Family Zoom Fun During Covid-19

One way I tried to feel less isolated during the COVID-19 stay at home was to organize my family and a close group of family friends (22-24 people) with a weekly game night via Zoom usually lasting about 2 hours.

Week 2 – Family Feud
Family vs Family. Members of each family went head to head to get the top answer to a question and either played or passed their turn. Goal was to get the most rounds correct. Excel was used to have the answers, the host printed this out and then colored in the responses in black so when the spreadsheet was shared, answers were not visible until the background cell color was removed.

Week 3 – Scavenger Hunt
Household vs Household. The host prepared three rounds, the first was to find something in your house (foreign currency), the second was to solve a riddle and find an object that matched, and the final round was a category that you had to find an object that would fit into (something with a circle) . The first person to show the host via the camera got 5 points, the second received 3 points, and anyone else that found an object got 1 point. If you didn’t find an object, it was 0 points.

Week 4 – Match Game
A question was asked to 1 person that person had to write down their answer. All the rest of the players wrote down what they think the person would have responded. All responses are shown through the camera, and points are given to people who guessed the right response.

Week 5- Scattegories
Household vs Household. 12 categories per round, 3 minutes per round, and a letter. Each household would come up with a response using a specific letter for each category. A point is given if no one else had the same response. two points for an original answer that used the same double letter (Daisy Duck).

Week 7 – Trivia, using breakout rooms
Bucket Hat Rose & I love bar trivia, so this game was based on our experience with Geeks that Drink. A lot of time went into finding or researching questions, putting into categories, setting up the spreadsheet, and creating image rounds. Teams were broken down by age and put into a zoom breakout room so they can discuss the questions. When they were called back to the main room, the captain typed or texted their responses to me, and I entered them all into a spreadsheet so it was able to calculate the scores. What I failed to consider was the mass messaging in the breakout rooms were time limited, so I had to text the questions to each team. If I had to do it again, I would save each round as a separate document, and then and that attachment to zoom so everyone would have received it and use it when in the breakout room.

Week 8 – no game, social call

Week 9 – Trivia, cruise style
The host enjoyed trivia from a few weeks ago, but since it was a little confusing, decided to do more of a cruise ship style where questions were asked, individuals wrote down their answers, and at the end of the round, we’d go over the answers and rated our own sheets.

Week 11 – Balderdash
Host shared an uncommon word with all players. Players sent a private message to the “reader” with a possible definition of the word. Host sent the correct definition to the reader. The reader reads all definitions. Reader reads definition a second time and participants vote for the definition they think is correct. Points are given based on: 1 point = to the participant for every vote they received for their definition. 2 points = to the reader if no one guesses the correct answer or to any participant that guessed the right answer. 3 points to any participant that wrote a definition that matched the real definition.

Week 12 – Clue
This virtual who-done-it game had a COVID-19 theme. The characters were all of us, the locations were our houses, and someone sold a hot commodity item like hand sanitizer, paper towels, toilet paper, beans, eggs, milk, etc. Unfortunately half of our participants didn’t attend this week – so on the fly we modified the game a little so instead of the participants getting ‘cards’ the host was the gatekeeper. She would role a die, and the number correlated with a person, place, thing, group play, or double share. We utilized the Zoom breakout rooms to put the host in with the participant to get the info they need to eliminate until someone won the game by guessing who the person was that took an item from someone’s house. The game has potential – and we will play this again soon when more people could come.

Week 13 – No Game
This week’s game was cancelled due to an event half the participants would be attending. The other half had already done a virtual escape room during the week and were to do a virtual cooking contest the next day so we all enjoyed this time off.

September 2020 – Bingo
A game with very little preparation is BINGO. Utilizing a website that created a bingo card, each participant went to that website to get their card. One participant was a caller and used a bingo call cage they had to call the numbers. Participants then marked the virtual card. Several rounds were played with different winning patterns such as the traditional 5 in a row horizonal, vertical or diagonal, an X, large frame, square, etc. Sample virtual bingo card: https://app.bingomaker.com/free/get_a_card

January 2021 – Name that Tune
Before meeting, the host gathered songs and titles and created a playlist. On the day of the game night, we were put into two groups, and we took turns facing off to name that tune. 1 point was awarded for naming the artist, 1 point for the song title and 2 points to sing the next lyrics.

March 2021 – Online Group Game using the App: Psych! Outwit Your Friends
This month’s activity was to using our cell phones to play an online group game. The host had us all download a free app on our cell phones to play along. We kept Zoom on to talk and see each others reactions. The premise of the game is to make up fake answers to real trivia questions. After everyone submitted an answer, you get to vote on what you think is the correct answer. The more people you are playing with, the more answers to chose from. Friends get points if you guess their response and you’ll get points for guessing correctly.

January 2022 – Trivia
Trivia with 7 rounds with 10 questions each. Participants wrote down their responses on a sheet of paper. After each round, the correct answers were shared. Correct answers were 1 point.

February 2022 – Up Close
Can you identify common items up close? This game put it to the test. Zoomed in photos were shown to all participants. Participants were able to raise hand to take a guess. Correct answers got 1 point each. After guesses, the zoomed out object was shown.

March 2022 – Scavenger Hunt Matching Game
This month we spent 5 minute racing around a specific room to grab 10 items and returned back to the computer where we picked a person to match to “the matcher”. That person showed their 10 items, and for each person “finders” that matched it with their own picks, got 1 point, if no one matched the items the matcher got 1 point. There were 7 of us so we used 7 areas allowing each participant to be a matcher. Rooms we used: kitchen, bedroom, bathroom, laundry room, coat closet, linen closet, and kitchen pantry. Other rooms for consideration include office/desk area, garage, spare bedrooms, mudroom, foyer, & hallway. This game allowed us time to talk and laugh – but also get out of our seats and stretch the legs. Putting away 70 items at the end wasn’t super fun….but the game was worth it!