Virtual Happy Hour Games to Play with Coworkers

Post-work happy hours are perfect for building relationships with your coworkers while having a fun, stress-free time.

When your team can't get together in-person at a restaurant, bar, or another fun venue, you still have options for creating an enjoyable happy hour event for your group. Your group can play virtual happy hour games while sipping their cocktails or mocktails in the comfort of their own homes. 

Benefits of Happy Hours for Virtual Teams

Having a happy hour with your group is not only a fun way to unwind at the end of a long work week but will help your team get to know each other better in a low-pressure environment. It can be hard to ask a teammate for guidance on a project when you've barely spoken to or gotten to know them. Playing a game or participating in a fun activity together is a great way to build relationships with your coworkers, which will lead to more trust and communication at work.

Remote teams in particular may feel disconnected from their colleagues which can have negative effects on employee satisfaction and company culture. According to Glassdoor's multi-country survey of over 5,000 adults, 77 percent said they would consider a company's culture before applying for a job there and over 56 percent said that when it comes to job satisfaction, company culture is more important than salary. Providing a workplace environment that is high-trust, encourages growth, provides flexibility, and has stress-reducing measures will help increase productivity and retain employees. Organizing a virtual happy hour activity for your team is a great way to reduce stress and boost morale in your group, leading to a more productive and enjoyable workplace.

Virtual Trivia

What says happy hour more than having a cocktail and trying your best at some fun bar trivia? Play a few rounds with your coworkers from the comfort of your home in Virtual Private Trivia offered by CourseHorse. Everyone will feel included as they work in teams to answer a mixed bag of trivia questions with topics such as music, movies, history, ice cream flavors, pop culture, sports, global cuisine, dog breeds, and other fun subjects. The game is one-hour long, perfect for an after-work event, and consists of four challenging (but not impossible) rounds of trivia: a traditional round, a music round, an image round, and a surprise round.

Water or Not Water

Inspired by the HBO series "Run", this entertaining happy-hour game requires some acting and is sure to elicit plenty of laughs. The rules are simple: one person takes a shot of a clear liquid, either water or a type of clear alcohol, that they poured without their team members seeing. Then, they say if it was "water" or "not water" and their coworkers have to guess if they are telling the truth or not. The fun part is trying to trick your colleagues into guessing wrong with some good acting skills and facial expressions as you take your shot.

Virtual Charades

A classic party game that never loses its appeal, virtual charades are a fun way to get your team bonding and out of their shells. Working in teams, you'll silently act out the title of a book, tv show, movie, or a random word or phrase that your coworkers have to guess before time runs out. A non-player can come up with the prompts or you can use a charades generator website that will come up with words and phrases for you. For a fun twist, you can play virtual charades in reverse where everyone has to act something out and one person is the guesser. 

Majority Rules 

In this fun virtual happy hour game, participants take turns asking an either/or question (do you like cats or dogs? Hot dogs or hamburgers? Summer or winter? etc.) and everyone says their choice or writes it down and holds it up for their coworkers to see. After the answers are tallied up, everyone determines if they were in the majority or minority of opinions. To make it a drinking game, if you're in the minority you take a sip of your chosen beverage – cocktail or mocktail, whatever suits you!

Virtual Escape Room: the '90s

If your group loves puzzles and solving riddles, they'll have a blast participating in a fun escape room challenge that can be played from your own kitchen table or home office. The '90s babies on your team will especially enjoy Virtual Escape Room: The '90s bookable through CourseHorse. In this 75-minute challenge, you and your group are at a '90s throwback camp when you're mysteriously pulled into a time-traveling portal that transports you back to the actual '90s. Get ready to reminisce on the good old days of Blockbuster, Nickelodeon, and VHS as you work in teams to solve clues in the form of audio and video clips, character descriptions, and virtual maps. The team that works the fastest will escape the '90s and reign victorious. 

