You found our list of the best virtual games to play on Zoom with coworkers.
Virtual games to play on Zoom are fun activities played over online video call. Examples of games include Lightning Scavenger Hunts, Conference Call Bingo, and Guess Who?. These games tend to involve Zoom features like breakout rooms, white boards, screen sharing and reactions. Usually these games are free or low cost to play. The purpose of these games is to have fun, relax and do team building at work. These activities are also known as “online Zoom games” and “Zoom party games.”
These games are a subcategory of video call games and Zoom team building games, and are useful for Zoom icebreakers, virtual game nights and team building online. We use many of these activities in our hosted virtual team building events and virtual team events.
This list includes:
- fun Zoom games for adults
- fun games to play on Zoom with coworkers
- free online games to play on Zoom
- Zoom games for large groups
- Zoom games for small groups
So, let’s get started!
Fun Zoom games for adults
1. Lightning Scavenger Hunts ⚡
For Lightning Scavenger Hunts, create a list of items or characteristics. Then, for your next group activities on Zoom, challenge your coworkers to gather the items and show them on screen to earn points. You can encourage winners of each round to share stories about the item.
Here is an example of items to find:
- Something red.
- Your favorite mug.
- Whatever is in the pockets of your winter jacket.
- The thing you have had the longest.
- A book that you did not enjoy.
- Your must unusual key chain item.
You can get creative with your hunt; the more obscure the objects the better.
Here are some sample scavenger hunts to start with, and more virtual minute to win it games.
Learn more about how to do a lightning scavenger hunt.
2. Zoom “Conference Call” Bingo
Bingo has a number of advantages for team building on Zoom, including a familiar format, fun game mechanics and the potential for prizes. Your team will love it ?
Here is a free Zoom Bingo Board you can use:
To play Bingo games over Zoom, distribute the game board and then encourage your coworkers to track their progress throughout the virtual conference call. The first player to complete a row gets a prize.
Zoom Bingo is a version of Online Team Building Bingo and ice breaker Bingo.
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3. Superhero Academy (Hosted Game)
Superhero Academy is a fully hosted virtual game played over Zoom. The event is 90 minutes, and led by an expert host that guides you through a series of mini competitions and challenges. The game also has a “social deduction” element, as players must discover the team of villains that is sabotaging the group.
Superhero Academy is fun, engaging, and built specifically for team building. Remote teams rave about the experience.
Learn more about Superhero Academy.
4. Virtual Mystery Singer
If you are familiar with The Masked Singer, then you may already be familiar with this game format. For this game, have multiple participants enter the Zoom call with their video turned off and with an alias as their name. Then, let each competitor cover one minute of a song. At the end of each round, have audience members vote for a favorite singer using Zoom’s polling feature. Once voters narrow down the singer to an absolute favorite, ask the audience to guess who the last surviving singer is.
5. Zoom Games in the App Marketplace
Zoom’s App Marketplace is relatively new, and so you may not be familiar with the options. These games are built specifically for the Zoom platform, and integrate features like audio, video and clicking to facilitate the rounds. Some of the games are familiar, like Heads Up! and Werewolf, while others may be new to you, like Just Say the Word! or Dive.
Check out our post with the best Zoom apps and the full catalog of Zoom Marketplace Games.
6. Spot the Difference
Like many kids, I grew up reading the funny papers, and got pretty good at solving spot the difference puzzles. These riddles would show the audience two nearly identical illustrations and challenge viewers to find the variations. You can adapt the game for Zoom meetings with the breakout room feature.
To play:
- The group will split into teams of two to five people.
- All teams will have one minute to study the screen before entering breakout rooms.
- Within breakout rooms, the teams will decide one background object to change.
- Teams will rejoin the main room.
- Players will hunt for differences, and make guesses by typing in the chat box.
- The first player to spot the difference wins a point for the team.
You can play as many rounds as you like. At the end of the game, the team with the most points wins.
Pro tip: Setting ground rules is helpful. For example, the moved object must be at least three inches large. You could also narrow the choices by asking your coworkers who did not make a change to black-out webcams one by one.
Fun games to play on Zoom with coworkers
7. Blackout Truth or Dare
Blackout truth or dare is a fun Zoom game that will help your group become better acquainted. The rules are simple:
- One player acts as the dare-master.
