is okay and so is beer or soda. You can even tell your guests beforehand that they can bring whatever drink they want to have and share with everyone else. This way, you can be sure that drinks will not run out and that they will be enjoyed.

Of course, with games getting to be intense as each minute passes, you and the rest will need to have some sugar boost to for that extra energy. Desserts should do the trick, and they don’t need to be fancy. A box of donuts or cookies or slices of cake are sure to be a hit. You can serve them on paper plates with disposable forks and people won’t mind. It’s safer as well as there’s no danger of plates being broken in the heat of the competition. Of course, when it comes to serving wine, real glasses will be much appreciated.

3. GO FOR A RELAXED AND CASUAL MOOD

That means no mood music, candles, or incense. Your friends are there to have a boisterous night playing what could turn to be intensely competitive games, so no  need to go zen on this. Of course, you can have some background (party) music to liven things up at the start, but you can be sure that you will need to turn it down at some point when the game begins to get intense and everyone is yelling and laughing their hearts out.

Keeping these three things in mind will help you achieve the best game night ever, and you can be sure your friends or family will be coming back for more.