Online Town combines video gaming and teleconferencing tech to create a better environment for virtual parties

• With Online Town, a new virtual platform from Siempre, you can have private conversations in the middle of a video call party.
• Three friends, Kumail Jaffer, Phillip Wang, and Cyrus Tabrizi launched Online Town on April 3.
• Online Town combines video gaming and teleconferencing technology to allow participants of a call to move around on a map — the site offers Dolores Park, Times Square, an office space, and a cozy apartment, among others — and have private conversations in tandem, just like in a normal party.
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Earlier this week, my friend Alison finally got the chance to show me around part of San Francisco. I never got the chance to visit the city, where she lived last year, before the coronavirus pandemic.

"This is where people lay out and party on a typical weekend with good weather," she said. I followed her to another part of the park, which she said is popular for taking pictures of the San Francisco skyline. Then, we exited out of the screen and went about our days. She was in her new apartment in Los Angeles, and I was in mine in New York City. Thanks to Online Town, we were able to chase each other around Dolores Park virtually.

Online Town launched on April 3 as an alternative to video calling platforms like Zoom or Google Hangouts that can become overwhelming with large groups. The website, which is pretty bare-bones and in its early stages, offers six destinations which your avatar can explore. Beneath the party space — offerings include Times Square, an office, and a cozy apartment — you can see your friends on the video call.

The six party spaces, which the website calls "environments," aren't the most glamorous aesthetically. The Dolores Park visuals appear to be screenshots from Google Maps or Google Earth. But there are fun touches, like the ability to check out a rooftop in Times Square or hear the crackling fireplace in an apartment.

But what really separates Online Town, created by Kumail Jaffer, Phillip Wang, and Cyrus Tabrizi, from other teleconferencing apps is its capability for multiple private conversations in tandem. Using the arrow keys on your keyboard, you can navigate to another area of the party for a conversation with one or multiple other people. As you move your avatar further away, the images and voices of further away guests begin to fade.

Online Town is able to do this "by combining a standard video-calling interface with a low-fidelity 2D game," according to the website.

The private conversation capability is hugely helpful for large gatherings during COVID-19, as other video conferencing programs don't make it easy to have private conversations. In a group of multiple people, only one person can speak at a time. It can get exhausting and stressful.

While the project had been in the works prior to the coronavirus pandemic, Jaffer told Mashable that the rollout in April was intentional. "With the quarantine, we saw this problem space get a lot more severe, not just for the people closest to us but also for society at large," he said.

Alison and I gave Online Town a try with a larger group of friends (from our college a capella group, though no singing occurred). It was really great at first — two people and I went to a corner of the "Black Chairs" environment so I could tell them a story the others had already heard. But once we had a group of eight people, the video and sound became quite laggy, and we decided unanimously to switch to Zoom.

On the Zoom call, I missed the way Online Town let me sneak away with one or two friends for privacy. Zoom's breakout rooms just aren't the same.

• Read more:
• Inside the virtual raves and parties that are trying to keep nightlife afloat amid the global coronavirus pandemic
• Here are 40 fun, free things to do online while you're stuck at home
• Zoom-bombers used a swastika, pornography, and anti-Semitic language to invade a Holocaust Remembrance Day call: 'It felt like our voice was taken from us'
• A high schooler has been invading random Zoom classes with armies of up to 60 strangers and posting results on TikTok

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