Virtual Scavenger Hunt

For an exciting happy hour activity that gets you out of your chair, book CourseHorse's Virtual Scavenger Hunt. Your group is sure to bond and laugh together as they compete in a friendly competition that involves cracking codes, finding items around their homes, and completing silly challenges. You'll spend most of the time in your mini-team but will have a chance to show the entire group what you found or created in a fun show-and-tell round at the end. At just one-hour long, this game is perfect for after-work happy hours.

Guess the Emoji Sentence

Put your emoji skills to the test! In this fun game that's perfect for happy hour shenanigans, your group takes turns using emojis to create a movie or song title, a type of food or drink, or a common phrase that others have to guess. If Zoom chat doesn't have all the emojis you need, you can easily copy and paste them from Get Emoji. This game works well played in teams and with a timer set for around three minutes; the team that guesses the most correct answers in time wins.

Learn a Fad Dance

After sitting at your workstation all day, it feels good to get up and move around. Why not add some fun and easy dance steps to your movement? In this happy hour game that will have your group laughing in no time, you'll get the chance to show off your moves to some of the most popular dances over the last few decades. To play, you'll need to appoint a (brave) team leader (or take turns being the leader) to play the music and lead everyone in the dance steps. 

You can start with something easy and classic, like the Macarena or the YMCA. Other fairly simple fad dances include the Cha Slide, Electric Slide, Chicken Dance, and the Hokey Pokey. Work your way up to dances like Gangnam Style, Beyonce's Single Ladies, and the Floss. It's happy hour so feel free to sip on your favorite adult beverage for some liquid courage!

Virtual Team Olympics

Participate in some friendly competition during your group's happy hour by playing Virtual Team Olympics, bookable through CourseHorse. In this one-hour event for up to 200 people, your group will have a blast competing in silly challenges such as type-racing, Family Feud-style games, racing to build the tallest marshmallow tower, creating balloon animals, and playing the harmonica. This is a fun, hands-on happy hour event for those who want more action than just sitting still at their desk. You'll spend half the time working in teams of 4 to 5 people in breakout rooms and the other half with the entire group. 

Virtual Game Night: Battle Royale

Even when you're in different cities across the country (or around the world), you can still get together with your coworkers for a fun game night. Book CourseHorse's Virtual Game Night: Battle Royale for an exciting hour of three rounds of games: List it (how well can you list things under pressure), Think Fast (race to answer trivia questions), and Link It (testing your ability to make connections). You'll work the majority of the time in mini-teams but will have interaction with the entire group as well. 

Virtual Trivia: the Office

Trivia is a happy hour favorite that can easily be played virtually with your coworkers. Put your knowledge of one of the most hilarious and beloved TV shows to the test in CourseHorse's Virtual Trivia: The Office. You'll be quizzed on all the Dunder Mifflin madness in this one-hour game for up to 200 people. Groups will be split into mini-teams to come up with the correct answers before rejoining the entire group. CourseHorse's trivia is designed to be challenging (not impossible) but don't worry: if you don't know the right answer there's a good chance one of your teammates will. 

Virtual Escape Room: the Arctic Circle

You're on your way to the North Pole when your plane crash-lands, stranding you in an icy tundra with blizzarding conditions and fierce polar bears. How will you escape this frosty barren land and reach your destination? In CourseHorse's Virtual Escape Room: The Arctic Circle, you'll work in mini-teams to solve puzzles and complete challenges in a race to be the first to escape. To ensure a smooth process, an expert facilitator will provide the clues that come in the form of character descriptions, virtual maps, audio and video clips, and mini-games. 

Two Truths and a Lie

The directions for this fun and easy icebreaker game are simple: everyone takes turns telling the group three facts about themselves, with one of the facts being completely made up. The group then has to guess which fact is the lie. To keep it interesting, try to think of the most compelling and unique facts about yourself to try and fool your team; would your team ever guess that you only listen to heavy metal music? Or that you broke your foot while riding an ATV through the desert? 

