14 Interactive Presentation Games to Win Easy Engagement in 2025

Presenting

Lawrence Haywood 11 December, 2024 15 min read

So, how to make a presentation engaging? Audience attention is a slippery snake. It's difficult to grasp and even less easy to hold, yet you need it for a successful presentation.

No Death by PowerPoint, no to drawing monologues; it's time to bring out the interactive presentation games!

Bonus: Free slideshow game templates to use. Scroll down for more👇

Overview

How many games should I have in a presentation?1-2 games/45 minutes
At what ages should the kids start playing interactive presentation games?Anytime
Best size to play interactive presentation games?5-10 participants
Overview of interactive presentation games

These 14 games below are perfect for an interactive presentation. They'll score you mega-plus points with colleagues, students, or wherever else you need a kick of super-engaging interactivity... Hope you find these game ideas below helpful!

Table of Contents

Host Interactive Presentation Games for Free!

Interactive Presentation Games - interactive games for presentation
Slideshow games

Add interactive elements that make the crowd go wild.
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More Interactive Presentation Tips with AhaSlides

#1: Live Quiz Competition

A live quiz in a presentation on AhaSlides - presentation interactive games
Interactive presentation games

Is there any event that hasn't been immediately improved with some trivia?

A live quiz is an evergreen, ever-engaging way to consolidate your presentation's info and check the understanding of it all amongst your audience. Expect big laughs as your audience competes fiercely over who was listening to your presentation the most complex.

Here's how to play:

  1. Set up your questions on AhaSlides.
  2. Present your quiz to your players, who join by typing your unique code into their phones.
  3. Take your players through each question, and they race to get the correct answer the fastest.
  4. Check the final leaderboard to reveal the winner!

Learn how to set up your presentation quiz for free in just a few minutes! 👇

Fun ideas for presentation

#2: What Would You Do?

Brainstorming Rules - interactive games to play during a presentation
Brainstorming rules - Interactive presentation games

Put your audience in your shoes. Give them a scenario related to your presentation and see how they would deal with it.

Let's say you're a teacher giving a presentation on dinosaurs. After presenting your info, you would ask something like...

A stegosaurus is chasing you, ready to snap you up for dinner. How do you escape?

After each person submits their answer, you can take a vote to see which is the crowd's favourite response to the scenario.

This is one of the best presentation games for students as it gets young minds whirring creatively. But it also works great in a work setting and can have a similar freeing effect, which is especially significant as a large group icebreaker.

Here's how to play:

  1. Create a brainstorming slide and write your scenario at the top.
  2. Participants join your presentation on their phones and type their responses to your scenario.
  3. Afterwards, each participant votes for their favourite (or top 3 favourites) answers.
  4. The participant with the most votes is revealed as the winner!

#3: Key Number

No matter the topic of your presentation, there's sure to be a lot of numbers and figures flying around.

As an audience member, keeping track of them isn't always easy, but one of the interactive presentation games that makes it easier is Key Number.

Here, you offer a simple prompt of a number, and the audience responds with what they think it refers to. For example, if you write '$25', your audience might respond with 'our cost per acquisition', 'our daily budget for TikTok advertising' or 'the amount John spends on jelly tots every day'.

Here's how to play:

  1. Create a few multiple-choice slides (or open-ended slides to make it more complicated).
  2. Write your key number at the top of each slide.
  3. Write the answer options.
  4. Participants join your presentation on their phones.
  5. Participants select the answer they think the critical number relates to (or type in their answer if open-ended).
presenter using AhaSlides for interactive presentation games
Key number - Interactive presentation games

#4: Guess the Order

Guess the correct order, one of many presentation games to run on AhaSlides - interactive games to play during a presentation
Guess the order - Interactive presentation games

If keeping track of numbers and figures is challenging, it can be even tougher to follow entire processes or workflows explained in a presentation.

To cement this information in your audience's mind, Guess the Order is a fantastic minigame for presentations.