- The dare-master calls out dares or truths.
- Players who do not wish to share must stop their webcam feeds.
- The dare-master will call on one brave player to respond.
Use this Truth or Dare generator for your prompts:
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The game continues for a certain number of rounds, or until only one player remains. Prompts can be personal or silly, and should be safe for work. For example: “change your display name to a childhood nickname,” or “sing Firework by Katy Perry.”
Blackout Truth or Dare is a great Zoom game for large groups. Here are more virtual games for large groups.
8. Who Wins the Bracket?
If your team is a fan of tournament brackets, then this game is the one for you. Who Wins the Bracket? seeks to find the ultimate winner of a particular category by pitting representatives of that category against each other until only one winner is left.
Some examples of Who Wins the Bracket? topics are:
- Best snack food
- Best Marvel superhero
- Best Disney prince
- Best cuisine
- Best 90’s song
- Best movie dad
To determine who is the best of each of these categories, set up a tournament bracket. As you proceed further down the brackets, your game will come closer and closer to the final winner.
Here are more workplace competitions you can adapt to play on Zoom.
9. Online Office Games (Hosted Game)
Online Office Games is a series of competitive games and challenges played over Zoom. For example, game types include “Can you hear me now?”, virtual trivia, and rapid Bingo.
The event is 90 minutes and fully facilitated by world class hosts. The entire event is optimized for fun, engagement, and team building with coworkers. We have run Online Office Games for teams at Google, Amazon and hundreds of other organizations.
Learn more about Online Office Games.
10. Virtual Werewolf
Virtual Werewolf is the online version of the popular game of deception. To play this game, privately message everyone their role. These roles should include a werewolf, a medic, a hunter, a seer, and villagers. Once everyone knows who they are, gather your coworkers in a Zoom room.
Declare night has fallen, and have everyone close their eyes. During each round, let the werewolf eat someone, the medic attempt to save someone, and the seer guess who the werewolf is. To keep the mystery alive, have the werewolf, the medic, and the seer submit their responses through private message. Then, declare that the sun is rising, and reveal if the werewolf succeeded. Let everyone discuss who they suspect is the werewolf, and vote players out each round. If the werewolf survives until the end, they win.
Here is a step by step guide to play Werewolf online.
11. Virtual Trial by Trolley
To play Trial by Trolley, separate your team into two groups with each group assigned to one side of the tracks. After drawing cards, each group places cards with characters onto the track. Once all players have put down their cards, each group debates with the conductor over which side should be run over by the trolley. The group that loses the debate sees all their characters killed, and the game resets for the next round.
This site has a Zoom friendly version of Trial by Trolley.
12. Guess The Movie
For the movie buffs at your office, Guess That Movie is one of the best Zoom games. Prior to the game starting, curate a YouTube playlist with movie scenes. Then, when playing Guess That Movie, mute all participants and play the movie scene without revealing which film the clip is from. Then, ask the players to submit the name of the movie in Zoom’s chat box. The first person who guesses the film correctly wins the round. Try searching “best movie scenes of all time” or “top movie clips” on YouTube to put together your list.
13. Zoom Game Shows
Zoom game shows are a fun game format for Zoom calls. To play these games, you can use online apps, or emulate the experience using slideshows and spreadsheets. The most popular game shows for remote teams are Jeopardy and Family Feud, since they are a good balance of knowing and guessing.
Check our our list of online game show ideas, this guide to playing Jeopardy online, and this guide to coworker feud.
14. Zoom Trivia
Zoom Trivia tests your team’s knowledge on a variety of random topics. To play this game, compile a list of trivia questions and answers. Then, split your coworkers into groups, and assign a Zoom breakout room to each one. Each time you pose a question, send groups to their respective breakout room. Whichever team returns with the correct answer first earns a point.
Here are some trivia questions you start with.
And here is an entire guide to doing trivia online.
Free online games to play on Zoom
15. Five Things
Five Things is an improv game you can play over Zoom to encourage team building. Here is how to play:
- Name a topic and a person. That person has 15 seconds to name five specific items within the topic.
- That player then chooses another topic and player to continue.
For example, you could choose a topic like “aliens” and name your coworker, Peter, to answer. Peter would have 15 seconds to name five aliens, which could be “ALF, Marvin the Martian, Spock, Yoda and Ford Prefect.”
