Games to play with remote

The event is fun, challenging and perfect for groups that want to work both collaboratively and competitively. Learn more about Murder in Ancient Egypt. War of the Wizards is a collaborative storytelling game of wisdom and magic. The story goes that a group of wizards have been at war since ages past, and no-one even quite remembers why. For example, you may develop a strategy to leap over a wide chasm, or challenge an ogre to a battle of wits.

War of the Wizards is a little nerdy, and a whole lot of fun. The group games last for 90 minutes, and are facilitated over video conference by our talented host. Learn more about War of the Wizards. You can play the game multiplayer, with three to 10 players or more if you are feeling audacious. Click image to view the game board.

To play Spreadsheet Battleship, each player needs two things: a game board and the placement of ships. You can use graph paper labelled with letters and numbers for the game board, and either randomly assign battleship placement or let each player choose where to place the ships.

Here is a Google Sheets game board you can use. Spreadsheet Battleship game mechanics are a little like Go Fish. The next player then goes in sequence, which could be in order of age or geographic location. Scavenger Hunts can be a fun way for your people to work together.

Virtual scavenger hunts are more difficult to find that team spirit with. You might have game mechanics that have your team searching Google, Wikipedia, YouTube and other sites, without really working together. The solution for successful online scavenger hunts is to throw away the normal and adopt a lightning version instead.

For Lightning Scavenger Hunts, fire off a rapid series of clues that have your team members dashing to find objects, solve clues and win points. For example, you could have everyone grab their favorite mug and award points to the best mug story. The fast paced nature of Lightning Scavenger Hunts is what makes it work for team building online.

Here are more virtual scavenger hunt templates. Lexulous is one of several free team games online that is modelled after Scrabble. The main difference is that Lexulous has eight tiles in play at a time, and the value assigned to each letter is a little different.

You can easily include Lexulous in your options for online games to play with coworkers. You can keep track of points and total scores over a month, and award a Lexulous champion at the end.

Your refrigerator may be different. A fun game we could play together is Guess the Refrigerator. To play this game, everyone submits a photo of the inside of their refrigerator to one point of contact. That organizer then posts the photos to a channel where all participants can study the contents and make best guesses at which refrigerator belongs to who. The players submit answers to the organizer, who then tallies up the scores and announces a winner.

Sharing an inside view of your refrigerator takes a degree of vulnerability, which is a factor that contributes to the success of great online games for virtual teams. To play, name one person as the Describer and the other players as Artists. The Describer must explain to the Artists how to draw an item like a sunflower, kite or calculator using only geometric terms.

You can play each round for as long as you like, and three minutes is usually sufficient. At the end of each round, the Describer gets one point for each Artist that guesses the object correctly, and each Artist that guesses correctly also gets one point.

Tally up points and award cool prizes to the winner. Five Clicks Away is a logic game for online team building. To play, you select a starting topic and an ending topic, which you can decide on your own or randomly generate. For example, the starting point could be Blackbeard the Pirate and the endpoint could be grilled cheese sandwiches. Each player must start on the Wikipedia page for the starting point, and in no-more than five clicks reach the end point.

The idea is that Wikipedia has so many internal links that you should be able to follow a chain to reach the end point in less than five clicks. One of my favorite online team building games is a Typing Speed Race with friendly competition.

For the Typing Speed Race, you can use a free tool like typingtest. Then, each person posts their test results to Slack, email or another platform. The Typing Speed Race is a great way to encourage friendly competition with remote teams.

You can make the experience more collaborative by doing a Typing Speed Relay, which requires forming your people into teams and then adding the cumulative score from each person to create a team total. With the Typing Speed Race, everyone wins because typing quickly is an important skill for remote work. Chair Up! The game is played over email, messenger or conference call, and is specifically meant to counter the doom and gloom that sometimes guides conversations.

For example, you could do yoga sun-salutations, clap your hands, laugh or have a small dance party. When you work from home, taking care of your health and fitness is especially important.

You can do squats and eat well, and also make sure you drink enough water. Water Shots is a game meant to fortify your team around healthy hydration. Virtual team building games that focus on building healthy habits are a great way to support company culture and development with remote teams. Charades is one of those games that nearly everyone plays at school or home while growing up. With this proliferation of Charades, Virtual Charades has the advantages of being fairly familiar while also being fun.

To play Virtual Charades, prepare a set of links that go to Google Image pages or use a random image generator. Rinse and repeat until you are all out of fun. Each team member should find a coffee shop and connect with the team online. Everyone will discuss their daily tasks over a nice cup of coffee. But do not forget as a manager to make conversations light and playful. Rules or concept: The rules of this remote virtual team building game are quite simple: ask your distributed coworkers to take a picture of something important from their private life.

It can be their family portrait or a photo from the last vacation, a shot of daily activity or a new pair of shoes they have recently bought. This pic should reflect one of their interests and passions. Ask everyone involved to post the picture during an online conference. This is actually a great way to get people to share their important stuff without making them feel nervous.