You write the steps of a process, jumble them up, and then see who can put them in the right order the fastest.

Here's how to play:

  1. Create a 'Correct Order' slide and write your statements.
  2. Statements are automatically jumbled up.
  3. Players join your presentation on their phones.
  4. Players race to put the statements in the correct order.

#5: 2 Truths, 1 Lie

Two truths one lie is one of the best presentation interactive games
Two truths one lie - Interactive activities to do in a presentation

You might have heard of this one as a great icebreaker, but it's also one of the top interactive games to play during a presentation for checking who's paying attention.

And it's pretty simple to do. Just think of two statements using the information in your presentation, and make another one up. Players have to guess which is the one you've made up.

This one is a great re-capping game and works for students and colleagues.

Here's how to play:

  1. Create a list of 2 truths and one lie covering different topics in your presentation.
  2. Read out two truths and one lie and get participants to guess the lie.
  3. Participants vote for the lie either by hand or through a multiple-choice slide in your presentation.

#6: 4 Corners

4 corners: one of the presentation games that helps get audience attention.
Interactive games for a presentation - 4 corners | Image credit: The Game Gal

The best presentations are ones that spark a bit of creative thinking and discussion. There's no better presentation game for evoking this than 4 Corners.

The concept is simple. Present a statement based on something from your presentation that's open to different points of view. Depending on each player's opinion, they move to a corner of the room labelled 'strongly agree', 'agree', 'disagree' or 'strongly disagree'.

Maybe something like this:

An individual is shaped more by nature than nurture.

Once everyone is in their corner, you could have a structured debate between the four sides to bring different opinions to the table.

Here's how to play:

  1. Set up the 'strongly agree', 'agree', 'disagree' and 'strongly disagree' corners of your room (if running a virtual presentation, then a simple show of hands could work).
  2. Write some statements which are open to different opinions.
  3. Read out the statement.
  4. Each player stands in the right corner of the room, depending on their view.
  5. Discuss the four different viewpoints.

Besides games, these interactive multimedia presentation examples can also lighten your next talks.

#7: Obscure Word Cloud

word cloud slide as part of presentation games on AhaSlides. - interactive games to play during a presentation
Word cloud - Interactive presentation games

Word cloud is always a beautiful addition to any interactive presentation. If you want our advice, include them whenever you can - presentation games or not.

If you do plan to use one for a game in your presentation, a great one to try is Obscure Word Cloud.

It works on the same concept as the popular UK game show Pointless. Your players are given a statement and have to name the most obscure answer they can. The least-mentioned correct answer is the winner!

Take this example statement:

Name one of our top 10 countries for customer satisfaction.

The most popular answers may be India, USA and Brazil, but the points go to the least mentioned correct country.

Here's how to play:

  1. Create a word cloud slide with your statement at the top.
  2. Players join your presentation on their phones.
  3. Players submit the most obscure answer they can think of.
  4. The most obscure one appears most diminutive on the board. Whoever submitted that answer is the winner!

Word Clouds for Every Presentation

Get these word cloud templates when you sign up for free with AhaSlides!

#8: Heart, Gun, Bomb

Heart, Gun, Bomb - interactive games to play during a presentation
Heart, Gun, Bomb - Interactive presentation games

This one's a great game to use in the classroom, but if you're not looking for students' games for presentation, it also works wonders in a casual work setting.

Heart, Gun, Bomb is a game in which teams take turns to answer questions presented in a grid. If they get an answer right, they either get a heart, a gun or a bomb...

  • A ❤️ grants the team an extra life.
  • A 🔫 takes away one life from any other team.
  • A 💣 takes away one heart from the team who got it.

All teams start with five hearts. The team with the most hearts at the end, or the only surviving team, is the winner!