Never Have I Ever

This is another great icebreaker game that's perfect for happy hour fun. Everyone holds up five fingers and takes turns telling the group something they've never done, for example, "Never have I ever gone surfing." If you have surfed before, you put one finger down and take a drink. The first person to put all five fingers down is the loser (or the winner, depending on how you look at it) and has to finish their drink or do whatever else your group deems appropriate. 

Watch Party

Your team can sip on their favorite adult beverages as they watch a movie or show together with Teleparty (formerly Netflix Party), a browser extension that synchronizes your video playback and has a group chat function. You can turn your watch party into an entertaining happy hour game by having everyone drink whenever a character says a certain phrase or does something specific; for example, drink every time you see a ghost in Ghostbusters or every time someone says Regina George's full name in Mean Girls. 

Wikipedia Race

Competing in "Wikiraces'' is a super fun way to spend your after-work happy hour. To play, everyone starts on the same Wikipedia page (the Olympics, Rosa Parks, the Eiffel Tower, it can be about anything). Then, when someone says "go, " everyone races to get to another Wikipedia page. To reach the destination, you can click any hyperlinks within the page; the trick is that you can't use the back button or CTRL F or any typing whatsoever – you can only click on links. The more distant the connection between the topics, the harder it will be. For instance, going from "spoon" to "cutlery" will be easy, but how fast can you get from "spoon" to "the Philippines?" Wikipedia even has a Wikiracing page that provides rules to the game and ideas for target pages. 

Virtual Brick Building

For a hands-on happy hour game that will bring out your inner child, book CourseHorse's Virtual Brick Building class. Your group will have a blast competing in team and individual Lego challenges such as building a zoo scene, clones (team members build the exact same structure), building the largest tower, and self-portraits (build a Lego version of yourself). Each participant will be shipped a kit with over 200 Legos before the event. 

Virtual Pictionary

Put your drawing skills to the test and bond with your group in Virtual Pictionary, a one-hour activity bookable through CourseHorse. Working in teams, you'll draw pictures on a virtual whiteboard while your teammates hurry to guess what it is. The facilitator will provide prompts that are easy, medium, and difficult. Don't worry if you're not an artist, the worse your drawing is the more laughs you'll all have! 

Virtual Screenshot Showdown

Virtual Screenshot Showdown (bookable through CourseHorse) is sure to bring out the silliness in your group during your next happy hour. Using Zoom's virtual backgrounds, your team will work together to create their best 1980s glamor shots, adventure photos, celebrity photobombs, and other outrageous images. The group will then vote on the funniest and best photo for each round. CourseHorse's professional facilitator will provide the prompts and ensure everything runs smoothly. 

Virtual Trivia: Holiday Music Karaoke

CourseHorse's Virtual Trivia: Holiday Music Karaoke is the perfect way to spend a holiday happy hour with your virtual team. In this one-hour event for up to 200 people, your group will surely embrace the holiday spirit as they finish the lyrics to popular holiday songs, identify songs by the first note, and of course, try their hardest to identify each verse to the 12 Days of Christmas. Instead of having a typical office holiday party, engage your group in this fun game that is sure to boost morale. 

Virtual Trivia: Reality TV 

It's hard not to be pulled into the entertaining world of reality TV. There are bound to be some diehard reality show fans in your group that would love to play Virtual Trivia: Reality TV (offered by CourseHorse). In this one-hour game, you'll be quizzed on everything on reality TV, from competition shows like Survivor, Masterchef, Big Brother, and The Voice, to social and dating shows like The Bachelor, Love Island, Dance Moms, and Keeping Up with the Kardashians. Don't worry if you haven't seen them all; CourseHorse's trivia is designed to be challenging, but not make you feel hopeless. 

I Spy

For a spin on everyone's favorite childhood game, your group can take turns using their little eye to spy something in a coworker's background. To keep it interesting, make sure your background has lots of items in it for others to spy. This is the perfect opportunity to have fun with your background (instead of the boring professional ones you normally use for video calls). 

