Fun Office Online Games

[Marianna Ole]

How can we start injecting more fun into each day? Please share your fun online office activities and online office games to play at work – basically, how you get people away from their desks for a bit and interacting with each other!
Just to start with there are some ideas & fun games to play online that you can use to have fun at work.
Let's do it)

1. Ice Breaker

A series of get-to-know-you questions is always a simple option to kick off your remote team-building event. Ask short and quick questions:

• What is the strangest item near you?
• What topic do you know a lot of random trivia about?
• What is a common thing that you have never done? Fly, change a tire, etc.

2. Two Truths and a Lie 

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. 

3. Photo of Your Life Challenge

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 to explain the significance and story behind the image. 

[Jimmy Seddon]

Those are some cool concepts!  I have definitely done the first two before.  What we have also done is a few rounds of Gartic Phone:

• Each player writes a quirky sentence
• Then draws a picture based on a random players sentence
• Then gets another person's random picture to describe
• Then you find out how close the description and picture where to the initial sentence

[Marianna Ole]

Thank you, @Jimmy Seddon ) I've served it to my games library!

[Kishan Sharma]

Nice ideas. One of the funniest game that you can play is - Dumb Charades. Just pick a movie and act it out and the team will guess it. Its a fun game which everyone can enjoy.

[Svenja Lorenzen]

I personally never played it but I heard about an online game that should be a lot of fun. The game is called "Among Us" 👾 and it's an online multiplayer social deduction games for up to 15 persons.

🕹️ Here's the description from Wikipedia:

The game takes place in a space-themed setting, in which players each take on one of two roles, most being Crewmates, and a predetermined number being Impostors. The goal of the Crewmates are to identify the Impostors, eliminate them, and complete tasks around the map; the Impostor's goal is to covertly sabotage and kill the Crewmates before they complete all of their tasks. Players suspected to be Impostors may be eliminated via a plurality vote, which any player may initiate by calling an emergency meeting (except during a crisis) or reporting a dead body. Crewmates win if all Impostors are ejected or all tasks are completed, whereas Impostors win if there is an equal number of Impostors and Crewmates, or if a critical sabotage goes unresolved.

I always wanted to try it out but currently I'm not working with a team.

Here's the full article about the game.

Have you every played it? How would you rate it? Do you know of other online games like this? 🎮

[Marianna Ole]

I haven't played but sounds engaging. Thank you for the details @Svenja Lorenzen

[Paloma Fondon Araujo]

My daughter loves Among us!!! and I have to admit that I have played with her on occasion, it's quite fun and a very good idea to play with workmates!

[Devin Smith]

played it and it is fun

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

You're all sus'.  It wasn't me.

[Rob Horan]

@Nic Brough -Adaptavist-   I know where they're gathering...

[Martin Bayer _MoroSystems_ s_r_o__]

I remember we played some really simple online multiplayer games in my previous job. You just reminded it to me. I will try to do it with my current team :).

[Marianna Ole]

Thank you @Martin Bayer _MoroSystems_ s_r_o__ ) Have fun with your team!

[Gonchik Tsymzhitov]

In previous work we played draughts in online and offline mode. 

And played with Quantitative developers that one. https://www.chess.com/

[Marianna Ole]

Oh, yeah! Thank you @Gonchik Tsymzhitov ! I love it)

[Robert Horan]

 @Gonchik Tsymzhitov - is there a fee for chess.com to set up a company team?

If so, do you know of any free resources?

[Alexander Pappert]

do you play them for a better team building or just for fun?

[Marianna Ole]

For both) Fostering a fun work environment can make your employees less stressed, more productive, more creative, and more engaged. Thank you for the question @Alexander Pappert )

[G subramanyam]

Hi @Marianna Ole this is the most trending question since an year in the projects I worked in.

In 2020 during the initial WFH days, we started with e-Coffee calls (for 10 mins). Employees have then moved to  mentioned by "Dumb Charades" as mentioned by @Kishan Sharma on Friday's. Finally we employees got used to WFH and health conscious, so currently we are doing "virtual health bites" with Yoga instructor (In-house and external) every fortnight.

[Kishan Sharma]

Thank you for the mention @G subramanyam, everybody love's Dumb Charades isn't it!! Virtual health bites is good one!