Here is a list with more Zoom improv games.
16. Something in Common
Something in Common is one of the best icebreaker games you can play on Zoom. The purpose of the game is to help improve employee engagement by connecting people with similarities.
- For round one, challenge your team members to find the most unique thing they have in common.
- For round two, challenge your team members to find the most unique thing, while excluding physical traits and places.
- For round three, challenge your team members to find the most unique thing in a specific category, like high school.
Pro tip: One of the most powerful Zoom features to support games is breakout rooms. For this game, organize your people into breakout rooms with four or five people each to encourage participation.
Here are more icebreaker games to play with remote teams and a list of the best Zoom icebreaker questions.
17. Zoom Robot Training
To play Robot Training, ask one of your colleagues to share their screen. Then, using step-by-step directions, proceed to dictate the steps necessary to complete an action on that screen. For example, ask the player to pull up Microsoft Paint and provide instructions on how to draw a cat. The point of Robot Training is to develop your coworkers’ communication and cooperation skills, which is helpful for team building.
Here is a list of communication games to play at work.
18. Virtual Guess Who?
Guess Who? is a Zoom game that challenges players to identify an opponent’s chosen person. For example, a player might ask, “does your person wear glasses?” If the opponent says yes, then the player would eliminate the cards of any non-glasses wearers, and vice versa.
To play Guess Who? on Zoom:
- Choose a random coworker.
- Allow all other players to take turns guessing traits.
- When eliminated, the attendee will stop their webcam, and can continue to play.
- The game ends when only one person remains, and the turn-taker confirms the identity of the person.
Since you and your coworkers know each other, you do not need to limit guesses to physical traits such as clothes or hair colors. For example, a player may guess, “has your person been with the company for more than ten years?” or “did your person travel abroad this year?” Players should try to confirm the identity in as few questions as possible.
Here are more question games to play with teams.
19. Zoom Pictionary
Pictionary is a classic board game that is easy to adapt for remote teams. To play Pictionary online, you share screens and select the whiteboard app in Zoom. The drawing teammate will receive a prompt: you can use an online Pictionary generator to choose a word. The playing team has one minute to guess the drawing. If the team does not guess before the minute expires, then other teams have a chance to steal.
Check out these virtual Pictionary games.
20. Zoom Charades
Charades is one of the best games to play over Zoom. To start playing Zoom Charades, split players into two teams. Then, use a random charades generator to find a word to act out in front of the camera. Since an important aspect of charades is that players cannot use spoken words to express the prompt, mute participants when it is the player’s turn to act. Whichever team can guess the most prompts correctly wins the game.
Here is a tool to generate random charades ideas.
Zoom games for large groups
21. Da Vinci Protégé
Da Vinci Potégé is a classic game inspired by speed drawing activities. The goal is to show how accurately you can capture elements of a person’s face in sixty seconds. First, split group members into pairs in breakout rooms and tell players to draw one another’s faces. Players must draw on plain sheets and show it to the camera when the timer dangs. The player in every pair with the better depiction of the opponent’s face moves on to the next round.
The moderator merges winners until a final champion emerges.
Check out online art classes to improve your drawing skills.
22. Zoom Scattergories
Scattergories is a popular word game based on letters of the alphabet. This game fosters deep thinking and quick reasoning and encourages employees to be innovative on the fly.
Here is a Scattergories generator to see how it works:
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Each round begins by choosing a random letter of the alphabet. Then, players have two to three minutes to fill in one answer per category starting with this letter. Common categories include cars, cities, countries, girl names, flowers, animals, and food items.
To play Scattergories over Zoom, players could either write answers on a notepad or copy the text into a chat. You can also use an online Scattergories platform such as Swellgarfo.
A timer adds more excitement to the game. Swellgarfo comes with a built-in clock, categories template, and random alphabet generator. One player should share their screen with the app loaded.
Learn more about Swellgarfo and check out these Scattergories lists for teams.
23. Zoom Taboo
Taboo is one of the most popular free Zoom games for large groups. The game involves describing random words while avoiding synonyms.
On Zoom, a free Taboo words generator can facilitate the game. First, divide the group into equal teams. Turntakers will receive a word to describe and similar words to avoid in that description. Each team member hints about the main word while avoiding taboo words or abbreviations. The moderator can log onto a taboo generator platform and send a screenshot of the card to the active player.
