My favourite virtual games!

My favourite virtual games!

I absolutely love a Zoom party! Before lockdown in March 2020, I had never even considered attending or hosting a virtual party, but when this became the only option for socialising, I jumped on board! Part of my 30th birthday was spent having three different zoom quizzes with various groups of friends, and couple of months later, I even went to a virtual hen do, which was quite amusing.

About 15 months ago, I set up a Virtual Playground, which is a real highlight of the week. I love having the chance to chat with the young people I teach about random stuff, things that interest them and generally have a good old laugh. When I first set up this group, I found that I was actually planning games, activities and potential conversation starters, but after a couple of months, they really started running themselves and I was more of a ‘facilitator’ of the session. At the end of every term, I do a free ‘party’ session, where I do structure it a lot more, as I tend to have 15+ participants.

In this blog, I will write a brief overview of my absolute favourite virtual games! Comment below if you have any to add:

1. Werewolf

Werewolf is hugely popular in the virtual playground. It is a social deduction game where you give different roles to different people. For instance, in a 10 player game, you may have 2 werewolves, 1 fortune teller, 1 doctor and 1 cupid.

Game setup

As the host, you begin by introducing everyone to the village and allocating the roles via private chat. I tend to get everyone to mute and turn cameras off for this part, so that people can’t tell who is typing. The idea of the game is that the werewolves are trying to get ‘rid’ of all the people in the village without being found out, and the villagers are trying to figure out who the werewolf is.

If there are two werewolves in the game, you must chat each one to say who the other werewolf if, as they will essentially be working together during the game. Everyone must raise their virtual hand, as this shows who is still in the game as it progresses.

The person playing cupid is important, as they give the host the names of two people who will be inseparable during the game. This means that if the werewolf attacks someone inseparable with another person, both will feel the effects of the attack. As the host, you send a message to the people to tell them who they are inseparable with. This is very important as if one of them is the werewolf, they obviously won’t want to attack their ‘partner’. I get the cupid to send me the names before the game begins.

The doctor can give a name each round of the person they would like to save – again, if this person is inseparable with someone else, they will also be saved.

The fortune teller can make a guess each round as to who the werewolf is, and the host can answer yes or no via private chat.

Playing the game

Once all the roles have been allocated, players turn on cameras and sound and I tend to go round the ‘village’ getting each person to introduce themselves. They might invent an occupation they have in the village for example. This tends to add an element of hilarity to the game. I also get them to change their zoom name too.

Night phase

Once everyone has introduced themselves, I announce that night has fallen and all players turn their cameras off and sound. I then ask for a name from the werewolves, doctor and fortune teller. At this point, I make notes on a piece of paper as to who is inseparable, who has been attacked and who has been healed. I reply to the fortune teller and then that’s the end of the night phase. I tend to do a COCK-A-DOODLE-DO at this point and everyone puts their cameras and sound back on.

Day phase

I then announce that something terrible has happened! {insert name of person} has been attacked! I then give a context as to where they were discovered. If the doctor saved them, I might say that somebody was attacked but luckily the doctor bandaged them up. I then say something like, “Who do you think was responsible for this terrible crime?” If the fortune teller has guessed, they may try and tell the others, but of course they could be bluffing.

I then share a whiteboard and everyone in the game writes the name of the person on the board who they think is a werewolf. During this time they tend to get quite animated and either start defending themselves or blaming someone else.

Once the votes are in, the person with the most gets voted out of the village (participants still don’t know if the person voted out is a werewolf or not) and they must put down their virtual hand.

End of the game

The game continues like this with night phases and day phases until either all the villagers have been attacked, or both the werewolves have been voted off.

I’ve played this game using various themes – for instance, in my Easter party, we had an Easter Bunny instead of a werewolf, who covered its ‘victim’ in chocolate haha.

2. Fish Fingers

Another favourite is ‘fish fingers’ which one of my fabulous participants taught us. It’s simple yet hugely entertaining. Basically, everyone turns off their camera and sound and renames themselves so that no one will be able to identify who they are. The host then sends ‘fish fingers’ in a private chat message to someone and they have to disguise their voice and say ‘fish fingers’. Everyone else has to guess who it was.

3. Frozen Unicorns

This is a card game you can buy, or you can invent your own. I private chat somebody as action such as ‘riding a horse’, ‘fishing’ etc and they have to do a freeze frame of that thing. Everyone else guesses and after 30 seconds ish, if no one has got it, they can press ‘play’ on the freeze frame.

4. Randomise

Similar to Pictionary but a little bit more exciting, this game always goes down well. You can purchase it as a card game, or make it up yourself. The general idea is that you have a three word phrase including an adjective + noun + activity. For instance, a hairy hippo riding a scoreboard. The person whose turn it is can either draw, act or mime the thing. It’s always very amusing!

5. Teapot Game

I found this game in a very old-school children’s party game book (published in 1987) that my mum lent to me. Someone thinks of a verb and everyone has to guess what the verb is but they have to replace the verb with the word teapot. You end up with questions like ‘Can you teapot in the road?’ “Can you teapot a teddy bear?’ etc!

6. Would you Rather?

A classic conversation starter, would you rather always stimulates interesting discussions. You can find a range of questions online, or invent your own! For instance, would you rather have a tail like a rabbit, or feathers on your back?

7. Name, Place, Animal, Thing

This is a really fun game which is like a simpler version of scattergories. You roll a ‘letter die’ of you have one (I’ve got the one from my Scattergories game) and announce the letter to the group. They then have 1 minute to think of a name, place, animal and thing (in that exact order) beginning with the letter you’ve given them. When the one minute timer is up, everyone presses enter at the same time so there can be no cheating! Points are awarded for any ‘unique’ answers.

8. Scattergories

To play scattergories, I come up with 5 categories such as ‘things in the fridge’, ‘things in the sky’, ‘things on a pizza’ etc. I tend to get participants to go in breakout rooms for this so they can work in partners or threes. They have to think of something for each category beginning with the allocated letter. Points are awarded for unique answers, so the more creative, the better.

9. I’m Going on a Picnic

This is a game we used to play at university! It’s a fun one for a party. The person ‘going on the picnic’ thinks of a rule – for instance, things that are blue/things that can float etc. Interesting rules tend to work better – e.g. things containing dairy. The person who has made up the rule starts by saying what they are going to bring on the picnic. The other participants take in turns to ask if they can bring an item, and the host of the picnic says yes or no, depending if it links with their rule. The person who guesses the rule wins, and then it’s their turn to host the picnic.

10. Trophies

Trophies is a game you can buy in a cute little tin. Basically each card has a picture of a trophy with a letter on, and then categories on the back. You choose a category and everyone shouts the name of something in the category beginning with the letter on the trophy. The ‘trophy master’ chooses a winner based on creativity, not necessarily the first answer that’s given.

11. Scavenger Hunt

Scavenger hunts are always fun, although they can sometimes get a bit crazy haha. A simpler version of this game is to play ‘first person to….’ – so I might say “who can be the first person to balance an apple on their head?”

12. In the Manner of the Word

This is a Pie Corbett game that I read about in one of his books and it works so well on Zoom. I put one participant in the waiting room and the other participants all discuss an adverb they want to ‘act’, for instance, ‘grumpy.’ The person in the waiting room reenters the room, and gives us a verb/action to do. We have to then ‘do’ that action ‘in the manner of the word’. So for instance, we might have to act ‘grumpily going fishing.’ This game always provides a LOT of laughs!

I hope you enjoyed reading through my list of favourite virtual games!

If you have any others to add to my list, please enlighten me in the comments box below 😀