Here's how to play:

  1. Before starting, create a grid table for yourself with either a heart, gun or bomb occupying each grid (on a 5x5 grid, this should be 12 hearts, nine guns and four bombs).
  2. Present another grid table to your players (5x5 for two teams, 6x6 for three groups, etc.)
  3. Write a figure stat (like 25%) from your presentation into each grid.
  4. Split players into the desired number of teams.
  5. Team 1 chooses a grid and says the meaning behind the number (for example, the number of customers last quarter).
  6. If they're wrong, they lose a heart. If they're right, they get either a seat, gun or bomb, depending on what the grid corresponds to on your grid table.
  7. Repeat this with all the teams until there's a winner!

👉 Get more interactive presentation ideas from AhaSlides.

#9: Match Up -Interactive Presentation Games

AhaSlides match the pair - interactive activity for presentation
Interactive presentation games - interactive activity for presentation

Here's another quiz-type question that can be a great addition to your roster of interactive activities for presentations.

It involves a set of prompt statements and a set of answers. Each group is jumbled; the players must match the information with the correct answer as quickly as possible.

Again, this one works well when the answers are numbers and figures.

Here's how to play:

  1. Create a 'Match Pairs' question.
  2. Fill out the set of prompts and answers, which will automatically shuffle.
  3. Players join your presentation on their phones.
  4. Players match each prompt with its answer as fast as possible to score the most points.

#10: Spin the Wheel

Spinner wheel - interactive games to play during a presentation
Interactive Presentation Games

If there's a more versatile presentation game tool than the humble spinner wheel, we aren't aware of it.

Adding the random factor of a spinner wheel might be just what you need to keep engagement in your presentation high. There are presentation games you can use with this, including...

  • Choosing a random participant to answer a question.
  • Choose a bonus prize after getting the correct answer.
  • Choosing the next person to ask a Q&A question or give a presentation.

Here's how to play:

  1. Create a spinner wheel slide and write the title at the top.
  2. Write the entries for the spinner wheel.
  3. Spin the wheel and see where it lands!

Tip 💡 You can choose the AhaSlides spinner wheel to use your participants' names, so you don't have to fill in the entries manually! Learn more interactive presentation techniques with AhaSlides.

#11: Q&A Balloons

Foil Balloon Question Mark by PixelSquid360 on Envato Elements - interactive games for a presentation
Interactive presentation games - Interactive ways to present information

This one's a great way to turn a regular end-of-presentation feature into a fun, engaging game.

It's got all the hallmarks of a standard Q&A, but this time, all the questions are written on balloons.

It's a super simple one to set up and play, but you'll see how motivated participants are to ask questions when it involves balloons!

Here's how to play:

  1. Hand out a deflated balloon and a Sharpie to each participant.
  2. Each participant blows up the balloon and writes their question on it.
  3. Each participant bats their balloon to where the speaker is standing.
  4. The speaker answers the question and then pops or throws away the balloon.

🎉 Tips: Try the best Q&A apps to engage with your audience

#12: Play "This or That?"

A simple way to get everyone talking is the "This or That" game. It's perfect when you want people to share their thoughts in a fun way, without any pressure.

Here's how to play:

  1. Show two choices on the screen - they can be silly or work-related. For instance, "Work from home in pajamas OR work in office with free lunch?"
  2. Everyone votes using their phones or by moving to different sides of the room.
  3. After voting, invite a few people to share why they chose their answer. P/s: This game works great with AhaSlides because everyone can vote at once and see the results instantly.

#13: The Song Remix Challenge

Want to add some laughs to your presentation? Try turning your main points into a catchy song. Don't worry - it's supposed to be a bit silly!

Here's how to play:

  1. Take a famous song everyone knows (like "Happy" by Pharrell Williams) and change some words to match your presentation topic.
  2. Write the new lyrics on the screen and ask everyone to sing along. For example, if you're talking about customer service, you might change "Because I'm happy" to "Because we're helpful."
  3. If your group seems shy, start with humming or clapping first to help them feel more comfortable.
Singing - interactive presentation games

#14: The Great Friendly Debate

Sometimes the best discussions start with simple questions that everyone has an opinion about. This game gets people talking and laughing together.