Get free taboo cards at Lingolex.
24. Bet on the Crowd
Zoom’s polling feature allows you to ask for attendee opinions and instantly display the results. Bet on the Crowd turns Zoom polls into a fun wagering game. First, participants will vote on a question or series of questions. You can either stick to a two answer format, or allow for up to four answers.
Here are some sample questions:
- Would you prefer to vacation in your own country or travel abroad?
- Cat or dogs?
- Summer or winter?
- Would you rather give up your phone or your car for a month?
- Work at night or in the morning?
- Emails or phone calls?
Before you reveal the responses, ask your teammates to guess which answer will win. Any player who correctly predicts the majority wins the round. You can play multiple games and keep score, awarding a prize to the highest-ranking teammates.
Here is a list of this or that questions you can use as prompts.
25. Zoom Infinity Sketch
Infinity Sketch is an engaging game where players sketch full figures without lifting their drawing tools.
The moderator divides the group into smaller groups of three to four players. These groups are not teams but blocks of players the moderator can monitor closely. Each sub-group can draw on one member’s screen using the annotating feature.
The moderator yells out a random word, such as “cat” or “airplane,” and the players scramble to draw the images in thirty to sixty seconds. Players must not lift their drawing tools from the virtual board. The other players watch closely for defaulters. Whoever draws the most meaningful depictions without flouting the main rule wins the round and goes to the next match.
Free Zoom games for small groups
26. Zoom Codenames
While Codenames is usually an in-person card game, it’s also one of the best online games to play on Zoom. When playing Codenames via Zoom, have one player, who is not a spymaster, share their screen. Then, split participants into either the red or blue team, and designate one person as the spymaster of each team. As players attempt to guess which cards their spymaster hints at, send teams off into breakout rooms, so they can discuss their strategy. Whichever team successfully guesses all cards with their color first, while avoiding the forbidden card, wins the game.
Here is a link to play Codenames online.
27. Virtual Rock, Paper, Scissors
Even if your teammates did not grow up playing rock, paper, scissors, the rules are easy enough to explain: scissor cuts paper, paper covers rock, rock crushes scissors. You can give the game a modern update for Zoom by using the reactions feature to answer in place of hand gestures. The key is as follows:
? = Paper
? = Rock
Teammates cross arms = Scissors
To play, prompt participants with the classic rallying cry, “rock, paper, scissors, shoot!” Teammates will have three seconds to answer. When all players respond, count up the reactions and the majority wins.
28. Zoom Murder Mystery
Most adults love a good murder mystery, and your coworkers can solve an engaging mystery right on Zoom. Players can work in teams and use breakout rooms to swap clues and unravel the case together. A facilitator can guide the game and entertain attendees while moving the story forward.
Learn more about murder mystery games online.
29. Desert Island Intelligences
You may have heard of Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences, which states that people can have different strengths and abilities called intelligences.
Gardner’s eight intelligences are:
- Visual-spatial
- Linguistic-verbal
- Interpersonal
- Intrapersonal
- Logical-mathematical
- Musical
- Body-kinesthetic
- Naturalistic
Desert Island Intelligences borrows this theory by pitting eight individuals, each representing a different intelligence, against each other on a desert island. Since the island has limited resources, players vote one intelligence off the island at a time in order of usefulness. Since the definition of usefulness is broad, this game leads to fierce debate among team members. You can facilitate this game with the polling feature on Zoom calls.
Here is a list with more problem solving games.
30. The Counting Game
In this game, your coworkers must count to ten. If any players say a number simultaneously, then you start over at one. Reading body language and making eye contact is more challenging during video meetings, and it is important for adults to learn this skill. Savvy virtual employees can even devise strategies to play the game more effectively.
31. Virtual Musical Chairs
For Virtual Musical Chairs, instead of stealing chairs before the music ends, the last participant left dancing when the music ends loses the round, and wins at life.
To play musical chairs on Zoom, create a Spotify playlist with dance tunes. Once everyone is in the Zoom room, start playing songs, pausing at random and phasing out the last player who is still dancing. As each participant is eliminated, ask them to turn off cameras to help keep track of who is still playing. Keep broadcasting great dance tunes until only the winner is left.
