Five video call games perfect for large groups

In 2020, video calls are becoming the primary method of facet-to-face communication. Families and friends are regularly catching up and "doing dinner" via skype. Youth groups are becoming virtual youth groups and churches are meeting via zoom and tuning into live streams. School classrooms are doing group video conferences too!

Playing games on a video call or video conference is great way to bring some fun to the call and tone down the awkwardness that seeing and talking to people through a screen can bring. If you're looking for some great video call game ideas - check out our collection.

If you've already been a part of some large group video calls, you'll know that it can be really tricky to communicate, especially when there is no agenda, schedule or leader. Playing games with large groups on zoom or skype can be even more difficult. To help make it easier, we've put together our top five games for large group video calls and conferences.

Quiz

A quiz is a perfect way to entertain a large group on a zoom call. It works really well because one person can lead the call and the rest of the people involved will be able to take their time and answer the questions in response. It can also provide some good opportunities for different people to read out answers or maybe have a laugh about a question.

Articulate

Two really popular board games that are simple to play and work great for big group video calls. Both games involve one player explaining a word, without saying the word, to other players who have to guess what word they're talking about. To save confusion with audio (depending on the quality), it might be wise to get the guessing players to just write their answers on the chat thread rather than saying them out loud. Grab the board games here: Articulate and Taboo or use an online word generator.

Pictionary

Pictionary is another one of our favourite games for video calls with large groups. Divide into teams and then get one player to point their camera at a piece of paper or whiteboard they can use to draw. Some video chat apps like Zoom also have a "whiteboard mode" that could be used instead. Then once the person who is drawing begins, the other players on their team can guess by shouting out or by typing in their guesses in the text chat.

Once you've got the standard version of pictionary working well - try a variant like Play Dough Pictionary, Feet Pictionary or Creationary.

Oh, and if you need a pictionary word generator - try this one.

Heads or Tails?

Often used as a quick icebreaker or filler game at quiz nights, heads or tails can be a fun one to play with families and friends on your catchup zoom call. Everyone needs to lock in their guess for the combination of heads or tails that two coins will show - this is done by placing your hands on your head or bottom. Then one player will flip the coins and whoever gets it correct stays in while everyone else sits down. The last person standing wins!

Check it out

True or False

Another game that is often used as a quick icebreaker game at quiz nights, true or false is an easy game to play with large groups. The person running the game will read out a "true or false" statement and everyone else on the video call must lock in whether they think it's true or false. They signal a true statement by placing their hands on their heads, and a false statement by placing their hands on their bottom.