33 Unbeatable Virtual Happy Hour Games for Workgroups
Looking for fun, engaging, hilarious, and high-energy virtual happy hour games for your team’s next get-together? Here are some ideas your colleagues will love.
There’s no doubt about it: virtual happy hours have been a great way to keep remote teams connected since the onset of the pandemic and will continue to be a ton of fun for the foreseeable future.
So, if you’re looking for some virtual happy hour games to make your digital get-together a little more fun and interesting, don’t worry.
We’ve got you covered with a comprehensive list of games that your team will love.
33 Virtual Happy Hour Games for Your Workgroup
When it comes to virtual happy hour games, the options are practically endless-and these games don’t have to be hard to coordinate. In fact, the toughest thing will be deciding which one to play!
1. Water or Not Water
Have you seen the HBO show Run? It’s what made this game really popular. If you haven’t seen it, don’t worry. This game is incredibly simple.
Essentially, all you need to do is have each team member pour a few shot glasses-some filled with a transparent alcoholic spirit and one filled with water.
During each round, one person chooses a glass and takes a shot. That player then says either that the liquid they drank was “water” or “not water.” Everyone else then takes turns guessing whether they’re telling the truth or not based on their facial expression.
2. Virtual Happy Hour Trivia
This is no ordinary happy hour trivia game. In this activity, you and your team will take a trip to Hamish McDuff’s virtual pub. This hilarious Scottish pub owner is the legendary host of a trivia game with more than 20 category options to choose from, including sports, food and drink, and even celebrity real estate. This virtual pub trivia game is guaranteed to produce plenty of laughs and lift team “spirits.” It might even include a few special surprises.
3. Up Close and Personal
Here’s a weird one question, but have you ever looked at something really closely zoomed in? Believe it or not, it can be really tough to recognize everyday items when you zoom in close on them. And therein lies a fun game!
Find some photos of items closely zoomed (you can find a bunch here). Then, share your screen with your colleagues and go through different photos, seeing who can guess each item correctly. Give a point for each correct response and, once you’re out of photos, see who got the most right.
4. Virtual Scattergories
Who says boardgames can’t be virtual? There’s a Scattergories app that could be perfect for your workgroup. Just make sure everyone downloads the app and gets it set up ahead of your happy hour.
5. Virtual Icebreaker Games
What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you think about “team building icebreakers?” If it conjures up images of a tacky pick-up line at a speed dating session or some cringeworthy “get-to-know-your-colleagues” game, that’s completely understandable. But hear us out because the right team building questions and icebreakers can make for an amazing Zoom happy hour game that helps you get to know your colleagues even better.
Sound like fun?
If so, we’ve got you covered with 164 team building icebreaker questions you’ll love.
6. House Party
For tech-savvy groups, the House Party app will let you see your friends and play games at the same time. To play, download and open the House Party app then invite the friends you want to play with to your “room.” Once they’re all there, make sure you lock the room so that other people can’t randomly join in on your game. Then, you can use the app to play Heads Up, Trivia, a game called Chips and Guac and a Pictionary-esque one called Quick Draw.
7. Minority/Majority
This Zoom happy hour game is nice and simple but can be a lot of fun-and a great way to learn more about your colleagues!
To play, one person asks an either/or question, like ‘coffee or tea?’ or ‘cats or dogs?’ and each team member provides their answers.
Whoever’s in the minority takes a sip of their beverage!
If you’re looking to make your game cheat-proof, have everyone write down their responses before answering.
8. Virtual Social Shuffle
Get to know your colleagues and build better connections with this ultra-social virtual team building activity for remote groups. Your group will learn fun facts about one another as you tackle a series of themed challenges together and engage in exploratory conversations.
9. Show and Tell
This was a ton of fun back in school, so you can bet it’ll be a ton of fun as adults! In advance of your Zoom happy hour, ask each attendee to bring something they’d like to show off. It can be an item, a video, a song-even a person! Then, they’ll give an explanation of whatever it is to your group.
10. Name That Place!
The game rules are straightforward, and the only tool you need is Google Maps street view.
Before starting the game, decide whether you’ll be playing in teams or individually.
Then, open a random location on Google Maps and have the opposite team or individuals guess where that image is from.