32. Read my Lips
Many of us have been in a Zoom meeting when a presenter’s audio cut out or the speaker forgot to take the microphone off mute. Read my lips turns this awkward or frustrating situation into a fun game.
To play, one participant will mute the mic, and then speak a word or phrase. The other players must try to guess the word or phrase correctly. Players have one minute to figure out the message. The turn-taker can also give clues by using the chat box, if necessary.
33. Story Races
Crafting a story one line at a time is a common team building activity, and a fun group activity on Zoom. By using the chat feature on Zoom, you can turn the exercise into a race.
Here is how:
- Elect one team member as the story master.
- The story master will begin to tell a tale.
- At random, the story master will stop to let other attendees add details.
- The first answer in the chat box becomes part of the story.
The story master can either speak the story or type out the tale in the chat box. The story master also has the power to veto the “first answer” in favor of a more creative option.
Pro tip: Record the meeting or copy and paste the story into a new document.
Final Thoughts
Playing virtual games on Zoom with coworkers is a fun way to make meetings more engaging. Especially with adults, these games will help bring joy to the workplace, and support meaningful team building.
You can either plan a dedicated 60 minutes or so to play your games, or include a few quick virtual team games at the beginning of your Zoom call as an icebreaker activity.
Next, check our lists of Zoom drinking games, Zoom meeting ideas, virtual party games, online games for groups, and this one with dozens of virtual team building activities.
We also have a list of quick team building activities for conference calls, list of online board games, list of virtual team challenges, and Christmas Zoom games.
Conference Call Bingo sounds so engaging!!
I think a fun game would be each employee writes down one fact about themselves. The list of facts is then distributed to everyone and each person writes who they think the fact belongs to. Each correct match is awarded a point and the person with the most points wins. Fun way to get to know something about your co-workers and something that is sure to stick in your mind.
Zoom Pictionary sounds awesome! But another fund game would be Zoom Mask making. Take different things from your house or maybe curate a kit to send to everyone and create paper masks. While making your mask think of a short character description or back story to tell everyone about this character.
How about Lighting Scavenger Hunt! Create a fun list of things that can make people laugh and gather while on a zoom call. Imagine asking for their favorite baby picture, the most unusual home decor in your house, one thing that you have not taken out of your pockets for years ( think: old gun wrapper).
Also, another interesting game would be “spreadsheet wars”, not just another game, but a way to increase google sheets skills of your team while having fun!
It would be fun to list a bunch of qualities about a person and play a game of Guess Who! People can guess who the person is by asking questions. Does he/she wear glasses etc. You could even add talents and skills to get the know the people better. Wow, now I want to play!
Stop Game
All participants have to select a letter to start and write the words of the six or more different categories (example, occupation, fruit, food, things, nationalities and clothing) that starts with that letter. The player that gets most correct words wins!
Rules: Workers write the words in the correct categories and when one of them completes the categories, he/she shouts STOP. If more than one person has a word, it is worth 5 points. If no one else has the word, it is worth 10. You can add as much categories as you want
A fun Zoom game to play for conference call would be Name that tune (or sound). Each employee would have a chance to play a very short part in a song or a sound of any kind (phone ringing, ball bouncing) and the first employee to hit the raise their hand button that answers ans gets it right gets a point. Another fun game would be a group story telling. In this game, all the employees would be muted and then one employee gives the first sentence in a random, made-up story and then unmuted another employee who then has to give the next sentence and so on until the story is completed with everyone’s inputted sentence.
Alphabet Name and Famous Place Game. Go through the alphabet and name an animal and Famous place starting with that letter.
Life outside workdays would be great. Either get a team members to speak of their outside activities ie music, art, the neighborhood farmers market, the characters around them or whatever other subject within their lives they may choose to include.
Improv-a-long-
Like sing a long but improv. You can tell a story or sing a song. If you can’t make the story or song make sense with what you make up, you’re out! The last one standing wins!
A virtual game with animals and its habitats would be awesome. It teaches the gamer all different types of animals their sounds and their living environment. For each animal paired up with its own sound and habitat the gamer gets the a point. The most points wins. All ages welcome.
