Now, that everyone’s “Zooming”, it has kind of become the trend. I hang out with my friends and colleagues more on Zoom, rather than WhatsApp. And, officially in India, it’s day 11 of the lockdown and we all have run out of stories. So, we decided to play games instead, while we are video calling. So, here are some games that you could play while on Zoom group video calls.
Games to Play on Zoom Group Calls
How to play Zoom Games
Zoom doesn’t provide any built-in games nor do we have a third-party game app. But still, you can play a bunch of games by essentially sharing your computer screen and chatting with your friends on the side. To play games on Zoom, follow these steps.
- Start by hosting a new meeting and make sure the Screen Sharing and audio is ON.
- Share the Invitation URL with your friend(s) either on DM or group chat.
- Once your friends join the meeting, you are ready to play games.
- Close the Zoom window and open any of the following games in a web browser.
- Start playing
1. Among Us
What game can be more exciting to play with friends other than finding imposter Among Us? This is a game where everyone has to complete the tasks for the spaceship to take off. But there will be one imposter among us that kills the remaining players. If players completed all the tasks or found out the imposter, the game will be ended and the remaining players are winners. If the imposter killed all the players, then the imposter will be the winner.
The game stands on trust, communication, and intelligence. But the game completely loose in communication features as it only provides you the chat options. As this is a game where you need to discuss and vote the right imposter, having a Zoom as an alternative for communication makes the game much better and unintrusive as you don’t need to chat in between.
Download Among Us ($4.99)
2. Pictionary
Zoom enables you to share a white screen which well, which can be used to draw pictures. Pictionary is a fun old game where everyone has to guess a word from your drawing. I have a Note 9 which comes built-in with a stylus and this is the game I love to play. You can take rounds and use the white screen, note down your points and have a winner at the end.
You can also try this Steam game Drawful 2 which is a dictionary-style game available for free until April 11th, 2020.
3. Keep Talking & Nobody Explodes
This game divides you into 2 groups – defuser and experts. One of you can be the defuser while the rest are the experts. So, the defuser is the one that can see and defuse the bomb but he doesn’t know how to do it. Whereas the experts have a bomb-defusing manual but they can’t see the bomb. The experts guide the defuser through the Zoom call and help him to defuse the bomb to win the challenge. You all have 5 minutes to do it, otherwise, the bomb explodes. Now, it’s not a free game. But, only the defuser has to buy the game which costs $7.49. For the “experts”, you can use the free bomb-defusing manual.
The game is present on all major platforms like Android, iOS, Windows, macOS, PS4, XBOX, etc.
Download Keep Talking & Nobody Explodes ($7.49)
4. Just One
If anyone of you owns the board game – Just One, you can play it on Zoom as well. The mystery guy can show up the card with the word to the camera and then hide it. While the other participants can write the clues on paper. Zoom also has a waiting room option. So, in case you want to hide information, you can kick the person to the waiting room. It would be hard to get along at the start but a really fun game once you get the hang of it.
5. Crossword Puzzles
Back in the day, I and my cousins used to solve crosswords in the local newspaper. Just, for nostalgia’s sake, we still find it fun. But, now we have been doing it over Zoom. You can either use the Jackbox’s Crossword Puzzle or head over to the USA Today’s daily crossword. Either way, share your screen and you all can get along solving it together.
6. Code Names
As the name suggests, this is kind of a word game where you can play with 4 players divided into 2 teams, blue and red. One member of the team will be a player and another member will be a spymaster. All players can see a table of 25 names. But Spymaster can also see which name is marked blue and which name is marked red. The blue team has to select the names that are marked blue, similarly, the red team should select the names that are marked red. The player plays the game and the spymaster have to give a one-word hint for the player to select the word that is marked in their color.
For example, the blue team’s spymaster wants the player to select the word “Wind”. So to give a one-word hint, he can say something like “Air”. But there will be also other words that are related to the air like “Vaccum”. So Spymaster has to check all the words and hint a word that the player should not get confused and the player has the select the name understanding the spymaster. This is a web app and doesn’t provide you any communication options. It will be great to play when you guys are together, but a zoom can be helpful to play remotely.
