I'm not smart enough to set it up through command line and I haven't found a program I can get working yet. Probably a really dumb question but if we all connect to the same vpn sever would that work? Playhide should work but I can't seem to download it off github. Any advice or should I just put in the work to figure out cmdline?
A VPN is what you want, not VLANS that is used to segment parts of the local network. not to get your friends in too your local network.
A simple and easy to use solution is wireguard easy.