Best Zoom Games to Play With Friends Remotely

Do you miss having game nights with your friends? Here are some Zoom games that will help fill the void.

Millions of people are turning to Zoom and other free video conferencing apps for work meetings that could have just as easily been emails. As we’ve noted elsewhere, you can make those meetings a lot more enjoyable by taking advantage of the amazing geeky virtual backgrounds now available for the app.

However, backgrounds aren’t the only way to have fun with Zoom. It’s actually possible to host your next game night over the virtual conference app. While Zoom doesn’t offer official games for you and your friends to play, it turns out that some of the best party games in the world are playable through Zoom so long as you’re willing to get a little creative.

Here is just a small selection of the best (and easiest) party games to play with your friends during a Zoom conference:

Cards Against Humanity (Kind of)

Cards Against Humanity‘s raunchy humor and clever premise has made it a staple of many adult party nights. Since parties aren’t really an option in the age of social distancing, this also means the end of traditional Cards Against Humanity games.

Thankfully, there is an alternative. By going to this website, you can set up an unofficial Zoom game of Cards Against Humanity known as Remote Insensitivity. This website allows you to share a room URL with other players and hide your cards from everyone else, so it’s really the perfect way to play Cards Against Humanity (kind of) with your Zoom friends.

Scattergories

Scattergories is a classic party game of wordplay and creative thinking that has survived over the years due to the openness of the format. In other words, a creative group of players can really get quite a lot out of this game.

Thankfully, playing Scattergories over Zoom is remarkably easy, thanks to this website. You just need to create a new game and send the link to all of the participants. While the Zoom integration is rather light, seeing other people’s reactions to each round is still an essential part of the Scattergories experience.

Bar Trivia

Do you miss bar trivia nights? Does the prospect of another mid-week day without beers, a witty MC, and difficult trivia questions fill you with dread? Thankfully, there is a Zoom-friendly alternative to bar trivia nights that is here to help.

To start, just head over to this random trivia generator website. You can then choose a category and receive a scrolling list of possible questions (with available answers). You’ll just need one Zoom participant (preferably the host) to serve as the quizmaster and keep track of the score. You can even rotate between quizmasters or have everyone guess the answer and then just wait to reveal it via the website.

Karaoke

Granted, this is more of an activity than a game, but it’s such an enjoyable way to pass some time with friends that we feel obliged to mention it. Karaoke over Zoom is about as simple as it gets. You can simply take turns looking up karaoke videos and watching as your friends stumble through them.

Alternatively, you can use Zoom’s screen share to queue up videos for your friends and make them sing whatever you pick. There are quite a few ways to go, but as long as you’ve got friends, music, and possibly drinks, there’s really no wrong choice.

Pictionary

Much like Scattergories, the somewhat open-ended nature of Pictionary has helped it survive over the years. If you’ve got a fun group of friends, you’ll never tire of watching them draw a monstrosity that is supposed to be a walrus.