Resources

When BoardGameArena goes down (it happens!), here are some excellent alternatives. All of these are free to play, browser-based (no download), and no login required for guests—someone creates a “room” and shares a link or code. Recommended Sites Website Game Type Players Description Netgames.io Social Deduction Hub 5–20+ A polished interface for social deduction hits. Includes Secret Hitler, Avalon, One Night Ultimate Werewolf, Spyfall, and Codewords (Codenames clone). No setup required; just share the room code. Codenames.game Team Word Game 4–8+ The official online version of Codenames. Two teams compete to contact all their agents first by guessing words from one-word clues. Excellent for teams. Gartic Phone Drawing / Party 4–14+ The “Telephone” game but with drawings. Player A writes a prompt, Player B draws it, Player C describes the drawing, and so on. Hilarious results and perfect for Zoom laughter. Longwave Social / Team 2–10+ A web implementation of the board game Wavelength. Teams try to guess where a hidden target lies on a spectrum (e.g., “Hot” to “Cold”) based on a psychic’s clue (e.g., “Coffee”). PlayingCards.io Card Game Sandbox 1–6+ A virtual tabletop that moves anything you drag. Comes with pre-made rooms for Crazy Eights, Hearts, Go Fish, and Cribbage, or you can build custom games. Colonist.io Strategy 1–4 A clean, fast clone of Settlers of Catan. Gather resources, build roads/settlements, and trade with other players. Base game is free for 4 players. OneWord.games Co-op Word Game 3–∞ A web version of Just One. Everyone writes one-word clues to help the guesser find the mystery word. If clues are identical, they’re deleted! World Of Card Games Card Games 1–6 Many different card games including Hearts, Spades, Euchre, Gin Rummy, and more. Gidd.io Variety Hub 2–20 A suite of simple games including Yatzy, Uno (Crazy Eights), and GeoClash (Geography guessing). Handles up to 20 players smoothly. JigsawPuzzles.io Co-op Puzzle 1–10 Collaborative real-time jigsaw puzzles. You can see everyone’s mouse cursors moving pieces around. Very chill and great for chatting while playing. Fake Artist Online Drawing / Deduction 5–10 Based on “A Fake Artist Goes to New York.” Everyone draws one line to contribute to a picture, but the “Fake Artist” doesn’t know the topic and tries to blend in. Tips for Hosting Login: For most of these sites, only the person creating the room might need a login (often not even them), but guests definitely do not. ...