Virtual Googling History

In today's world, information is always at our fingertips; many of us can find the answers we are looking for in just a few seconds by googling it on our computer or smartphone. In CourseHorse's Virtual Googling History, you'll work in a small team to find the answers to prompts given to you by your game host. You'll be looking for obscure information on the internet in three fun rounds: image search, scavenger hunt, and debate round (your team will take one side of a hotly debated topic). Your team will also have the opportunity to share the interesting tidbits of information they found in a sharing session with the entire group.

Virtual White Elephant Team Gift Experience

Get your team in the holiday spirit by playing a fun virtual gift-giving game bookable through CourseHorse. In Virtual White Elephant Team Gift Experience, your group will take turns virtually opening new gifts or stealing gifts from others. The facilitator will start by going over the rules of the game and playing a fun trivia round to determine the order of the gift opening. Don't be afraid to steal from others – it's all part of the fun! CourseHorse handles all the shopping for you and will mail each participant the gift they end up with after the event. 

Virtual Ugly Sweater Making Party

Turn your happy hour into a fun holiday craft party with CourseHorse's Virtual Ugly Sweater Making Party. In this one-hour class, your group will make their own perfectly ugly holiday sweater while listening to classic holiday music and answering fun holiday trivia. An ugly sweater-making kit is sent to each participant in advance that includes a red sweater and all the gaudy accessories you could ask for. In the end, you'll get the chance to participate in a silly fashion show to show off your hideously awesome creation.

Virtual Mixology Workshop

While not a game, why not spend a happy hour learning about mixology and stirring up your own tasty cocktails to sip on with your colleagues? In Virtual Mixology Workshop, bookable through CourseHorse, your group will learn about mixology history and techniques as they mix up three different delicious cocktails: an Old Fashioned, a ginger lime margarita, and a mint julep. In the end, you'll get to virtually "cheers" your group and taste your yummy creations. CourseHorse will even ship you a cocktail-making ingredient kit in advance, as well as a gift card to buy the spirits of your choice. 

Virtual Springtime Mixology

Mixology classes are a great way to bond with your group while learning a new skill. Instead of sipping the same boring drink you always make for happy hours at home, learn how to expertly craft a flavorful and delicious cocktail in Virtual Springtime Mixology, bookable through CourseHorse. An expert instructor will guide your group as they mix up three refreshing cocktails perfect for springtime: a Daisy Buchanan Sour, a Briar Patch Cooler, and a Springtime Old Fashioned. CourseHorse will ship materials to each participant before class, as well as a gift card to purchase your favorite brand of spirits. 

Virtual Wine & Cheese Workshop

Elevate your knowledge of wine and cheese pairings and unwind with your group in a Virtual Wine & Cheese Workshop, bookable through CourseHorse. In this 90-minute class led by an expert instructor, your group will learn how wine and cheese are made and what flavors make them go so well together. Come with questions as this is the perfect opportunity to get feedback from a professional on your own pairing ideas. CourseHorse does the shopping for you, shipping to each participant two different bottles of wine and two types of cheeses.

Virtual Pride Mixology

Celebrate Pride Month with this fun happy hour event that can accommodate up to 500 people. In Virtual Pride Mixology, your group will create LGBTQ-inspired cocktails that incorporate ingredients from LGBTQ-owned businesses (Stonewall Kitchen's jam, for instance). You'll also learn a bit about the history of mixology and the proper way to use bar tools to craft the perfect cocktail. A mixology kit will be sent to each participant in advance, as well as a gift card to purchase your favorite brand of spirits. 

Virtual Make-Your-Own Mocktail

Mocktails give you all the yummy flavors of a well-prepared cocktail without the dreaded hangover. Your group can learn how to mix up three delicious alcohol-free cocktails (Blackberry Bramble Fizz, a Zero-Proof Margarita, and a Creamsicle Gimlet) in CourseHorse's Virtual Make-Your-Own Mocktail. No need to scour the grocery store shelves for hard-to-find ingredients: CourseHorse will ship you a mocktail-making kit ahead of time, even a gift card to buy fresh produce.