A fun virtual game would be to have team members play virtual charades! This could be done with or without noise. It would be funny to have the team leader or supervisor assign the person whose turn it was a character/animal/thing and have everyone guess what they were acting out. Team members could have groups to help themselves decided what the person portraying a charade was. These groups could be virtual, with collaboration over text or instant message, or in person! The group with the most correct guesses at the end could win a fun prize. This would be a fun game because everyone would have to work with their teams to figure out what charade was being portrayed. It would be a fun activity for everyone to experience together .
I-Spy would be a fun icebreaker to play virtually! This would be a good way to learn about any shared interests. For example, in my house you might be able to spy a record displayed on my wall or a variety of popular nintendo games which could lead to positive interactions about common interests!
A fun zoom/ conference call game could be a trivia game based around the details about the company itself, you could include questions regarding the history of the company or about individuals who currently work there. This could also be a fun way for people to learn more about their co-workers.
Lightning scavenger hunt sounds really awesome. Can’t wait to try that with my team!
One of my favorite Zoom meeting games is the Slogan game. Basically the group is split up into 4 teams. Each team is given a business. Examples being Bakery, Movie Store, clothing shop and toy store. The teams then have 20-30 minutes to create a Slogan for there business. The best slogan is determined by Catchiness, Relativity and creativeness. Each one being graded one through four. With four being the best and one being the worst. This is a fun activity that requires teamwork and quick thinking.
I believe an interesting game would be to play a classical “Who Done It,” where people could break into teams and work together to be the first to solve a mystery, using only their wits and various clues given throughout.
These are awesome ideas! Here’s also a fun idea. Each team member submits a funny or serious would you rather question the day before the meeting to the leader and the leader creates a Kahoot game for your team. Everyone signs on with code names and plays from a smart phone. This leaves everyone the chance to guess who the code name was that voted for each answer. This is a great virtual ice breaker!
I believe an engaging Zoom game would be called “What’s Snacking!” a ice-breaking activity that will help remote workforces come together with something we all have in common, food.
Working from home, many of us, like many who have desk jobs, keep some sort of snack, food, or drink nearby. This would be a fun chance for us to engage with each other, sharing what we have with each other. You could even take this further as a led activity with the leader, or first person to do so, asks a question about everyone’s snack without knowing what it is. For example:
Participant 1: “Alright everyone! I know this may be a longer conference call, we have a lot to go over, but first, who has a sugar-free snack?”
Participant 2 – 3 – 7 Raise hand, but 3 is first.
Participant 3: “I have some salted almonds! Okay…who has…something…with caffeine in it?”
Participant 9 was very obviously first : “Can’t do these things without a Reign! Who has stolen their kids fruit snacks?”
Participant 5 raises hand while laughing, everyone else joining in.
This would be an amazing activity I think would be easy to get people on board with.
Best Memory Jogger using past events
Where groups of 4 plus people get to explore best memory joggers. The focus, is to build upon actual past memories, using time and events to create memory jogger collages. Overall objective is to create a better (colorful) collage board than the previous one. Step 1: Set a time, secondly, exercise your memory bank to come up with best memory, and thirdly, research images on the fly that fits exact or close to what you’ve in mind. At last, upload images to form a collage. In the end every person has a printout of their collective handy work.
Zoom Bingo is the way to go. I mean how fun would it be tell yell out BINGO!! On a zoom conference call. It also seems as this everyone will be engaged to what’s going on. I could see myself and team having fun with this activity. BINGO!!!!!
I think it would be fun to have list of items that are goofy i.e (ice, rubber band, a pencil with eraser chewed off) and have the participants try and sell the item. This would break the ice with the goofiness, as well as promote the individuals creativity.
I feel the best way to ensure that a team functions is if they effectively communicate and can effectively problem solve together. So with that I believe that the best way to utilize zoom is to have a game surrounding those ideas. I feel like a twist on the idea of being stranded on an island but as a team and figuring out how they would survive or escape using the island and objects they have. The trick is to use the objects and nature in creative ways to solve their problems that the story master makes up.
This would be a twist on I Spy. I call it Tell Us Why? The focus it to have people share why their is something in their background. People pick where they sit for a zoom meeting for a reason. Many times the items behind them tell a story and many times there is a why behind each item. Even a strange picture in a hotel room can be a conversation piece.
