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January 11, 2021 12:02 AM Subscribe
What are some fun games to play over Zoom for a party night of 8-10 people?
Since the pandemic hit, a group of friends and family have gotten together every few weeks to play games and hang out over Zoom. We usually end up playing Jackbox games or Codewords, but it's beginning to get stale. We're on the lookout for new games to play and switch it up. Ideally, something casual that shouldn't take longer than 5 mins to explain, and something where everyone is an active participant (I love playing Mafia, but it's torture for those who are out of the game early). And if it's a digital interface, even better for everyone to play on their phones.
Since the pandemic hit, a group of friends and family have gotten together every few weeks to play games and hang out over Zoom. We usually end up playing Jackbox games or Codewords, but it's beginning to get stale. We're on the lookout for new games to play and switch it up. Ideally, something casual that shouldn't take longer than 5 mins to explain, and something where everyone is an active participant (I love playing Mafia, but it's torture for those who are out of the game early). And if it's a digital interface, even better for everyone to play on their phones.
On Boardgame Arena:
Concept is 2-12 players - you're guessing words based on icons. I've played it with 6 and it's good, and I think it would scale well to 10.
Martian Dice is a pretty lightweight push-your-luck dice-rolling game for 2-10 players - it's good as a simple filler but wouldn't hold anyone's attention for that long.
Saboteur is a social deduction traitor game - you are dwarves tunnelling towards gold, but some of your group are saboteurs playing cards that don't help. 2-12 players (but I wouldn't play it with less than 6)
posted by siskin at 3:17 AM on January 11, 2021
Concept is 2-12 players - you're guessing words based on icons. I've played it with 6 and it's good, and I think it would scale well to 10.
Martian Dice is a pretty lightweight push-your-luck dice-rolling game for 2-10 players - it's good as a simple filler but wouldn't hold anyone's attention for that long.
Saboteur is a social deduction traitor game - you are dwarves tunnelling towards gold, but some of your group are saboteurs playing cards that don't help. 2-12 players (but I wouldn't play it with less than 6)
posted by siskin at 3:17 AM on January 11, 2021
Among Us? It's Mafia-adjacent but people knocked out of the game still have something to do.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 3:37 AM on January 11, 2021 [5 favorites]
posted by EndsOfInvention at 3:37 AM on January 11, 2021 [5 favorites]
We’ve played Scattergories, using this online version , and it’s worked really well over Zoom.
posted by jacobian at 5:05 AM on January 11, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by jacobian at 5:05 AM on January 11, 2021 [1 favorite]
We laughed really hard playing broken picturephone a few weeks ago.
posted by juliapangolin at 5:10 AM on January 11, 2021
posted by juliapangolin at 5:10 AM on January 11, 2021
Scavenger hunt!
One person has a list of 15-20 relatively common items folks have in their house (baby picture, something that lights up, a scented candle, a pet, holiday decoration etc); and you have 1 min per item to find it. First person back to the screen gets 3 points, anyone who gets the item back within a minute gets 1 point.
posted by larthegreat at 5:49 AM on January 11, 2021 [1 favorite]
One person has a list of 15-20 relatively common items folks have in their house (baby picture, something that lights up, a scented candle, a pet, holiday decoration etc); and you have 1 min per item to find it. First person back to the screen gets 3 points, anyone who gets the item back within a minute gets 1 point.
posted by larthegreat at 5:49 AM on January 11, 2021 [1 favorite]
If you go the Jackbox route, Fibbage and Quiplash are pretty good. they work best when you approach them as amateur versions of panel shows with wisecracking third tier comedians.
posted by Morpeth at 6:22 AM on January 11, 2021
posted by Morpeth at 6:22 AM on January 11, 2021
A group of us at our (online) work Christmas party last month enjoyed playing "Psych!" (for iPhone, and for Android); each participant will need to put the app on their own phone. It's a kind of word game, where the app asks each person a question with a quirky answer ("What's the collective name for a group of zebras?", "What was banned in Scotland between 1950-1994?") and you all have to give an answer to try to fool the group. You then get points if you either fool someone else into choosing your answer, or if you manage to get the right answer. It worked well for a group of about 8 people with the game running on our phones, whilst chatting over Zoom.
posted by Jabberwocky at 8:24 AM on January 11, 2021
posted by Jabberwocky at 8:24 AM on January 11, 2021
I saw an activity where each member of the group gives a presentation for one minute about something they are obsessed with. I believe everyone else drinks during this time.
posted by mecran01 at 12:52 PM on January 24, 2021
posted by mecran01 at 12:52 PM on January 24, 2021
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posted by ambulatorybird at 2:17 AM on January 11, 2021 [5 favorites]