11. Virtual Trivia Time Machine Trivia
If you’re looking for a trivia game packed with nostalgia and good vibes, this is the one for you. With this activity, you’ll step into the Outback Time Machine and take a trip through pop culture history! Transform your home offices into a virtual game show experience with trivia questions that take you from 2021 all the way back to the 1960s — game show host, scoreboard, buzzer, and all!
12. Wikirace
If you thought Wikipedia was just a great resource for finding information, think again. It also makes for a great Zoom happy hour game.
To Wikirace, first decide whether to play individually or in teams. Then, select a random Wikipedia page. This will be your beginning page.
Next, choose a destination page.
The goal of this game is to get from the beginning page to the destination page using only links within the Wikipedia page.
Generally, the destination page is something very unrelated to the beginning page. For example, going from apple to orange would not be challenging, as you would simply start at the apple page, click a link to fruit and then proceed to orange. A race from Roman Colosseum to orthopedic surgeon would be a much more difficult game.
The first person or team to reach the destination page wins!
13. Never Have I Ever
The rules of Never Have I Ever are simple: players take turns listing potential experiences they’ve never had, using the phrase “never have I ever…” If someone has done the action in question, they take a shot or a sip (or whatever other consequence you dream up). If no one has done the action in question, the person who posed the query takes a drink.
This is a great way to find out hilarious new things about your colleagues. And if you’re looking for some question inspiration, check out this article from Parade that offers 250 ideas.
14. The Question Game
Looking for a fun game to play? One that might trip you and your colleagues up? But a game that would definitely make for a lot of laughs?
Then does The Question Game sound fun?
Here’s how it goes…
One player asks another player a question. That player must then respond with a question and redirect to another player as well. Keep going until somebody accidentally messes up.
15. The Statement Game
The Statement Game is the opposite of The Question Game. To play, one person starts with a statement and then passes it to the next player. That person responds with a statement and continues the conversation. Your goal is both to continue the chain of logic and continue making statements as long as you can. The game ends when someone asks a question, or you fail to make a statement within five seconds.
16. Would You Rather
This game is pretty self-explanatory, but we’ll give you the rundown regardless.
The rules are simple: each person has the chance to ask a question of another person in the form of “would you rather X or X?”
This can make for some hilarious responses with questions like, “would you rather have feet for hands or have hands for feet?”
For some other ideas, check out this list of 250 possible questions.
17. The GIF Game
Does your group love a good GIF? If so, this is the perfect game for you.
Here’s how to play: for each round, a new person acts as the judge. That person decides on a category and the rest of the group members must pick a gif that they think best matches the category.
Once all gifs are sent, the judge picks the one they think fits best under the category and the winner becomes the judge in the next round
18. MTV Cribs
Remember MTV Cribs? That show where celebrities would take a camera crew on a tour around their home? Well, this is a fun way to get to know your colleagues a bit better.
All you need to do is ask each person to give a Cribs-style tour of their house, showing their favorite rooms and decorations.
19. MTV Cribs: Kitchen Edition
The contents of someone’s fridge can say a lot about them! So, if you want to hyper-focus your game of MTV Cribs and make it a little extra whacky, focus it in on everyone’s kitchens.
With this game, each person on your team will give a tour of their kitchens, starting with the counters then the cupboards and finally the fridge.
20. Virtual Charades
Charades is another one of those classic games that can be played virtually for Zoom happy hour! Start by organizing everybody into pairs and use a game word generator to come up with words and phrases. Then, players will need to act out their words and phrases while others try to guess what they are!
21. Virtual Escape Room: Jewel Heist
There’s been a robbery! Someone has masterminded a heist to steal a priceless collection of precious jewels, and it’s up to you and your team to recover them before time runs out.
Together, you’ll need to uncover hidden clues and solve a series of brain-boggling challenges that require collaboration, creative problem-solving, and outside-the-box thinking. But be quick! The clock is ticking before the stolen score is gone forever.
22. Name That Song
For this game, ask each team member to pick a few lyrics from their favorite song. Then, have them recite the lyrics aloud and have the rest of the team try to guess their answers.
If you want to add an extra dimension of fun to this game, you can create a Spotify playlist with everyone’s songs and share it with your team members have you’re done with this Zoom happy hour game.