People take turns asking about an item in another person’s background. That person then asks about an item in the background of another person. Until everyone has said something about their background or about why they where they are. For those who have nothing you can ask them show their desk or to share what they would put in their background if they could change it. What they like about the city they are visiting or hotel they are staying at.
The objective is to have fun learning about each other and growing closer while giving the extraverts and introverts a safe place to talk about themselves.
Zoom Pictionary is a great game for zoom calls because it actively keeps everyone involved and excited in the game. It also gives everyone the opportunity to show off their drawing skills!
I think another fun team building game to play via virtual conference calls would be the Baby Picture Guessing Game. For this game you need one facilitator to collect one baby picture from everyone involved in the conference call (preferably a picture of them between the ages of 1-4 years-old). The facilitator would then put up one picture at a time, create a poll with everyones name on it, and give the team 20 seconds to each choose a name on the poll for who they think the baby is. The facilitator can then give 1 point to whoever guessed correctly. For everyone who guessed correctly, the facilitator can then offer a bonus question of how old the person in picture is for an extra point. The person with the most points at the end of the game would win a fun prize! This game is interactive, funny, and exciting, making it an incredible team building game that can easily be played in a virtual conference call.
A great zoom team building activity would be for each person to list 3 things about themselves, 2 wrong things and 1 correct thing and there will be a poll for everyone to guess the truth.
It would be a great way to start of a Zoom meeting so everyone can get to know something new about there co worker with every interaction.
I think a really great Zoom game would be Zoom pick me Up. Basically one employee starts off saying their name while next says their name plus the previous individual speakings name. Then so on and so forth. The last individual would have the hardest job of course to repeat all names plus theirs. However this game would help break the ice. It would help also more importantly help with team-building and communication skills.
I think it would be fun to try something like just dance.
I think that the 4. Something in Common could be made more fun by getting the employees to contribute 3 facts about them that all get scrambled into and spreadsheet, and a random number generator can pull different things of the lists. And the two winners are: 1. person that has the most in common with everyone else and 2. person that is the most unique individual and has characteristics different from everyone else.
Zoom “I Spy”
With everyone’s windows open one member of the team will go first and play a game of “I Spy” using only what can be seen through the Zoom call.
“Guess What It Is”. Take an object around the office/home and have participants ask simple “yes/no” questions to identify the object. The first person to get the correct answer is the winner.
A fun game that I like to play at work functions that could easily be adapted to Zoom conferences is the “Paper Plate Game”.
All participants are instructed to retrieve a writing utensil and a paper plate (a small book or clipboard with a piece of paper will work also). The participants place the plate or piece of paper on top of their heads. One participant reads off directions that can be found online or made up by a leading member of the group. For example:
Draw grass on the ground.
Draw the sun with rays in the sky.
Draw two flowers in the grass that are not touching.
Participants must draw these directions on their plate or piece of paper while it remains on top of their heads. At the end of the instruction all participants show their masterpieces and have a good laugh about how hilariously imperfect they all are. Points can be awarded for a small incentive purposes or just for the art of . For example:
Score 1 point if the sun is in the sky.
Score 1 point if none of the sun’s rays overlap.
Score 1 point if your flowers do not touch.
This game always receives tons of smiles and laughs amongst colleagues. Highly recommend!
This is a version of a game I play with my youngest daughter. We play a game where we each put a headband on and we choose a card that we can’t see, but have to place it on the headband. For example an elephant. And then that person asks other people in the meeting questions to try to figure out what they are. So they can ask “can you eat me”, “ am I alive”, “am I always the same color”, “do I have feet”, etc. my questions were sort of gearing towards an elephant, but what if I was a hat? None of those questions would have been a yes. You can keep the questions to a specific amount before being forced to make your guess. Or you could score how many questions each person asked and the person who guessed with the least amount of questions wins. For specific industries, I would possibly try to make the items industry specific or semi industry specific.
I also like games of memory. So each person could hold up an item or multiple items and each person tries to go through the list of every other person and try to name what they held up. Whoever gets the most correct wins.
Our group has had a lot of fun playing Two Truths and a Lie, Two Truths and a Dream, and other variations. We assign a scorekeeper who may also be a player. Each player comes up with their own Two Truths and a Lie. Gameplay begins with the first person reading their responses aloud. The remaining players have cards reading 1, 2, and 3 they hold up indicating which answer is the Lie, Dream, etc. It continues until each player has revealed their own Two Truths and a Lie. At the end, the winner(s) get small prizes (think White Elephant), and we’ve all had some laughs and learned more about our teammates!
