I hope you like it, and I’d be happy to hear your thoughts, as well as any cool activity ideas you might have. Cheers!
The list is fairly short (70 activities total). Once filtered it would be easier to simply display all matching activities.
Many of the "Low" cost activities have significant upfront costs. I wouldn't describe Archery as "low cost", nor describe Astronomy or a board game night as Free activities!
It was easier just to read the raw JSON than browse the site. ( The activities are https://www.whataaabout.com/activities.json and seem to be static, not based on parameters. )
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamecategory/1120/print-play
&
https://boardgamegeek.com/forum/974620/bgg/design-contests
BGGs site is always a bit confusing to me to navigate, but searching for "pnp" or "print and play" and a contest year will probably surface a lot of good "free" (or at least, free to print....) You can at least certainly get a bunch printed for cheaper than 1 boxed game and if you dont like half of them, no drama.
Shutup and sit down has done a few round ups of solo-print-and-plays https://inv.tux.pizza/search?q=shut+up++and+sit+down+print+a.... I'm sure there are people on here that can recommend some +1-player pnp games.
In fact, if you buy used, and resell when you're bored of the game, if can be pretty much free.
In regards to the costs, again, what's low cost for one might be different for another. My archery club allows you to show up and try it for a session (or two) before enrolling. Astronomy nights don't cost us anything or much fuel, if at all. Been to plenty of board game nights where there were no entrance cost.
To share some contrasting opinions.
Obviously the range is very broad, but around my parts you can get away with archery for about ~15 EUR per person (and up). That's not very expensive. What is "low cost" also obviously depends on the person.
this is hilarious. Like when us it guys have to call a call center triage desk "yes, i already rebooted...."
More like 3-4 hours, and low (but not zero) cost.
I make custom lock picks was member of TOOOL - and have a few cool tricks up my sleeve:
"spend ten minutes attempting to come up with a name for your dying plant, because if you just remember to talk to it - it wont leave you like everyone else has"
"Promise yourself youll fold the laundry after you rest your eyes for a few minutes"
I'm pretty good at this game!
- whaaatabout
- whatabooout
I don't think it's a big deal, though. The site itself is more important than the name.
Edit: If I were to say a drawn-out "what about" to someone I would probably say "what abooout" but both suggestions sound okay to me.
(The only exception I can think of is 'evennn'. e.g. Bob and Sue are at a dinner party with friends. Bob tells everyone that he likes all vegetables. Sue knows he doesn't like broccoli, so she nudges Bob and says "evennn...?". This makes sense if 'even' in fact contains a syllabic nasal consonant rather than schwa: /'ivn=/.)
That said, I don't think it's a big deal!
This is pretty neat! I think it’s actually nice that the list of activities is not enormously long, because at a certain point it would just feel like too much work to dig through an entire dictionary of possible things to do. So, if you wanted to keep working on it, I might focus more on refining what you have, for example you could have “how to get started” links on each activity.
Suggestions:
- Perhaps a way to view all activities? or activities within the specified selections rather than having to use the suprise
- I noticed repeating activities before hitting the 70 limit, perhaps some memory?
The reason, though, that I think it's especially bad for your project is because the whole purpose of your site is to try something new. I like the saying "Be brave enough to be bad at something new". So many of us get into a vein (often subconsciously) of always comparing ourselves to others because basically all of the examples we see online are the 0.001% experts that make it to the top of some feed algorithm. So, for example, why use a "perfect model specimen", complete with fake veins, for your "Bouldering" example, https://www.whataaabout.com/imgs/bouldering.png? Why use a "Hallmark card perfection" example of a (fake) smiling grandmother and her daughter, https://www.whataaabout.com/imgs/familyTree.png, for "Creating a family tree"? An almost fairytale scene for "Scavenger Hunt", https://www.whataaabout.com/imgs/scavengerHunt.png (though apparently some of the cars in the lower right are about to be sucked into another dimension).
Your site should be about people embracing the joy of the reality of doing something new, not more fantasy land bullshit that doesn't exist.
Sorry, will get off my soapbox now and go back to eating my soup.
This is the part I pretty strongly disagree with you. There is a reason "Comparison is the thief of joy" is a popular saying. People are pretty quickly going to be exposed to the reality of the situation, at which point the gap between their fantasy and reality will be a huge demotivator.
In any case, there are lots of free stock image sites you can use to find images that actually depict reality. Not saying they aren't staged, but there are lots that I think would be "friendlier" to newbies, which is what your site is about.
I think it looks fine, and ads some visual cues for what the activity actually is.
https://www.pexels.com/search/bouldering/
https://www.pexels.com/search/grandmother%20and%20grandchild...
It would be cool to have daytime/night filters too if we're looking for something to do at night!
That was fun, thank you.
...Oh wait, that's just my "to do" list for today.
