Gathering on gather.town

Whew. Another unspeakable day as we wind toward the end of Mafia Mulligan's days (I hope). 

Here's a cool thing I learned about last night, unrelated to all of that: gather.town.

If you've spent much time on Zoom in these past nine months, you probably appreciate aspects of it, while also missing other things, like the flexibility that comes from moving around in a space so you can talk to someone for just a few minutes. Like... at a party! Parties, remember those?

Gather.town seems like the best way I've seen to simulate a party setting. I never used Second Life, and I've never played role-playing video games, but essentially in Gather you become a little avatar who can move through a pre-designed space and encounter other people. When you get close to someone, a little Zoom-like video window of the person appears on your screen and you can talk to them (or chat). 

It also has private spaces within the room that have chairs and sofas (or whatever has been built into the design). When you're inside one of those spaces, which are usually demarcated with a rug, your conversation with the other people inside the rug can't be heard by people outside the rug area. 

I just did a pub trivia trial using this system and it worked really well. It was the closest to the real bar/restaurant-based trivia experience I've had since March (minus the food and drink). Gather also has games that you can put on the tables, like Pictionary and Set, to play together. 

I think I will try it out with my family next, so we can have more of a casual hangout and break off into smaller talks, rather than one big conversation with turn taking as we have to do in Zoom, which is pretty stilted and unnatural. 

Gather's pricing structure starts with a free account for up to 25 users. The ramp-up from there is flexible, with rates per user based on a few hours, a day, or a month.