The best and most fun virtual party games to play online with your friends and family

This is especially helpful if you’re an avid game player (such as playing board or card games or a classic murder mystery game) but you’re not able to meet up with your friends and family in person because of social distancing.

So here’s a few games that you can play together online without having to download any apps using Zoom/FaceTime/Skype/WhatsApp/MS Teams or whatever else you use to meet with people virtually.

There are loads of games online that you can play alone so we’ve focused on the games that are for groups of people to play together - such as for a birthday/hen/stag party, a virtual office party or a Christmas/Eid celebration... the list goes on.

Custom Murder Mystery Game: You Dunnit

• Game length: 1.5 hours
• Price: From £14.99
• Players: 6-10
• Fun Rating: 9/10
• Vitual Ease: 8/10
• You-dunnit.com (You're on it now!)

You Dunnit is a customisable murder mystery game that you can play with friends using your phones, tablets or laptops whilst having an online video call together.

The idea is simple: you create your own bespoke game in 15 minutes using their online game builder then share the game code with your group when it’s time to play.

Games usually last around 1.5 hours. The great things about this are that it is cheaper than your standard box set and that it’s a uniquely personalised game to you and your group. So you end up with a tailored game that no one has ever played before!

Escape Rooms Online: Trapped in the Web

• Game length: 2 hours +
• Price: From 8.99 per group
• Players: 2+ (though you could play alone)
• Fun Rating: 8/10
• Virtual Ease: 7/10
• www.trappedintheweb.com

If you enjoy going to Escape Rooms with friends you’ll enjoy this online version which has cleverly been created using Google Forms.

You get to virtually explore a house, looking in drawers or behind pictures to find clues that lead you to your escape. They’ve been cleverly themed around ‘lockdown’.

To make it a competition we played this game in groups of 4-6 with each group playing in a separate ‘breakout room’ on Zoom. The leader of each group shared their screen so that everyone else in the group could watch what was happening. You’ll need to purchase once for every group.

Pictionary Game Online: Drawasaurus

• Game length: 10 mins+
• Price: Free (Ads)
• Players: 2+
• Fun Rating: 8/10
• Vitual Ease: 8/10
• www.drawasaurus.org

This is a neat little game that you can just play on the spur of the moment, taking turns to draw a picture (you get a selection of three options on your turn) while everyone else types in their guesses. Scores are based on whether people guess correctly - and how quickly.

You can play over one or multiple rounds so when you’ve had enough you can just stop. It’s pretty easy and quick to get set up. However, unless you create a ‘private’ game then you might get random people joining in at any point (which can be funny - as we discovered).

Pub Quiz Online: Kahoot

• Game length: 10 mins+
• Price: Free (or subscriptions between $4 and $60 per month)
• Players: 2+
• Fun Rating: 8/10
• Virtual Ease: 8/10
• www.kahoot.com

There are quite a lot of quiz games online but we recommend Kahoot because it’s an easy to use multi-choice quiz game that you can use to create your own personal quizzes.

You can sign up professionally (such as for a school) or simply for personal use with your friends. There is a cost to it if you want to unlock certain features or have more than 10 people playing at one time but the basic level is free.

If you wanted to go all out and host quizzes for up to 2,000 players at one time you can sign up to their ‘360 Pro’ package. But for a simple game with friends, this is as good as it gets.

Bingo Online: My Free Bingo Cards

• Game length: 10 mins+
• Price: Free for up to 30 people
• Players: 2+
• Fun Rating: 7/10
• Vitual Ease: 7/10
• Myfreebingocards.com

For those of you who are missing your fix of the bingo halls, you can create your own virtual bingo cards for up to 30 friends. You can even choose words rather than numbers if you want to do something a bit different.

Once your cards are created you share a link with your friends who will all get a unique game card. Bear in mind that you’ll need some method to draw your numbers or words. We recommend using an online bingo ball generators – such as the one at appzaza.com.

Scattergories Online

• Game length: 5 mins+
• Price: Free
• Players: 2+
• Fun Rating: 7/10
• Vitual Ease: 7/10

scattergoriesonline.net

This one is a little trickier to set up but if you love the board game Scattergories – this is a mobile browser version you can play with your family and friends online.

In this game, you pick themes like ‘boy’s names’ or ‘things you find in the bedroom’. You then pick a letter and start a timer. You have to see how many of the themes you can find examples of which begin with your letter.

Players score each other so there’s a lot of discretion over whether you like someone’s answer or not, so be prepared for the ultra-competitive types ending up doing battle...

Curve Balls and ‘Out of the Box’ Online Game Ideas

Homemade online games

If you’re good with Zoom and PowerPoint you could create your own games.

During the first few weeks of lockdown, we did this with our families: creating picture quizzes using PowerPoint and sharing our screens to do it the homemade way.

This option might take some prep but you’ll receive kudos for pulling it off.

Pandemic Outbreak Simulator

I came across this really good simulator where you have to try and stop an outbreak of a virus such as COVID-19 and save the population!

You can change lots of variables such as how infectious the virus is, death and recovery rates, how it is spread and how strict your social distancing rules are!

It’s not technically a party game but if you’ve got the geek in you, you can play this with friends over Zoom by sharing your screen. See if you can get that coronavirus ‘R’ rate of infection down and keep everyone alive!

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