Rules or concept: The classic word game is known and beloved all over the world. You can organize team matches, grouping your colleagues together, and making them collaborate. It may be as simple as playing a game at the end of the workday. Every participant of this virtual team building activity for remote teams gets tiles with letters that should be combined to create words. The team that gets the most points wins. Rules or concept: Another simple virtual team building game for remote workers is great for new teams.

It is about the way people can introduce themselves. Truth and a Lie is aimed to eliminate the awkwardness and add some fun into the process. Bring everyone to a video conference and ask every participant to tell three truths and one lie about themselves. Once each individual is done guessing, the truth will be revealed. The one who guessed the lie gains points. Rules or concept: This quick contest for remote teams is aimed at organizing teams.

All your team members should have is a flat lay of the desk. They should arrange all items on a flat surface and take a picture from directly above. The main idea of this online tem building game for remote workers is to get everyone organized, not to snap the perfect photo. Additionally, this simple contest is a good way to get individuals inspired. Rules or concept: You will need to run an online conference and give each team member minutes to think about a few important things they would love to do in their lifetime.

Then, everyone shares the list. If some people have overlapping activities, you can ask them to play together. For example, two participants want to attend 10 professional courses in Your aim is to challenge them to do it and support each other. Hold them accountable by asking about their progress. Rules or concept: One of the most simple and effective ways to start with online team building for remote teams is to get your remote employees together on a video call and invite an expert to lead the session.

You can find this expert to speak about topics like productivity, motivation, problem-solving, delegation and of course remote working. Such a virtual team building session may last about 60 minutes, and you can schedule it at mealtime, encouraging your team players to eat during it. After all, you can also cover the bill for your team members to order food, if you have the budget.

Rules or concept: If you work remotely, you definitely spend more time at home together with your beloved cat or dog. You can post pictures of our pets with funny faces and doing crazy things.

It will take minimal effort but it seems like a big payoff in the amount of team building it provides.

You may use Slack, Facebook Messenger, or other group apps for r emote tea ms. Rules or concept: People are cooking and eating at home more often and this tendency relates to remote work as well. It can be a good idea to invite your remote team to participate in a recipe roundup.

You can assemble all recipes in a Slack channel or run a challenge where participants prepare the other recipes and post photos. This kind of online group team building activity is mostly meant to be fun and symbolizes a strong element of communication.

Rules or concept: Icebreaker questions allow you to get to know your team members better. You may start a remote meeting by having each attendee share their name, position, and what they prefer to drink during a party. Icebreakers are simple prompts helping to build relationships with remote colleagues and to increase the personal connections between everyone in a team.

Integrating them into your meeting is a free way to do virtual team building for remote workers. Rules or concept: All we know about subtle delays with lag in audio and video during video conferences, however, you can try to arrange a karaoke session with your remote team members. In that spirit, online team building games for remote employees become a fun and easy way to blend the professional with the personal and keep spirits high, even from a distance.

A series of get-to-know-you questions is always a simple option to kick off your remote team building event. Get inspiration from this list of engaging virtual ice breakers , and choose from funny, thoughtful or short and quick questions. And don't forget, an ice breaker can also be a fun game. Simon Says, trivia and virtual bingo all work great.

A classic party game made virtual via video conferencing, team members go round-robin telling three intriguing facts about themselves, one of which is false. The other members do their best to tell the truth from fiction. This is a great one for leveling out tension while getting to know your teammates on a more social level.

Jazz up a traditional game by using an online random image generator such as RandomWordGenerator. Then cycle through the team on video chat, having each member act out an object for the rest of the team to guess. Try themed lists, such as office-related terminology or well-known businesses based on their logos, or go with more traditional fare, such as movies or pop culture figures. Each team member is tasked with summing up their life in an image taken on their phones. It could be a location, a landmark, a favorite object, a chosen hobby or a beloved pet.

Then the image is shared with the rest of the team with an explanation of the significance and story behind the image. This is a thoughtful way to present a more personal side to the team members who may not know much about one another, and a fun way to put your personal technology to work for a professional team-building purpose. Just like the ones we loved as kids! In a virtual scavenger hunt , team members are given a list of items to search for around their home or their workspace.

The items can be general in nature an office supply, something to drink out of or specific a wine glass, a shaker filled with salt. Add quirky details for a fun challenge something with an eye on it, an item in your favorite color. Hunters share their treasures in an online video chat, with their teammates making judgment calls on whether some of the more questionable items truly fit the bill! Join an Online Mixology Class Craft cocktails.

Palate-pleasing food pairings. Master mixologists. Skip the crowded bar scene and host your own virtual happy hour. A nice, low-key opportunity for remote workers to chat and interact with each other one-on-one, Donut randomly pairs up team members for a round of coffee talk from a predetermined list and distributes an email notification on a scheduled interval.

Actual donuts are optional, but highly recommended. Pastries can be substituted, of course. This is a great option for exercising imagination and divergent thinking. From the Renaissance to the Stone Age, from pirates to Shakespearean performers, anything and anyone goes.

Bonus points for anyone willing to act out their chosen time-travel period or character. Another creative challenge.