Fun online activity for tech company work team?

December 4, 2021 11:59 AM

What's something fun and social that my work team can do together online, remotely (like over Zoom)? We're a team of 11 web engineers and designers. We've worked hard all year and we'd like to do something together just for fun, interactively (i.e., not just "let's watch a movie"). We're all on USA Eastern Time. It can't require alcohol. Previously we've played Among Us together, and that went well.
posted by cadge to Work & Money (18 answers total)

My team had fun with Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes. One person has a bomb which he has to describe to everyone else, who have all the spec sheets for all bombs. They have to figure out which bomb he has and describe to him how to defuse it.
posted by Troupe of trained rats at 12:08 PM on December 4, 2021 [5 favorites]

LOL, I literally came in here to suggest Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes. So, consider it seconded.
posted by stormyteal at 12:16 PM on December 4, 2021

The Jackbox games are great. Quiplash is always a hit, and the new one called JobJob looks really promising in the youtube live streams I've seen of it, though I haven't played it myself.
posted by phunniemee at 12:26 PM on December 4, 2021 [1 favorite]

All of the Jackbox party pack games are great for this, you can be on a zoom call and have one person share their screen with the questions, and then everyone uses their phones to play. There are a lot of them with different types of games, so just pick one that sounds fun
posted by JZig at 12:27 PM on December 4, 2021

Telephone pictionary can be pretty entertaining, and allows everyone to play simultaneously - the person on your left prompts you with text or a picture, and you try to communicate the same idea to the person on your right using the opposite medium -- draw based on the description, or describe based on the drawing.

Gartic Phone is one online version of it. You'd need a separate voice call.
posted by are-coral-made at 1:02 PM on December 4, 2021 [3 favorites]

I haven’t tried it myself but Virtual Game Night advertises on a podcast I listen to, and the the podcast hosts’ description of playing the game with their whole company sounds fun.
posted by ejs at 1:39 PM on December 4, 2021

One of our favorite company activities is online escape rooms, but they work best for 5-6 person groups so you might have to split up for that. There are some that have a live host, which is very fancy, but the ones we do are software-based with no host. I cannot remember which service we've used, though.

If you have some budget, a bunch of artisanal shops do hosted virtual tastings now, with plenty of options that aren't alcohol like cheese, olive oil, chocolate, tea, etc. Everyone gets shipped a set of samples and then the host guides you through the tasting process with discussion, over Zoom.
posted by Lyn Never at 1:40 PM on December 4, 2021 [1 favorite]

Came in to say Jackbox games as well, especially Quiplash and Fibbage. A big plus of the Jackbox games is they're short and easy to jump in & out of, so would work well for an event where people aren't coming in and leaving at the exact same times.
posted by augustimagination at 2:29 PM on December 4, 2021

I've done a number of virtual scavenger hunts run by Watson Adventures, and they're a blast. Can be done individually or in teams.
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 3:24 PM on December 4, 2021 [1 favorite]

I don't know if this is exactly what you're looking for (or if you have any budget for this), but my team really loved virtual cooking classes throughout the pandemic. We had to be thoughtful about dietary restrictions, but I think it was handled well. The biggest hits were a truffle-making class (the company sent everyone the ingredients in advance) and pasta-making "with an Italian Nonna" (they gave us shopping lists with many alternatives for various restrictions).
posted by rhiannonstone at 4:17 PM on December 4, 2021 [1 favorite]

Here to +1 Jackbox and Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes. Especially fun for a nerdy, techy audience. I personally love Drawful but ymmv.
posted by fight or flight at 4:48 PM on December 4, 2021 [1 favorite]

We did an online telephone pictionary game a few months ago and it was a hilarious hit.

We've also done a few online escape rooms, breaking into small teams to keep it competitive, and using Zoom breakout rooms for each team to do their thing and then bringing everyone back when time was up.
posted by erst at 5:04 PM on December 4, 2021

Codenames has an online version, and it's a fun game for medium-sized groups like yours.
posted by snaw at 6:09 PM on December 4, 2021 [4 favorites]

but my team really loved virtual cooking classes throughout the pandemic

We actually did a different take on that: Different team members set up their webcams in their kitchens and taught others how to cook their favorite food or meal over Zoom. When we had multiple people who signed up for the same food, we had a cookoff to compare techniques.
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 4:35 AM on December 5, 2021

We've done tastings, cooking lessons, escape rooms, Among Us games. I liked the tastings best, no pressure to do anything but listen and eat.
posted by potrzebie at 12:28 PM on December 5, 2021

We did trivia over Zoom via the free version of this service called Crowdpurr, I have no idea, it was quite fun and interactive.
posted by The Biggest Dreamer at 1:29 PM on December 5, 2021

Skribbl (basically Pictionary) is pretty fun.
posted by ambulatorybird at 4:36 PM on December 5, 2021

Response by poster: Thank you all for your suggestions! These are great!
posted by cadge at 3:09 PM on December 6, 2021