Here's how to play:

  1. Pick a fun topic that won't upset anyone - like "Does pineapple belong on pizza?" or "Is it okay to wear socks with sandals?"
  2. Put the question on the screen and let people pick sides.
  3. Ask each group to come up with three funny reasons to support their choice.
  4. The key is keeping it light and playful - remember, there are no wrong answers here!

How to Host Interactive Games for a Presentation (7 Tips)

Keep Things Easy

When you want to make your presentation fun, don't overcomplicate it. Pick games with simple rules that everyone can quickly get. Short games that take 5-10 minutes are perfect - they keep people interested without taking too long. Think of it like playing a quick round of trivia rather than setting up a complex board game.

Check Your Tools First

Get to know your presentation tools before you start. If you're using AhaSlides, spend some time playing with it so you know where all the buttons are. Make sure you can tell people exactly how to join in, whether they're in the room with you or joining online from home.

Make Everyone Feel Welcome

Choose games that work for everyone in the room. Some people might be experts, while others are just starting out - pick activities where both can have fun. Think about your audience's different backgrounds too, and avoid anything that might make some people feel left out.

Connect Games to Your Message

Use games that actually help teach what you're talking about. For example, if you're talking about teamwork, use a group quiz instead of just a solo activity. Put your games at good spots in your talk - like when people look tired or after a chunk of heavy information.

Show Your Own Excitement

If you're excited about the games, your audience will be too! Be upbeat and encouraging. A little friendly competition can be fun - maybe offer small prizes or just bragging rights. But remember, the main goal is learning and having fun, not just winning.

Have a Backup Plan

Sometimes technology doesn't work as planned, so have a Plan B ready. Maybe print out some paper versions of your games or have a simple activity ready that doesn't need any special tools. Also, have different ways for shy people to join in, like working in teams or helping keep score.

Watch and Learn

Pay attention to how people react to your games. Are they smiling and getting involved, or do they look confused? Ask them afterward what they thought - what was fun, what was tricky? This helps you make your next presentation even better.

Interactive PowerPoint Presentation Games - Yes or No?

So, how do you feel about AhaSlides's interactive ideas for presentations? Being by far the most popular presentation tool on the planet, you may want to know if there are any presentation games to play on PowerPoint.

Unfortunately, the answer is no. PowerPoint takes presentations incredibly seriously and doesn't have a lot of time for interactivity or fun of any kind.

But there's good news...

It is possible to directly embed presentation games into PowerPoint presentations with free help from AhaSlides.

You can import your PowerPoint presentation to AhaSlides with the click of a button and vice versa, then place interactive presentation games like the ones above directly between your presentation slides.

💡 PowerPoint presentation games in less than 5 minutes? Check the video below or our quick tutorial here to find out how!

Interactive presentation games

Or, you can also build your interactive slides with AhaSlides directly on PowerPoint with the AhaSlides add-in! Super simple:

How to build interactive presentation games in PowerPoint using AhaSlides add-in.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the benefits of playing interactive presentation games?

Interactive games to play during a presentation can boost engagement, participation and knowledge retention. ⁤⁤They turn passive listeners into active learners by incorporating elements like live polls, idea boards, quizzes, word clouds and Q&A.

How do you make a presentation interactive with games?

- Match your content: The game should reinforce the topics being covered, not just be random entertainment.
- Audience considerations: Age, group size, and knowledge level will inform game complexity.
- Tech tools & time: Consider similar games to Kahoot, etc., or design simple no-tech games based on the time you have.
- Utilise appropriate questions, including icebreaker game questions or general knowledge quiz questions.

How can I make my presentation more engaging?

Making presentations more engaging can be a challenge, but there are several techniques you can use to make your presentation more interesting and memorable, including (1) starting with a strong opening (2) using lots of visual ads and (3) telling an attractive story. Also, remember to keep it short and sweet, and of course, practice a lot!