I am going to miss sitting around our family’s table playing games with my husband and kids, parents, siblings, nieces and nephews this holiday season. Not being able to travel doesn’t mean the whole family can’t have fun together, though! We'd rather be in person, but we've enjoyed still being able to connect with friends and family in different parts of the country online. We love not to have to give up on our game nights. Here are a few of our favorites that work really well virtually. Our family has copies of each of the games listed in this post to use as a basis for online playing. There are different ways to adapt to play virtually; here is how we do it:
Oneword
How to Play: Everyone uses their own device to sign in to oneword.games to type in clues. One person is guessing and everyone else gives a clue for that word. If two people’s clue match, the common word gets eliminated and the person guessing has fewer clues to find the final word. The more people in the game, the better.
Codenames
How to Play: is a party-style game where players have a grid full of words and are trying to get their teammates to guess the words by giving only one-word clues. Players don't want their partners to guess opponents' words, only the words on their team. To play online, you can use a spreadsheet to fill in words or images. Or if you're feeling really creative, take items and place them in a grid. Share a photo of it virtually.
Hangman
How to Play: One person either types in how many letters to guess or holds it up on a piece of paper. You can also use Powerpoint/Slides to create a deck with Hangman words and share a screen.
Boggle
How to Play: Set up an additional camera on Zoom/Meet and use the Boggle tray as the extra person signed in to the meeting. Everybody plays Boggle as if they are in the same room!
How to Play: Skribble.io is a fun drawing/guessing game. Everyone takes turns drawing/guessing words on their own devices. You can add your own word list as well.
Sheep
How to Play: One person mentions a category. Everyone writes down 3 things in that category. Then compare lists. You are trying to match as many people’s items as possible.
Charades
How to Play: Just like traditional charades, but online! Each person should have their own device. We find it best to use a “Charades Generator” like getcharadesideas.com to pick words.
Strawberry
How to Play: This is the perfect game for word geeks. Each person plays on their own device by going to http://strawberry.goffrie.com/. You pick a word that gets sent to someone else. Everyone tries to give clues by giving anagrams from the letters that are given to you to try to figure out what the new word is.
What games do you love to play virtually?
Questions about any of these games or want more details, add it in the comments below.