Virtual hangouts been feeling a little dry lately? So much of our work, education and life happen over Zoom now that it's inevitable your online audience might be feeling fatigued.
That's why you need Zoom games. These games aren't just filler, they're for connecting with colleagues and loved ones who may be starved of interaction and entertainment between their 45th and 46th Zoom sessions of the month.
Let's play Zoom games for small groups 🎲 Here are the 41 Zoom games with small groups, family, students and colleagues!
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What Are Zoom Games?
We all know what Zoom is by now, but how many of us treat it solely as a video conferencing tool? Well, it's not just that, it's also a magnificent facilitator of communal, interactive games.
Online Zoom games like the ones below make all Zoom calls, whether they be meetings, lessons or hangouts, much less tedious and one-dimensional. Believe us, it's not only possible to have fun on Zoom, but it's also beneficial for everyone involved...
- Zoom games foster teamwork - Teamwork is often lacking in online workplaces and communities hit by the shift to online hangouts. Zoom group activities like these can bring a bit of productivity and a lot of team-building to any set of individuals.
- Zoom games are different - There's no meeting, lesson or online corporate event that can't be improved with a few virtual Zoom games. They offer variety to any agenda and give participants something different to do, which may be way more appreciated than you think.
- Zoom games are fun - Pretty much as simple as it gets, this one. When the world is all about work and the serious nature of global affairs, just turn on Zoom and have a carefree time with your mates.
Curious about how many interactive Zoom games there could possibly be? Well, there are actually so many to mention here that we're splitting them up into categories.
In each section, you'll find a link to a much bigger list, including Zoom games for large groups and small. We've got 100s overall!
Zoom Games to Break the Ice
Breaking the ice is something you'll need to do a lot. If virtual meetings are becoming the norm for you, then these games can help everyone get on the same page quickly and unleash some creativity before the bulk of the meeting begins.
🎲 Looking for more? Grab 21 icebreaker games today!
1. Desert Island Inventory
For the adults who've secretly dreamed of what would happen if they had a turn at playing Robinson Crusoe, this game could be a fantastic Zoom ice-breaker game.
Kick off the meeting with the question "What is the one object they would take to a desert island?" or some other similar scenario. Use the AhaSlides Zoom app to get everyone answered on the same page.
Check out: Hosting a live Q&A session for free!
Regardless of the responses, we're certain that bringing a super hot, tanned-skin, young Tom Hanks-esque guy is a popular-sought answer among the squad (an equivalent alternative would be bringing a bottle of tequila, because why not? 😉).
Reveal each answer one-by-one and everyone votes for the answer they think makes the most sense (or is the funniest). The winner becomes known as the ultimate survivalist!
2. Yikes that's Embarrassing
Are you one of those people whose peaceful evening is often punctured by their brain suddenly remembering every embarrassing thing that's ever happened to them?
Many of your friends and colleagues will be, so let them feel the relief of getting those embarrassing moments off their shoulders! It's actually one of the best ways to get new teams gelling and coming up with better ideas together.
Start by asking everyone to submit an embarrassing story to you, which you can do during or before the meeting if you want them to have more time to think.
Reveal each story one-by-one, but without mentioning names. After everyone has heard about the painful experience, they take a vote on who they think is the embarrassing protagonist. This is one of the easy Zoom games to organise.
3. Movie Mates
Now, I'm sure at some point you've been struck with an idea for a movie that you know could make billions in box office sales. It's just a shame you don't have high-flying Hollywood connections to get things off the ground.
In Pitch a Movie - you don't really need connections, just a vivid imagination. Put people together in groups of 2, 3 or 4 and tell everyone to think of a unique movie plot along with main characters, actors and film locations.
Put them into breakout rooms and give them 5 minutes. Bring everyone back to the main room and each group pitches their movies one-by-one. Everyone takes a vote and the most popular movie amongst your players takes home the prize!
Other Icebreaker Zoom Games We Love
- 2 Truths 1 Lie - Each host gives 3 facts about themselves, but one is a lie. The players ask questions to suss out which one it is.
- Bucket List - Everyone anonymously submits their bucket list then goes through one-by-one to figure out who owns which list.
- Paying Attention? - Each player simply writes down something that they will do (or not do) in order to pay full attention to the meeting.
- Height Parade - One of the great Zoom games for large groups. Put the team into groups of 5 and ask them to write down a number from 1-5 depending on how tall they think they are within that group. Players don't talk to each other in this one!
- Virtual Handshake - Pair up players at random and put them in breakout rooms together. They've got 3 minutes to come up with a cool 'virtual handshake' that they can demonstrate to the whole group.
