Remote work offers fantastic flexibility, but it can make building real team connections challenging.
Those "How's your weekend?" Zoom small talks aren't cutting it for real team connection. As the distance between our desks grows, so does the need for meaningful team bonding that doesn't feel forced or awkward.
We've tested dozens of virtual team activities to find what actually builds connection without the collective groan. Here are our top 10 activities that teams genuinely enjoy and that deliver real results for your team's communication, trust, and collaboration.
Table of Contents
10 Fun Online Team Building Games
The following virtual team building activities have been selected based on their demonstrated ability to strengthen psychological safety, improve communication patterns, and develop the social capital necessary for high-functioning teams.
1. Interactive Decision Wheels
- Participants: 3 - 20
- Duration: 3 - 5 minutes/round
- Tools: AhaSlides spinner wheel
- Learning outcomes: Improves spontaneous communication, reduces social inhibition
Decision wheels transform standard icebreakers into dynamic conversation starters with an element of chance that naturally lowers participants' guard. The randomisation creates a level playing field where everyone—from executives to new hires—faces the same vulnerability, fostering psychological safety.
Implementation tip: Create tiered question sets (light, medium, deep) and progress accordingly based on your team's existing rapport. Begin with low-risk questions before introducing more substantive topics that reveal work styles and preferences.
2. Would You Rather - Workplace Edition
- Participants: 4 - 12
- Duration: 15-20 minutes
- Learning outcomes: Reveals how team members think without putting them on the spot
This structured evolution of "Would You Rather" presents thoughtfully crafted dilemmas that reveal how team members prioritise competing values. Unlike standard icebreakers, these scenarios can be customised to reflect specific organisational challenges or strategic priorities.
The rules of this game are very simple, just answer the questions in turn. For example:
- Would you rather have OCD or an Anxiety attack?
- Would you rather be the most intelligent person in the world or the funniest person?
Facilitation note: After individual responses, facilitate a brief discussion on why people chose differently. This transforms a simple activity into a powerful opportunity for perspective-sharing without the defensiveness that can emerge in direct feedback sessions.
3. Live Quizzes
- Participants: 5 - 100+
- Duration: 15-25 minutes
- Tools: AhaSlides, Kahoot
- Learning outcomes: Knowledge transfer, organisational awareness, friendly competition
Interactive quizzes serve dual purposes: they gamify organisational knowledge sharing while simultaneously identifying knowledge gaps. Effective quizzes blend questions about company processes with team member trivia, creating balanced learning that combines operational knowledge with interpersonal connection.
Design principle: Structure quiz content as 70% reinforcement of critical knowledge and 30% lighthearted content. Mix categories strategically (company knowledge, industry trends, general knowledge, and fun facts about team members) and use AhaSlides' real-time leaderboard to build suspense. For larger groups, create team competition with the AhaSlides' team feature to add extra teamwork between rounds.
4. Pictionary
- Participants: 2 - 5
- Duration: 3 - 5 minutes/round
- Tools: Zoom, Skribbl.io
- Learning outcomes: Highlights communication styles while being genuinely hilarious
Pictionary is a classic party game that asks someone to draw a picture while their teammates try to guess what they are drawing. When someone's trying to draw "quarterly budget review" with digital sketch tools, two things happen: uncontrollable laughter and surprising insights into how differently we all communicate. This game reveals who thinks literally, who thinks abstractly, and who gets creative under pressure.
5. Categorise Game
- Participants: 8-24
- Duration: 30 - 45 minutes
Categorise is a game where teams join forces to tackle a fun challenge: sorting a jumble of items, ideas, or info into neat categories, all without saying a word. They work together quietly, spotting patterns, grouping similar stuff, and building logical categories through seamless, silent teamwork.
It can boost your brain’s ability to analyse and spot patterns, sharpen teamwork and consensus-building, highlight unique ways people organise and think, and help team members get inside each other’s heads without needing to spell it all out.
The game is great for enhancing critical thinking skills, strategy sessions, creative workshops, training on data organisation, or when teams need to practice making collective decisions.