23. QuizBreaker
Are you looking for ways to make virtual team building a recurring activity? With Quizbreaker, you can deliver scheduled team building quizzes to your team’s inbox, anytime you want. Quizbreaker delivers up to 100 predeveloped icebreaker questions to your team members via email. Then, colleagues are tasked with trying to guess the correct answers in gamified quiz rounds sent out on autopilot to help teammates get to know each other better and to have fun in the process.
24. Psych!
If your team likes the game Heads Up, then they’ll love Psych (which was actually created by the same people who made Heads Up)! With this game, you’ll choose from a variety of fun categories in which each player makes up fake answers to real trivia questions. It’ll be up to you and your colleagues to choose the outrageous real answer among all of the fakes!
25. Sneak It In
Have you ever seen the movie Super Troopers? If not, we’ll tell you why it’s relevant: in the movie, two police officers pull over a driver and play a game wherein they sneak the word “meow” into their sentences as many times as possible in an effort to avoid being discovered by the driver.
It’s hilarious.
And it can also make for a fun Zoom happy hour game!
Simply let everyone know the game is being played, let people pick a word, and then get them to keep track of how many times they use it in a sentence before someone catches them.
26. Virtual Team Pursuit
Help your remote team get re-energized by tackling fun virtual challenges with their colleagues. In groups, your remote employees will tackle a series of mental, physical, skill, and mystery challenges, earning points for each one successfully completed. Whichever has the most points when time runs out will be crowned the winners!
27. I Spy
You remember the game: “I spy with my little eye… something.” Well, this makes for a fun Zoom happy hour game as well!
With this game, each person takes a turn to find something in someone else’s Zoom background. They then give clues about the object like, “I spy something pink” or “I spy something fluffy” or “I spy something embarrassing.”
Make the clues as direct or abstract as you see fit. Whoever guesses the object correctly wins and gets to go next.
28. The Useless Talent Show
Need an excuse to show off how you can twitch your ears up in down or rap every word of your favorite song?
Then the Useless Talent Show is the perfect game for you!
Before you Zoom happy hour, ask everyone to think of one useless talent they possess. Then, have each person put it on display!
Keep of track of who does what. Then, at the end of the get-together, you can host a poll using a service like SurveyMonkey to find out who the winner was.
29. Lights, Camera, Action!
Is your team made up of movie buffs? Then we’ve got the perfect Zoom happy hour game for you! With Lights, Camera, Action, all you need to do is act out scenes from your favorite movies or shows.
You can either think them up on your own and try to act them out from memory, or find screenplays online.
If you want to make this extra fun, host a mini-Oscars ceremony and give out awards after everyone’s finished their scenes.
30. Most Likely To
Just like your high school yearbook, this game is all about finding out who everyone thinks is the most likely to… anything! From going bungee jumping to traveling a foreign country alone, the questions possibilities are endless.
But if you’re looking for some inspiration, here’s a list of a few hundred ideas.
31. Where I’m From
Want to get to know your employees better? Then play a Zoom happy hour game that’s all about finding out about where they’re from.
To play, ask each player to think up three unique quirks about where they’re from. Then, everyone takes turns guessing where it is.
32. Virtual Bingo
If you want your virtual happy hour activity to feature low-energy team building, bingo is the perfect solution! Continue your happy hour as you have in the past but be on the lookout for bingo prompts to cross off, like the family member that walks in the background or the dog that barks.
33. Two Truths and A Lie
This classic icebreaker makes for a great Zoom happy hour game. The premise is simple: each person comes up with three “facts” about themselves. Two are true, one is a lie, and everyone else has to decide which is which!
With virtual happy hour games, you can make your team’s online social time even more fun and engaging. Just make sure to drink responsibly and to ensure everyone’s of legal age to consume alcohol!
Do you have any amazing virtual happy hour games we might’ve missed? If so, drop us a comment in the comments section and we’ll add it to our list for everyone to enjoy!
Learn More About Team Building Games for Your Virtual Happy Hour
If you’ve got questions about team building games and how they can be a perfect addition to your virtual happy hour, reach out to an Employee Engagement Consultant.
Originally published at https://www.outbackteambuilding.com on May 11, 2021.
