7 Fun Games to Play With Colleagues You Barely Know (Without Making It Weird)
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🤝 So You’ve Been Trapped in a Team-Building Event
Ah yes, the corporate bonding session. Where you’re expected to suddenly become best friends with people whose names you only know because of email signatures. No pressure, right?
Whether it’s a holiday party, awkward Friday drinks, or Janet’s forced-fun initiative in the break room, you need a plan. One that doesn’t involve yet another round of “Two Truths and a Lie” or shudder team karaoke.
Good news: there are games that don’t require deep personal sharing or fake enthusiasm—and some are actually…fun?
🎲 1. Murder Mystery Game (Because Who Doesn’t Secretly Want to Accuse Steve from Accounting?)
Perfect for medium to large groups who need something structured and dramatic. Murder mystery games let everyone pretend to be someone else—ideal for dodging real small talk while pretending to be an heiress, a mobster, or an extremely suspicious barista.
🧠 Why it works: You’re given a character and backstory. It’s scripted, interactive, and surprisingly hilarious. Plus, accusing someone of murder is way more fun than asking where they went to college.
🔎 Where to get one: Min(d)gle Games has downloadable murder mystery kits you can print at the office (just… maybe don’t use the legal department’s printer).
🖊 2. Exquisite Corpse: Office Edition
Take a piece of paper. One person writes a sentence. The next adds a sentence without seeing the first. Keep going. What emerges is chaotic gold.
🧠 Why it works: It’s anonymous, creative, and makes everyone laugh without needing to be “on.” Plus, it turns even the quietest coworker into an accidental comedy writer.
📄 Bonus round: Make it a themed story (zombie apocalypse in the HR department, anyone?).
🎤 3. “Who Said It?”—Slack or Shakespeare?
Read out quotes and have your team guess if it came from your Slack channel or a Shakespeare play. You’d be amazed how many messages about snack runs sound like 16th-century drama.
🧠 Why it works: It’s fast, funny, and involves light-hearted roasting. Great for remote teams too.
🤔 4. Would You Rather (Workplace Safe Edition)
Would you rather fight one coffee-fueled intern-sized bear, or ten bear-sized interns before 9 AM?
🧠 Why it works: It’s weird. It’s hypothetical. And it doesn’t require anyone to share their childhood traumas. Win.
📍 Hot tip: Keep it PG and HR-friendly. Always.
🧠 5. The “Corporate Spy” Game
One person gets a secret word like “printer” or “Keurig.” Everyone else gets the same decoy word like “microwave.” Ask yes/no questions to figure out the odd one out—the spy.
🧠 Why it works: No one knows what’s going on, but everyone pretends they do. Just like real meetings.
📸 6. “Caption This” PowerPoint Showdown
Each player brings a random photo (the weirder, the better). Everyone writes anonymous captions. Vote on the funniest.
🧠 Why it works: No acting required. Just wit, weirdness, and someone always goes too far (hi, Chad from Marketing).
🎭 7. “It Was Me All Along” Confession Game (Fake Confessions Only!)
Everyone writes a fake confession on a slip of paper: “I once locked myself in the server room to nap.” Shuffle them. Guess who wrote what.
🧠 Why it works: Ice-breaking with lies! It’s creative, unexpected, and people love guessing games.
🔚 TL;DR: You Don’t Have to Be Besties to Have a Blast
No one expects you to become soulmates with your desk neighbor after one game night. But it is nice to do something fun that doesn’t involve awkward standing circles or saying “I love dogs!” for the tenth time.
And if you really want a shared experience that’s goofy, unforgettable, and maybe a little dramatic? Print a murder mystery from Min(d)gle Games. It’s low effort, high fun, and people will still be talking about it in the Slack channel next week.
No trust falls required.