Open Code Names
7. Karaoke
Doing Karaoke virtually is pretty easy than any other game on this list. All you have to do is, open up a YouTube Karaoke video, share your screen and you all can sing along. To even better things, you can use Watch2Gether and share the same YouTube video with your friends while you sing along on Zoom.
Watch2Gether doesn’t require you to sign-up unless you want to create a playlist.
Visit Watch2Gether
8. Charades
Charades is a game wherein you have to enact a word and make the other participants guess it. You can not only play Charades on Zoom but on any group calling app. Houseparty is one such video calling app that provides charades within the app itself. In case you have run out of movie names or words, you can use this site or this Reddit page for ideas and words.
9. Trivia Games
Trivia Games are anyway a lot of fun. We always played this on a fun weekend outing. Now on zoom, since one of you can share screen. You can use this random trivia generator site that generates a bunch of trivia question cards. You click on a card and it flips over to give you the right answer. By default, it provides you with questions from various topics like Art, Science, History, Geography, etc. But, you can always click on the “+” button at the bottom and generate questions from specific categories.
In case a couple of you have your scores tied, there is a tie-breaker question as well.
10. Remote Insensitivity
Remote Insensitivity is an online version of the popular card game – Cards Against Humanity (CAH). In case you don’t know, it’s a game of filling in the blanks in a sentence with the most offensive, risque, or politically incorrect word. The funniest one gets a point and the game moves it. You can play it online, it allows up to 6 players. Moreover, you can play it on Zoom and let people call out their fill in the blanks. It sounds ridiculously funny when people have to say the entire sentence out loud. It’s even better if one of you has the physical card set with you.
11. Zoom Bingo
Bingo is a fun game and it can also be played on Zoom. Now, to play it on Zoom, you don’t require an individual to pull out Bingo balls or call out numbers. One of you can share your screen and use this online Bingo Number Generator site. You can also change the number count from 1-75 to 1-100 and start playing Housie instead. However, you would need scratch cards or make one of your own DIY cards.
12. Scattegories
Scattegories is a really fun game to play within a group. The basic idea of the game is to answer a bunch of questions. The answer to these questions is 1-word which should start with the letter provided on the site. For instance, you will be provided with the letter “J” and 12 questions. The answer to these questions should be 1-word and begin with the letter J.
To answer all of these questions, obviously, you have a time limit. You can play around with the number of questions, time duration, etc.
Visit Scattegories
13. Chess
Chess is not a group activity but you can always play it one-on-one or with your better half. The best site to play chess is Chees.com. You can have your Zoom alongside and connect on the website and play against each other. In case you both want to be on the same team, you can always challenge the computer.
Visit Chess.com
14. Steam Remote Play
Steam Remote Play is built to be played online. With Zoom, you can share your screen while your friends remotely connect to the Steam Remote play app. You can all compete against each other while on the group chat. It’s fun to beat your friends and see their faces on the video call.
15. Overcooked
Overcooked is a chaotic couch co-op cooking game for 1-4 players. Working as a team, you and your fellow chefs must prepare, cook, and serve up a variety of tasty orders before the baying customers storm out in a huff. The same is on sale for $1.75 on Epic Games until 16th April 2020.
Download Overcooked
16. 1v1.lol
1v1.lol is kind of a Fortnite Lite game. You have a lot of options to play like one vs one with a random player, 4 players, playing with a computer, and party mode with friends. On any mode, you can access a bunch of weapons to defeat the opponent and building blocks to protect, climb, confuse, etc.
This game can be totally player without any communication with the other team player. But when you start communicating, you can build and defeat your opponent together. You can select a different set of weapons and building blocks to take advantage of more styles of attacking techniques.
Open 1v1.lol
Want to play with your best half, here you can find out some of the best games you can play as a couple.