[Marianna Ole]

Wow! Thank you @G subramanyam for sharing. I bet it's fun and productive!

[Liam Green]

I love this idea!  We've done baby photos in the past.  Everyone bring in a baby photo, or sends to a manager, and then you all guess who it is

[Marianna Ole]

Thank you so much @Liam Green 

That's great! I'm picking this up)

[Liam Green]

@Marianna Ole its really interesting to do - and some baby photos are impossible to get!

[Marianna Ole]

Yeah)) It's hard to imagine what masterpieces could be 😅

[Hana Kučerová]

What about a Bucket list challenge? I've always wanted to create one and it sounds like much more fun to brainstorm about it with your team than do it on your own...

[Marianna Ole]

That's a good one! It's never too early or too late to know your Bucket list)

[Brant Schroeder]

I love all the comments and suggestions.  I like any get-together with food.  Any game + food seems to work well.

[Marianna Ole]

Thank you @Brant Schroeder

Yeah, Food is one of the trending game topics.

I can chew in front of the screen even without team gaming when I have tough deadlines 🙊

[Brant Schroeder]

The best response I have seen in a long time, @Marianna Ole thanks for making my day.

[Marianna Ole]

😆Thank you too @Brant Schroeder 🙌

[Sven Cipido]

Once we did the photo challenge. Each team member has to take a photo through the window and post it. After that everyone has to guess who the photo was.

[Marianna Ole]

Yeey! Thank you, @Sven CipidoFun to be continued)

[Paloma Fondon Araujo]

A good game is always trivial! I also like scape room games and I have recently discovered an online pictionary game which is also very fun!

[Marianna Ole]

Right, they are great! Thank you, @Paloma Fondon Araujo 

https://www.countryliving.com/entertaining/a32389258/virtual-escape-room/

There are some virtual escape rooms)

[Paloma Fondon Araujo]

I love it!!! Thank you so much!!!

[Marianna Ole]

Thank you too, @Paloma Fondon Araujo

[Suvradip Paul]

Thanks @Marianna Ole  for this post and others for lovely inputs, sharing past experiences.

I think we should also check Atlassian Team Playbook Collections - https://www.atlassian.com/team-playbook and plays part of the collection - https://www.atlassian.com/team-playbook/plays and try these with teams and share feedback.

Cheers

Suvradip

[Marianna Ole]

Hooray! Thank you so much for sharing, @Suvradip Paul

[Marianna Ole]

Hooray! Thank you so much for sharing, @Suvradip Paul !

[Suvradip Paul]

Glad to hear that @Marianna Ole !

[Daniel Eads]

We've had some fun with Jackbox games on my teams. They've been around for a while and are fun "party games" that originally ran on a tv in a living room. They translate really well over Zoom! Fibbage is a particular favorite for us. They run pretty quick too, so you can get a couple rounds in over the course of a "meeting" in order to let everyone have a chance to be the winner. Of course, everyone's a winner when the objective is to have fun :)

[Marianna Ole]

Wow, nice! Thank you so much @Daniel Eads

Yeah, you are right, all of us will gain)

[Brittany Wispell]

Great Friday off topic! 

My coworker and I have recently been spending time during our 1-1 playing WoW Classic (burning crusades) we sometimes talk about work, sometimes talk about life. I look forward to every Friday morning we get to do this and really helps me get through the week. 

We've also played Valheim, Jackbox, and Golf with Friends as a team outside of work. Since we are a 100% remote team (and due to COVID) we've always had a lot of fun playing video games together. 

Another member of our team likes to paint miniatures, so he hosted a 'learn to paint miniatures' via zoom one day which was a lot of fun! My hand was cramping by the end though! haha!

[Jimmy Seddon]

I never considered painting miniatures.  That's a really cool idea! I have a full Blood Angels assault squad begging to be painted.

[Brittany Wispell]

Good luck! Have fun! Post pictures if you get them done :) 

[Teodora V _Fun Inc_]

We played Sribbl a couple of times both on-site and remote (also mixed with people on-site and on Zoom). An insane amount of fun :D 

[Sedera Randria]

Some of my favorite games to play with teammates :

• Space Team
• Wolfy  
• Wolfy  
• Mario Kart Tour 
• Puzzle World  
• Lego blocks

;-)

[Marianna Ole]

Thank you @Sedera Randria