And to further expand on its capabilities, Discord has added channel games to its voice chat. This lets you communicate and play without ever leaving the app. Read on and learn how to use this feature on your own server.
New Discord Activities to Explore
The new Start an Activity feature allows you to play games and watch YouTube on a voice channel with your friends. Although still in beta, you already have a choice of activities, including Poker Night, Chess In The Park, Doodle Crew, Word Snacks, Letter Tile, Spellcast, and Watch Together.
Since this feature is still in development, the Activity function is only usable on the official Discord server—the Discord Games Lab. If you join a voice channel in any other server, the Start an Activity feature won’t appear.
Though this might sound like a letdown, don’t give up just yet. Luckily, you can use a Discord bot to activate this feature on your server. But before doing that, let’s explore how you can use this on the official Discord server first.
How to Start an Activity on Discord Games Lab
Currently, the official method for using Discord activities requires you to join the Discord Games Lab server. All the voice channels in this server are equipped with activities that you can start with a couple of clicks. Let’s try playing chess in Discord.
Now you’ll see a menu of all the activities you can start to play with your friends. Hover on each to see a preview. As an example, we’re going to launch Chess In The Park.
Select Chess In The Park. A window will appear, asking for authorization for the activity to access your account. Click on Authorize to allow it. If it’s your first time using Discord, a window might pop up asking for authorization to use your microphone or camera. Click on Allow so that your friends can see and hear you. Once the game loads, you’ll go to Park View, where you can see ongoing games. Under the boards, click Create Game. Select the looks you want for the board and the pieces. You can also decide whether you want the game to be locked or not. Locking a game will remove it from Park View, and players can’t join without a table code. Click Create Game. Once the game starts and the board is set, click the game name located top-left of the board. This will display the table code for your game. Share the table code with your friends so you can play against them.
That’s about it for hosting a Discord activity. Your friends can now join your activity to play chess or other activities such as Watch Together.
How to Join an Existing Activity on a Discord Channel
It’s not always that you’re the host of a Discord activity. If someone else has started an activity, you can join them with a few clicks.
Join a Discord channel where a user is hosting an activity. You can see if there is an ongoing activity under the channel title. Click the rocket ship icon under Voice Connected. Then choose Start [Activity Title] to launch it. If you haven’t previously authorized the activity app, an authorization window will appear. Click on Authorize to start it.
How to Host a Channel Game on Your Own Discord Server
Currently, other Discord servers, such as your own, can’t natively run Discord Activities. But you can easily overcome that with the help of a Discord bot. The Activities bot temporarily allows you to enable Discord activities for your own server.
Invite the Activities bot to your server. In your server’s text chat, type in the command below: /activity Discord will bring suggestions for the rest of the command. You’ll have to choose a voice channel and then an activity. Don’t forget to allow the Activities bot access if your channels require permissions. Press Enter. The bot will reply with a link. Click on it to go to the activity you just started. You will now see the rocket ship button under Voice Connected. Have fun chatting and playing!
Check out the GitHub for the Activities bot to learn more about it if you’re interested.
Talk and Play on Discord
Even though Discord was first introduced and branded as “Chat for Gamers”, Discord has, over time, gained popularity for both gaming and productivity.
And as Discord becomes more and more ubiquitous, the team behind it is trying to add fresh features and expand the app to something further than just a voice chat platform.
