Online Charades Game

Mural template

How this works in a live setting

We love playing Charades (Guess the word) with the words and expressions we create. This is great way to have fun moments together, and create memorable experiences. 

In a live setting, we would give some pieces of papers and pens for everyone, ask them to write words that they think would be fun or challenging to act out. 

It's an important details everyone writes their name on their own pieces of paper, before they fold it, and then we drop them in a hat.

So when someone picks a piece of folded paper to act out, they can tell who wrote that initially, so that person will know not to guess, while everyone else can take part in the game.

How to make this work online

A properly set up online whiteboard allows to play this online. The main thing to watch out for is to create the words to guess in a way that it is not visible for other participants. Just for the one who picks it.

There is a simple hack to make this work, that you can use in most online whiteboard tools: When you create the virtual post-it notes with the words to act out, make the font the same colour as the background.

Here is a Mural template with detailed instructions how to run this (you are welcome to duplicate it)

Step-by-step guide

1. Start with coming up words & phrases to show: take one of the empty notes below and write a word or phrase that would be fun / interesting / challenging to act out. Make sure you add your own name on the note. The font color is intentionally the same as the Note's color, so only you see what you are writing.
2. Put the notes you created to the bucket we draw from
3. We start playing: take a note, move it to the Used bucket. Then double click into the note to get its content highlighted. It will make its content visible to you, but not for others.
4. Act out the word :-) - Before starting, tell who wrote it.
5. If you don't feel comfortable acting it out, you can choose to draw it (Pictionary), or drop it and take a new one
6. Anyone may guess at any point. You can have multiple guesses. But mind to give space for everyone to guess. (We may introduce limits if needed, or split into two groups after some rounds)
7. If you guessed it right, then you score a point that we record in the scoring area.
8. At first we'll go around (round robin) so everyone will get a chance to be the Performer
9. Then after a full round, the correct guesser has the honour to act it out.
10. At any point, you can add new words / phrases to the bucket if you get inspired