- Riddle Race - Give everyone a list of 5-10 riddles. Pair up players at random and put them into breakout rooms. First couple to come back with all riddles solved is the winner!
- Most Likely to... - Think up some 'who is the most likely to...' questions and offer 4 of the team as answers. Everyone votes for who they think is the most likely to do that thing, then explains why they chose it.
Zoom Games for Adults
Note that there's nothing, ahem... adult about these Zoom games, they're simply games with a bit of skill and complexity that can liven up a virtual games night.
🎲 Looking for more? Get 27 Zoom games for adults
11. Presentation Party
Fun, low-effort and filled with eccentric, out-of-nowhere creativity and ideas. That's what makes a virtual presentation party one of the best Zoom party games.
Basically, you and your group of friends will each take turns to present absolutely anything in 5 minutes. Let everyone choose their own topic and work on their Zoom presentation tips before your games night begins.
And when we say the topic can be anything, we mean anything. You can have a super detailed presentation examining the taboo romantic relationship between honey bee Barry B. Benson and the human girl Vanessa in Bee Movie, or you could go completely the other way and dive headfirst into the ideology of Karl Marx.
When it's presentation time, presenters can make it as wacky or serious as they want, as long as they stick to a strict 5-minute.
Optionally you can take a vote at the end to give credit to those who nailed it.
12. Balderdash
Balderdash is a bonafide classic, so it's only right that it managed to find its way into the virtual sphere.
If you're unfamiliar, allow us to fill you in. Balderdash is a word trivia game in which you have to guess the real definition of a weird English word. Not only that - you also get points if someone guesses your definition as the real definition.
Any idea what a cattywampus is? Nor do any of your fellow players! But you can win big if you can convince them it's an area of Slovenia.
- Use a random letter generator to grab a bunch of weird words (be sure to set the word type to ‘extended’).
- Tell your players the word you've chosen.
- Everyone anonymously writes down what they think it means.
- At the same time, you anonymously write down the real definition.
- Reveal everyone's definitions and everyone votes for what they think is real.
- 1 point goes to everyone who voted for the right answer.
- 1 point goes to whoever gets a vote on an answer they submitted, for each vote they get.
13. Codenames
If your crew are feeling a little more sly, then Codenames might be one of the best Zoom games for them. It's all about spying, sleuthing and general stealthiness.
Well, that's the backstory anyway, but really it's a word association game in which you're rewarded for making the most connections possible with one word.
This is a team game in which one 'code master' per team will provide a one-word clue to their team with the hopes of uncovering as many of their team's hidden words as possible. If they get any wrong, they risk unearthing one of the other team's words, or worse - the instant-loss word.
- Head to the official website, to create a room: codenames.game
- Invite your players and set your teams.
- Choose who will be the code master.
- Follow the instructions on the site.
Other Adult Zoom Games We Love
- Virtual Jeopardy - Create a free Jeopardy board on jeopardylabs.com and play the American prime-time classic.
- Drawful 2 - A modern take on Pictionary with a bit of bluff and some far-out concepts to draw.
- Mafia - Similar to the popular Werewolf game - it's a social deduction where you have to find who in your group is the Mafia.
- Bingo - For adults of a certain vintage, the possibility to play Bingo online is a blessing. You can download a free app from Zoom.
- Heads Up! - The ultimate family game to play on Zoom. It's like the same where you have to figure out a celebrity whose name is stuck to your head, but this is much faster and more fun!
- GeoGuessr - If you think you're a geography whizz then try pinpointing the exact location of the Taj Mahal. It's not easy but it's a really fun game to play with friends on Zoom!
- A whole bunch of board games - Pandemic, Shifting Stone, Azul, Settlers of Catan - Board Game Arena has so much to play for free.
🎲 Bonus Game: Pop Quiz!
Seriously, who doesn't love a quiz? We can't even put this one into a category because it's such a popular activity for any occasion you can think of - trivia nights, lessons, funerals, waiting in line to file for bankruptcy - you name it!
Amidst the shift to hybrid working, learning and hanging out, the possibility to run a Zoom quiz has proved an absolute lifeline for millions of people. It helps colleagues, classmates and friends stay connected in a hugely fun and mildly competitive environment.
There's plenty of online quiz software out there that you can use for free to host a quiz for your crew, whoever they may be. Here's how it works...
- Have an account on AhaSlide and integrate the AhaSlides app for Zoom - completely free.
- You create quiz questions in different formats, like multiple choice, open-ended, match the pairs, etc.
