20+ Virtual Games to Play Online When You Can't Be Together

UNO!™

The beloved card game—yes, the same one you used to play on summer vacations—has been given a digital upgrade. Based on the classic, this online version has you pick and draw cards on the UNO app rather than in person. The game features new rules, World Series tournaments, and different modes of play you just can't get from a deck of paper cards.

G-rated and family-friendly, you can play for free in teams or individually, competitively, or just for fun. Might we suggest having a video call at the same time so you can gloat when you're about to win?

Jackbox.tv

Jackbox has offered a plethora of virtual game options and activities since 2013. The franchise started with the release of You Don't Know Jack, a video game that combines trivia with comedy.

The franchise has grown to offer dozens of games, each cleverly designed and easy to play. Only one person in your group needs to purchase a party pack or a single game (starting at $3.99), so the whole group doesn't have to fork over change.

To join, the host starts a game, and all players go to Jackbox.tv to enter a four-letter code. Whether you play Drawful, an adult version of Pictionary, or Fibbage, where you detect lies, you can expect to have a fun and creative time.

Monopoly

There's something about Monopoly that is timeless and ageless. But when you can't gather around the dinner table for hours, you can still enjoy bankrupting friends and family online.

This version costs $4.99 but has no ads—and offers three levels of difficulty and multiplayer video chat. We recommend using the video chat as you play to watch one another roll the dice, buy property, and try to stay out of jail. This game only allows four players, so choose carefully.

Watson Adventures' Virtual Hunts

Boosting corporate morale when you aren't in the same physical space can be difficult, but choosing one of Watson Adventures' team-building activities may do the trick. Your group can bond through trivia mastery, solving a murder mystery, or searching a museum to find hidden gems: all virtually. "But what about friends and family?" you ask. These adventures are equally suitable for non-colleagues ages 7 to 70.

At the center of the offerings are live scavenger hunts adapted as virtual games. Participants sit down in front of their respective computers and take a virtual tour of Boston, Chicago, New York, or dozens of other locations. Using Watson's browser-based app, scavenger hunters answer trivia questions that lead to the websites of landmarks and museums. Guided by a live game host, gamers may encounter quirky art, peer inside majestic rooms, or virtually wander through famous sites.

If you want to leave home, Watson has games for that, too, and public games that anyone can join, all starting at $45 per team. Just gather your team and choose your adventure.

All Bad Cards

Pour yourself a potent cocktail and prepare to get cheeky with Bad Cards. In a spirit similar to the popular game Cards Against Humanity, Bad Cards is played online but offers four unique game modes that put a fresh spin on party games. They also developed a PG-rated game for kids.

Unlike a 600-card version bought in a brick-and-mortar store, Bad Cards has over 3000 cards in their free version (with ads), so you’ll never run out of new witty combos to play. But if you do, you can purchase additional card packs starting at $1.99, with titles like Bachelorette Party, 90s Pack, or the Disney Parody Pack. A subscription starting at $1.99 a month gets rid of the ads and offers access to over a dozen specialty card packs.

To get started, click the PLAY NOW! button at the top right, enter your game name, invite players, and let the hilarity begin. It's a great way to connect with friends and family (or strangers!) from home or anywhere. Inhibitions need not apply.

Pictionary

Challenge your inner artist with this fun-for-all-ages activity played via your phone or desktop. The Pictionary word generator has four settings—Easy, Medium, Hard, and Really Hard—making it easily customizable to a wide range of participants.

Its no-brainer steps make it simple to dial in: Choose the team to play first and appoint the drawer. The generator randomly displays a word for you to draw that teammates have to guess in a minute or less. Let's just hope your touch-screen scribbling skills are up to par.

You can use this same random word generator for a host of other games, too. From the Game menu, select Charades to display words to pantomime or choose Get To Know You to display in-depth or light questions for game players to answer.

Psych!

We all tell little white lies on occasion, right? Sometimes fibbing is a necessary evil, and no more so if you want to win Psych!, a virtual game where you're encouraged to lie.

After downloading the app, the leader creates a game and then invites participants to join by entering a code. To start, players are asked a trivia question, each makes up a plausible answer, and then everyone votes on which answer is the truth. A player that convinces others that their lie was the truth—thus, 'psyching' them—wins points.

Developed by comedian Ellen DeGeneres, this version accommodates up to 20 players and is free (with ads). It provides an opportunity for quality time together—in person or virtually—that can go on for hours and hours.

Mario Kart Tour

Yep, you read that correctly. Mario Kart is back with no game station or arcade token required! While it might not be as fun as sitting in the driver's seat and turning the wheel, it'll still get your heart rate up as you try to outrun Luigi or Princess Peach for first place.

After downloading the app, you can invite up to seven other racers, whether they're registered as in-game friends, nearby, or scattered around the world. The app also enables you to customize multi-player races with a variety of rules, such as individual or team races, kart speed, and number of item slots. Set your settings, get ready, and floor it!

Scattergories

See who among your family and friends has the most creative wordplay with a virtual game of Scattergories. All you need is a video chat and either the board game or this free Scattergories word generator.

The online tool generates featured letters and categories at random, but you can add your own categories or remove ones you're not keen on. There's even a Child-Friendly setting for youngsters to join in the fun.

To play with the online tool, the host shares their screen displaying the featured letter and, when all players are ready, presses the play icon. The generator starts the 2-minute timer and reveals the category while players jot down words in the category that start with that letter.

After each round, you reset the generator to a new round with a different letter and category. Set the number of rounds per game to play as short or long a tournament as you'd like.

Bingo

You no longer have to go to a Bingo hall or even be in the same room with other players to enjoy a fun round. The Bingo Game Manager enables you to host or join a game with anyone from anywhere!