Give teams blank category labels, 15–30 mixed items (items, concepts, words, or scenarios), and then ask them to explain their classifications and justifications. Employ themes that are pertinent to your business; for example, client types, project stages, or corporate values are effective.
6. Virtual Scavenger Hunt
- Participants: 5 - 30
- Duration: 20 - 30 minutes
- Tools: Any online conferencing platform
- Learning outcomes: Gets everyone moving, creates instant energy, and works for any size team
Forget complicated prep work! Virtual scavenger hunts require zero advanced materials and get everyone equally engaged. Call out items people need to find in their homes ("something older than you," "something that makes noise," "the weirdest thing in your refrigerator") and award points for speed, creativity, or best story behind the item.
Implementation hack: Create different categories like "work-from-home essentials" or "items that represent your personality" to add themes that spark conversation. For larger groups, use breakout rooms for team-based competition!
7. Werewolf
- Participants: 6 - 12
- Duration: 30 - 45 minutes
- Learning outcomes: Develops critical thinking, reveals decision-making approaches, builds empathy
Games like Werewolf require players to reason with incomplete information—a perfect analogue for organisational decision-making. These activities reveal how team members approach uncertainty, build coalitions, and navigate competing priorities.
After the game, talk about what communication strategies were most convincing and how trust was built or broken. The parallels to workplace collaboration are fascinating!
All about Werewolf's rules!
8. Truth or Dare
- Participants: 5 - 10
- Duration: 3 - 5 minutes
- Tools: AhaSlides spinner wheel for random selection
- Learning outcomes: Creates controlled vulnerability that strengthens relationships
A professionally facilitated version of Truth or Dare focuses exclusively on appropriate revelation and challenge within clear boundaries. Create growth-focused options like "Share a professional skill you wish you were better at" (truth) or "Give an impromptu 60-second presentation on your current project" (dare). This balanced vulnerability builds the psychological safety teams need to thrive.
Safety first: Always give participants the option to skip without explanation, and keep the focus on professional growth rather than personal disclosure.
9. Island Survival
- Participants: 4 - 20
- Duration: 10 - 15 minutes
- Tools: AhaSlides
Imagine you're stuck on an island and there is only one item you can bring with you. What would you bring? This game is called "Island Survival", in which you have to write out what one item you can bring with you when you're stranded on a desert island.
This game is absolutely perfect for an online team-building session. Especially with interactive presentations like AhaSlides, you just need to create a brainstorming slide, send the link to the presentation, and let the audience type and vote for the best answers.
10. Guided Visualisation Challenge
- Participants: 5 - 50
- Duration: 15 - 20 minutes
- Tools: Your regular meeting platform + AhaSlides for responses
- Learning outcomes: Engages imagination while remaining professional and accessible to everyone
Take your team on a mental journey that sparks creativity and creates shared experiences without anyone leaving their desk! A facilitator guides participants through a themed visualisation exercise ("Imagine your ideal workspace," "Design a solution to our biggest customer challenge," or "Create your team's perfect day"), then everyone shares their unique visions using AhaSlides' word cloud or open-ended question features.
Making These Activities Actually Work
Here's the thing about virtual team building games — it's not about filling time; it's about creating connections that make your actual work better. Follow these quick tips to ensure your activities deliver real value:
- Start with why: Briefly explain how the activity connects to your work together
- Keep it optional but irresistible: Make participation encouraged but not mandatory
- Time it right: Schedule activities when energy tends to dip (mid-afternoon or late in the week)
- Gather feedback: Use quick polls to see what resonates with your specific team
- Reference the experience later: "This reminds me of when we were solving that Pictionary challenge..."
Your Move!
Great remote teams don't happen by accident — they're built through intentional moments of connection that balance fun with function. The activities above have helped thousands of distributed teams develop the trust, communication patterns, and relationships that make work better.
Ready to get started? The AhaSlides template library has ready-to-use templates for all these activities, so you can be up and running in minutes rather than hours!
📌 Want more team engagement ideas? Check out these inspiring virtual team meeting games.