I always play a super fun game with my friends through multiple different video call services. It’s similar to the Newly Wed game, but with things we know about each other. We divide into groups of two and go through and ask each other questions, then try to match answers with each other. If you match, you get a point. If you don’t you try again next round. Whoever has the most points by the end wins!
Brain game! Divide members into groups and one judge. The judge will have a list of tricky questions/puzzles. Members of each group must work together to solve the questions/puzzles, whichever group solves the most wins. An example question like, “What word would you use to describe a man who does not have all his fingers on one hand?”
Top Five is an amazing game to bring in on a virtual call. I love the fact that you can use any subject whether that be music, sports, business, anything. I think it would make a great team building game.
“Fun-Fact Friday” – Before a Friday Zoom meeting everyone emails in one unique, strange, or unexpected “fun fact” about themselves to the game coordinator. During the meeting, the coordinator reads the facts and the team must guess who each fun fact belongs to. Guessing can be individual every “man for himself” style, or broken up in to small teams. After everyone or every team guesses, ask the employee to identify themselves and give any further context needed. Keep score: the individual or team with the highest score wins. It could be just for fun and bragging rights or for prizes, think white elephant style or gift cards, either way your team will have lots to talk about with each other afterwards!
Something in common finds a mutual connection amongst colleagues that can be the gateway to future conversations. Leading to better communication and engagement without hesitation.
Tuesdays are notoriously the longest day of the week, right? Enter: Twin Tuesday. On Monday, the self-dubbed “fun one” of the office will assign everyone a partner. Then, as Tuesday’s morning meeting is kicked off on Zoom, everyone will show up twinning with their new found buddy. Points given for those who have the matchiest outfits, those who can finish each others… sandwiches (JK sentences), and each pair gives two fun facts of things they have in common. Prizes or not, you decided, either way everyone will be sure to laugh, smile and start their Tuesday off right.
Something In Common sounds like an awesome Team Building game! Everyone gets to say a few fun facts about themselves, while learning about their fellow team members at the same time. It breaks the ice, and lets team members feel more relaxed among one another. This activity lets everyone know each other a bit more, while sharing a few laughs at the same time!
There’s a chance it could get out of control, but I think Interrupting Cow could work really well. After you explain the rules, as the leader you would start by sharing random facts about yourself, things you like to do, what makes you unique, etc. and if anyone has the same opinion or does the same things they interrupt you by saying “HEY! I like/have done/etc. _________ too!” They would then start sharing about themselves until someone else had a shared experience. It’s best if you start with more obscure things about yourself and if no one is connecting start to share more common things. It works best with groups under 30, but it’s a great way to connect over things and learn more about each other.
“Emoji Roulette”
Participants take screenshots of their most used emojis.
Create a list of players and give this this to each player.
Each person has up to five minutes to guess the five most used emojis by each person on the list.
Reveal the answers and award points for accuracy, getting the emojis in the correct order and similar.
You can use this to give out rewards and/or segway into a conversation about the importance of perception in sales or other topics of discussion.
These are some really great ideas. My quick and fun favorite is still BINGO! You can do so much with it and it is less time consuming to create and bring to an end with smiles.
I think 20 questions would be a good game to adapt to a zoom meeting. One person is privately given the answer by the host via private message in the chat and then each person starts to ask yes or no questions. Is it an animal? yes or no, then the next person asks, does it come in different colors?, yes or no, then the next person asks, is it bigger than a bread basket? Yes or no…..all the while people can be guessing in the chat and the first person that guesses wins! If they make it through 20 questions without guessing the item, then the person answering the questions wins. You could do hang man as well in guessing letters.
What a fantastic idea! I am going to use this in international student chats I am organizing! A great way to gauge perceptions of others, correct stigmas, share information about each other with context! Love it! Thank you for taking the time to share!
~Naomi S.
I usually don’t make comments on posts but this collection of activities is amazing…the girls wanted to do 3 activities back to back. They had so much fun and were more engaged than they’ve been in a while.
Hi Ivy! So happy to hear it, thanks for sharing ?