Up to 30 players can compete in games featuring numbers from 1-75 for free. (Play with even more players for a fee.) To play, the host—or caller—just shares a link with players, who can play their randomized card virtually on any device or print out their bingo card and play the old-fashioned way.

Codenames

Another board game that's been adapted to online play (in this case, for free!) is Codenames. Instead of cloaks and daggers, this award-winning spy vs. spy rivalry uses word association for players to figure out clues and lead their team to victory.

To play, you need four or more players divided into two teams, with a spymaster chosen for each team. (The other players are operatives.) The two rival spymasters know the secret identities of 25 agents, but their teammates know the agents only by their codenames. It's up to each spymaster to offer clues to their operatives that enable them to guess which agents are on their side, all the while evading a deadly assassin.

To get started, just open the browser version, create a room, and set up your favorite video or audio chat. Once you share the room URL with friends and family, let the subterfuge begin!

QuizWitz

If you want to recreate the pub quiz experience at home with far-flung family and friends, QuizWitz is the game for you. Its online platform turns any smart device into answer sheets and a game buzzer. An account is free for up to six, while a Premium (paid) account accommodates up to 100 players.

It's easy to channel your inner Alex Trebek and host a QuizWitz Live quiz. Here's what you need:

• A PC or laptop to run the quiz, with a large display visible to all players (in person or via screen-sharing)
• A tablet or smartphone for you, as the quizmaster, to present the quiz and read out the questions
  
• A smartphone for each attending player or team

For individual players or teams to join in the fun, they just need to open a browser, go to QuizWitz.tv, and enter their game code or team code. With thinking caps firmly in place, let the games begin!

GeoGuessr

This is the game that answers the question, "Where in the world...?" This geography game virtually drops players anywhere from a bustling street in London to a mountaintop in Tibet. The closer you get to identifying the location, the more points you accrue.

A monthly subscription of $2.99 allows you to invite friends and family to a private party with unlimited play on the web or app without invitees needing their own account. Once you get good at it, you can create geography-based quizzes or compete against champion GeoGuessrs worldwide.

Let's Roam

Start a weekly virtual game night or freshen yours up with Let's Roam, which offers a wide variety of trivia and other unique games, with new activities added every week. A 7-day free trial gets you started, followed by a $19.99 monthly subscription. For that, you get unlimited games without downloading software or installing apps.

Among their activities are Roam From Home scavenger hunts, which are home-based adventures designed to help groups have a blast without ever leaving their houses. Check out their virtual escape room, murder mysteries, and games for kids, too.

Clue

That classic murder mystery board game where you might hear, "Was it Colonel Mustard with the rope in the drawing room?” has turned into an online game. Once you buy the Clue app for $4.99, there are no ads or pop-ups, just unlimited multiplayer fun with no end to crime-solving.

You, friends, and family (ages 8 and up) can determine the guilty party on their mobile, PC, or Nintendo Switch—together or miles apart—from the comfort of their armchairs. When a change of scene is in order, leave the Tudor mansion to solve a murder in the Tropics, the Wild West, Hollywood, or six other crime scenes.

Golf Battle

Determine the mini golf champion among your family and friends! Play up to 6 competitors at a time on this fun, intuitive, and free app, choosing from over 120 mini-golf courses. Besides Golf Battle, its design company, Miniclip, offers a host of other sporty multiplayer games, whether your favorite is soccer, football, pool, basketball, or darts.

Broken Picturephone

Imagine a mashup of the classic telephone game and Pictionary, and you'd get Broken Picturephone. In this live, online game, you and your friends create books of drawings and phrases, one page at a time, and then present the resultant, ridiculous book to everyone in real-time.

After naming your team and gathering players in your "room," start the book by writing a phrase or creating a drawing. Once you've finished, the book passes to another player, who illustrates the phrase or captions the drawing, makes up a new one, and then passes it along. The catch is that each player can only view the page previous to theirs.

Once every player has completed a page, a chime signals that it's time to present the book! Results are guaranteed hilarious with no points tallied or scorecard required. Everyone who plays wins!

Heads Up!

If you watched The Ellen Show, you're probably familiar with this hilarious word-guessing game. Heads Up! is now a free, fun online app that up to 100 can play from virtually anywhere.

To play, draw a card, but don't look at it, and then use clues from your team to guess the word on that card before the timer runs out. Just tilt your phone to draw a new card from 18 themed decks—celebrities, animals, accents, and movies to name a few—so the fun never stops. Check out the Heads Up! Kids version, too.

Playing Cards

Want to go old school on game night...virtually? Go with Playing Cards.io and share a deck online with anyone, anywhere, for free! Deal up a game of hearts, Go Fish, or rummy, or go with a non-card favorite like checkers, chess, backgammon, or mahjong. There are dozens more classics to choose from, or you can create your own game.

To get started, select a game on the Games Page and click Start. Share the code with other players (no limit) to create a private room and play! As you drag cards (or play pieces) in your room, movements are synchronized live among all players. Playing Cards has no chat function, so you'll probably want to set one up on your phone or another site.

Town of Salem

Town of Salem is a browser-based (no app required), free role-playing game that rewards players who convincingly lie and those who detect others as liars. In a spooky setting, 7 to 15 players are randomly and secretly assigned one or more from among 48 different roles categorized as Town (the good guys), Mafia, Serial Killers, Arsonists, or Neutrals.

At the start, players learn about their role, which is explained on an in-game role card that only the assigned player knows. From there, the game strategy of "murder, deception, lying, and mob hysteria" ensues.

As a Serial Killer, for example, your objective is to secretly murder Town members at night while trying to avoid getting caught. Town members, conversely, are busy tracking down the Mafia and other villains before getting killed by them. The play ends when the good guys and bad guys are correctly identified, that is, from the players who manage to stay alive.