Serving up more than a happy hour

There’s only so long that you can keep a group of people on Microsoft Teams entertained and engaged before the small talk gets boring and, dare we say it, downright awkward. But luckily, there are a ton of virtual games people can play with their colleagues that are guaranteed to bring back that Friday feeling.

Here’s a list of activities that will keep people engaged and build that team spirit, from new ideas that require just a bit of imagination to fully digitalized versions of classic board games.

Virtual scavenger hunt: A scavenger hunt is a really good way to break the ice during a group call, and it gets people moving at the same time. The premise is simple — one person prepares a list of items that might reasonably be found at a person’s home and then calls each out in turn. Everybody else on the call must scramble to find each item and be the first to return to their seat with the item to score the point.

Don’t be afraid to get a bit creative and send people a little farther than just their kitchen or their living room by asking for, say, a snow shovel.

The Big Bad Imitation Game: This game can get pretty chaotic, so if you’re not a fan of noise, confusion and bouts of uncontrollable laughter, then move on to something else.

Each player is assigned a different player’s name and then tries their best to imitate that person. Of course, everybody is doing this all at once, which can make things very confusing — but also pretty fun.

There are a number of variants of this game — for example, you could win by guessing the most correct impostors, or you could simply score a point by identifying the person pretending to be you. Of course, it helps if everybody on the call knows each other at least enough to do a pretty bad imitation of them.

Defy Death with a Spoon: This is the name some people give to their own adaptations of the popular card game Bucket of Doom, which is a hilarious imagination game where people attempt to survive various ridiculous situations using relatively useless tools.

For example, the group might draw a card that says, “You’ve just disturbed a nest of killer wasps and now they’re angry.” Each person must then select an item from one of their own personal “object” cards and explain how they will use this item to escape the situation. For instance, if a player uses a card that says “spoon,” they might explain that they intend to dig themselves a hole in the ground and cover themselves with dirt to evade the swarm of wasps.

To play this game online, simply prepare some wacky situations in advance and then use a random word generator to determine the object cards that players will have at their disposal. To decide a winner for each scenario, put it to a vote — usually it’s either the funniest reply or the most outlandish escape attempt that ends up winning.

Survival of the Wittiest: Psychologist Howard Gardner was well known for proposing a theory of eight intelligences. He suggested that beyond “general” intelligence — meaning the stuff we test for in IQ examinations — people can develop specific types of intelligence throughout their life: music, interpersonal, intrapersonal, linguistic, mathematical, spatial, kinesthetic and natural.

For this game, players pick an intelligence and represent that intelligence as if they were stranded on a desert island. Players then discuss the scenario, along with a bunch of events that happen while on the island — either spontaneous or pre-planned — and then have a series of voting rounds where one person gets “kicked off” the island. Each intelligence must make its case as to why it should remain and which skills it can provide.

The Awkward Storyteller: The Awkward Storyteller is one of the liveliest social games we’ve played, and it’s a real blast. While it’s normally a physical card game, it’s easy to adapt for a Zoom or Teams call.

Each player takes a turn at being the storyteller. They take a story prompt, either from the story card pile or a pool of story prompts prepared before the game. The storyteller then reads this prompt out loud, which is something along the lines of: “I have a terrible secret.” And that’s when the fun begins.

Turn by turn, each player cross-examines the storyteller, asking questions about the story, such as “What is your secret?” or “How long have you been hiding this for?” To make it more interesting, they throw random words at the storyteller along with their question, which the storyteller must use as part of their answer.

The storyteller must survive for as long as they can before failing to think of an answer, giving an answer that contradicts a previous answer or simply running out of time.

Drawasaurus: Remember the classic game of Pictionary? That’s the one where you pick a card and draw whatever word is on it, and everybody else has to try to interpret your terrible drawing and guess the word to score points.

There are plenty of places to play Pictionary-style games online, and it’s a ton of fun. One of our favourites has to be Drawasaurus. It’s free, it’s super easy to set up, and it seems to have unlimited room for players — so far, we’ve experimented with creating virtual rooms for three to 80 players, and it works like a charm.

Murder mystery: If you’re a fan of Sherlock Holmes, Miss Marple or Columbo, then no doubt you’ve often fancied trying your hand at solving the crimes yourself. Or you may have attended a murder mystery dinner evening with friends, where actors play a scene out around you while you enjoy delicious food and try to piece together the clues.

Whodunnit is a wonderful virtual murder mystery game for seven to 21 players that brings the thrill of detective work right to your living room. Just meet up with colleagues via Zoom, download the Whodunnit app for Android or iOS, and off you go.

Spaceteam: This is probably the loudest, most panicked and hilarious game you can possibly play on Zoom or Teams. All you need is the free Spaceteam app for Android or iOS and a way to communicate.

In a game of Spaceteam, you and your colleagues work together to… well, it’s not exactly clear at first. We think you’re meant to be flying a spaceship? But the trouble is that your vehicle seems to be falling apart.

Here’s the catch: You’ll find yourself receiving commands to fix things that may or may not be in your control — and may or may not make sense. That means you’ll find yourself amid a noisy flurry of phrases like “Increase chemical quartz to three” and “Fluff the pillow” in your desperate bid to complete your journey alive.

The key is to communicate as calmly and effectively as you can, but you’ll soon see that’s not exactly easy.

Mystery singer: The Masked Singer is a popular TV show that first aired in 2019. The premise is that a singer performs while wearing a costume to conceal their identity. Panelists must then attempt to work out who the masked singer is.

You can easily play your own version of this game via Zoom or Teams by simply asking everybody to select an anonymous alias and then join the call without their webcams on. The selected mystery singer will perform for the rest of the group, who will then vote on who they think it is, and each mystery singer can then reveal themselves.

This game takes quite some confidence, but if people can build up the courage, then it’s totally worth it.