- Your crew gets invited to the quiz automatically or they can join through a QR code when you host your Zoom session.
- Each person answers quiz questions as you navigate through slides as a host.
- Reveal the winner in a shower of confetti at the end!
Or, of course, you can get a full, free quiz template from the AhaSlides template library - here's a few in our vaults 👇
💡 Looking for more quiz and round inspiration for Zoom games? We've got 50 Zoom quiz ideas!
Zoom Games for Students
We don't know about you, but back in our day, school was pretty simple. Personal devices only came in the form of calculators and the concept of online learning sounded like the plot of a sci-fi movie.
Nowadays, teachers compete with so much just to have students' attention in class, and doing so can be a draining endeavour. Here are 10 Zoom games you can play to get students developing and engaging when they're learning remotely.
🎲 Looking for more? Check out 20 games to play on Zoom with students!
21. Zoomdaddy
A simple online game for Zoom, this, but one that gets brains whirring as a nice little warm-up or cooldown exercise.
Find an image relating to what you've been teaching and create a zoomed-in version of it. You can do all of this on Pixelied.
Show the zoomed-in image to the class and see who can guess what it is. If it's a tough one, the students can ask the teacher yes/no questions to try and determine what it is, or you can zoom steadily out of the image to reveal more and more of it.
You can keep this running long-term by getting the winner of the game to create next week's zoomed-in image.
22. Pictionary
Wait! Don't scroll past just yet! We know this is probably the 50th time that someone has suggested you play Pictionary with your online class, but we've got a couple of ideas to make it a bit different.
Firstly, if you're going for the classic, then we'd suggest drawasaurus.org, this one you can give your students customised words to draw, meaning you can give them vocabulary from a language lesson, terminology from a science lesson, and so on.
Next, there's Drawful 2, which we mentioned already. This one is a bit more cryptic and complex, but for older students (and kids) it's an absolute blast.
Finally, if you're wanting to add some more creativity and fun to proceedings, try Gartic Phone. This one's got 14 drawing games that aren't technically Pictionary, but they offer a fantastic alternative that we'd take every day of the week.
🎲 We've got the full lowdown on how to play Pictionary on Zoom right here.
23. Scavenger Hunt
The lack of movement is a serious issue in the online classroom. It stifles creativity, increases boredom and loses the teacher's valuable attention over time.
That's why a scavenger hunt is one of the most fun Zoom activities you can play with students. You know the concept already - tell the students to go and find something in their house - but there are ways to make it more educational and age-appropriate for your class 👇
- Find something concave.
- Find something symmetrical.
- Find something luminescent.
- Find 3 things that spin.
- Find something that symbolises freedom.
- Find something older than the Vietnam War.
🎲 You can find some great scavenger hunt lists for download here.
24. Spin the Wheel
An free interactive spinner wheel gives you endless possibilities for classroom Zoom games. These tools let each of your students fill an entry into the wheel before you spin it at random to see what it lands on.
Here are some ideas for spinner wheel Zoom games:
- Pick a student - Each student fills in their name and a random student is selected to answer a question. Super simple.
- Who is it? - Each student writes a famous figure on the wheel, then one student sits with their back to the wheel. The wheel lands on the name of someone famous and everyone has 1 minute to describe the person so that the chosen student can guess who it is.
- Don't say it! - Fill the wheel with common words and spin. A student must explain a concept in 30 seconds without saying the word the wheel landed on.
- Scattergories - The wheel lands on a category and students have 1 minute to name as many things within that category as possible.
You can also use this one as a yes/no wheel, a magic 8-ball, a random letter selector and so much more.
🎲 Get more ideas for spinner wheel games and Zoom activities.
Other Student Zoom Games We Love
- Mad gab - Give the students a jumbled sentence and ask them to unscramble it. To make it harder, scramble the letters within the words as well.
- Top 5 - Use a Zoom word cloud to have students submit their top 5 in a certain category. If one of their answers is the most popular (the largest word in the cloud), they get 5 points. The second-most popular answer gets 4 points, etc. until the fifth-most popular.
- Odd one out - Get 3 images that have something in common and 1 that doesn't. Students have to determine which one doesn't belong and say why.
- Bring the house down - Split students into groups and give each a scenario. Groups go into breakout rooms to practice the scenario using household props before coming back and performing for the class.
- Draw a monster - One for the youngsters. List a body part and roll a virtual dice; the number it lands on will be the number of that body part that students draw. Repeat this two more times until everyone can draw a monster with 5 arms, 3 ears and 6 tails, for example.
- What's in the bag? - This is basically 20 questions, but for something you have in your bag. Students ask you yes/no questions about what it is until someone guesses it and you reveal it on camera.
Zoom Games for Team Meetings
Different from Zoom icebreakers and games for adults - Zoom games for team meetings are those that help keep colleagues connected and productive while working online, and we've got the best list of games to play on Zoom with coworkers for you to explore down here👇
🎲 Looking for more? Here are 14 Zoom games for team meetings!
31. Weekend Trivia
Weekends aren't for work; that's why it's so interesting for your colleagues to know what you've been up to. Did Dave win his 14th bowling trophy? And how many times did Vanessa fake die in her medieval reenactments?
In this one, you ask everyone what they did over the weekend and they all answer anonymously. Display all the answers at once and get everyone to vote on who they think did each activity.
It's simple, sure, but Zoom games don't need to be overly complicated. This game is deadly effective at getting everyone to share their hobbies.
32. Where's this Going?
Some of the best team games to play on Zoom don't happen at the start of your meetings - sometimes, they can run in the background throughout.
A prime example is Where's this Going?, in which your team have to work together to build a story over the course of the meeting.
First, start with a prompt, maybe half a sentence like 'the frog came out of the pond...'. After that, nominate someone to add a little bit to the story by writing their name in the chat. When they're done, they'll nominate someone else and so on until everyone's contributed to the story.
Read the story out at the end and enjoy everyone's unique spin.
33. Staff Soundbite
This one may be the most nostalgic of all the games to play on Zoom with coworkers. Since working remotely, maybe you've grown to miss the way Paula used to warble Livin' on a Prayer every 4 pm.
Well, this game is alive with the sound of your team! It starts with you asking your colleagues to create an audio impression of one other colleague. Remind them to keep it as non-offensive as possible...
Collect all the audio impressions and play them one-by-one for the team. Each player votes twice - one for who the impression is of and one for who it's from.
With 1 point for each correct answer, the eventual winner will be crowned the king or queen of office impressions!
34. Quiplash
For those who haven't played before, Quiplash is a hilarious battle of wits where your group can compete in quick-fire rounds to write the funniest, most ridiculous responses to silly prompts.
Players take turns coming up with responses to funny prompts like "An unlikely luxury item" or "Something you shouldn't google at work".
All the responses are visible to everyone and all players vote on their favorite answer. The person who wrote the most popular one in each round earns points.
Remember, there are no right answers - just funny ones. So let loose and may the wittiest player win!
Other Team Meeting Zoom Games We Love
- Baby Pictures - Collect a baby picture from each team member and show them one-by-one to the crew. Each member votes for who that young rapscallion turned into (side note: baby pics don't need to be strictly human).
- They said what? - Search back through your team's Facebook profiles for statuses they posted in 2010. Reveal them one-by-one and everyone takes a vote on who said them.
- Emoji Bake-Off - Take your team through a simple cookie recipe and get them to decorate their cookie with the face of an emoji. If you want to add some competition, everyone can vote for their favourite.
- Street View Guide - Send everyone in your team a different link to a street view dropped somewhere at random throughout the world. Each person has to try and sell their random patch of Earth as the ultimate tourist destination.
- Theme Park - Announce a theme to your crew beforehand, like Space, the Roaring 20s, Street Food, and ask them to come up with a costume and a virtual background for your next meeting. Judge these yourself or get your team to vote for their favourites.
- Plank Race - At some point during a meeting, shout "Plank!" Everyone then has 60 seconds to find a creative place to plank in their house. They take a picture and show the rest of the team where they did it.
- Everything but the Word - Put everyone into teams and let each team choose a speaker. Give each speaker a different list of words, which they must describe to their teammates without saying the word. The team that identifies the most words in 3 minutes wins!
The Final Word
Whether we like it or not, Zoom hangouts, meetings and lessons aren't going anywhere. We hope these online games to play on Zoom above help you have some good clean virtual fun and help you connect more with your audience, in whatever setting you find yourself.
Be sure to check out AhaSlides for more tips on audience engagement and a tool that helps you create interactive presentations and more fun Zoom games!
Frequently Asked Questions
Best interactive Zoom activities for adults?
Quizzes! Quizzes are easy to set up, and you can use them in a dozen activities: icebreakers, brainstorming sessions, knowledge check,...
What are 5 cool games to play on Zoom?
Five cool games that can be played on Zoom are Twenty Questions, Heads Up!, Boggle, Charades, and Murder Mystery Game. They are fun Zoom games to play with friends, family, coworkers and students.
