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The festive season is around the corner. It is time to welcome the new beginning as the New Year comes in. The first week of the New Year sets the tone for the year, so make sure you make this time count. Why not start it with some fun New Year games? Looking for office game ideas for New Year?
We always have a perfect plan to celebrate it with our family, but what about our office family? This year add color to your professional life by playing games with your colleagues on New Year’s eve and solidifying the roots of your relationship with your team.
We bring you the best guide to New Year games to play with your colleagues to get you and your team through the new year.
Virtual New Year games to celebrate with your digital peers
A virtual office party is a great way to celebrate the end of a successful year. When employees work from home, there is a need to bring in some fun and entertainment. This concept has been around for a while. Their success is because they allow you to get to know people you usually wouldn't.
Let’s look at the best virtual New Year games for office parties that you can use when planning your celebration party in 2025.
1. Scavenger hunt
A virtual scavenger hunt is one of the greatest team-building games that may quickly grow into an exciting wild hunt game. To play this, plan a virtual team meeting, and the team leader will compile a list of 20-25 objects that can be found at home but not easily and will email the list to the team as soon as it begins.
After the game begins, the person who showed up with the most items from the list in the allotted time is declared the winner. The corporation may now award the top three winners.
2. Virtual werewolf
This is everyone's favorite game, whether played physically or virtually. This game demands at least 5 players and a great deal of patience. Have you ever played chess? It is similar to that. Participants must conceal their true objectives, focus on the appropriate move, and proceed forward deftly.
During these games, participants can be divided into 5 categories, werewolf, seer, medic, villager, and hunter. So guess if 20 participants want to be part of virtual office party games, then 3 can become a werewolf, 2 hunters, 4 medics, 4 seers,1 narrator, and the remaining participants will be villagers.
Their roles:
- Werewolf: A werewolf has two jobs: to devour villagers and to survive so that he can eat more villages.
- Medic: Each round, the medic can save up about one villager.
- Seer: A seer may see into another player's soul to determine whether or not that player is a werewolf.
- Hunter: When the hunter dies, he or she can point a finger at any other player and take them down.
- Villagers: They are the ordinary people in the game who have no unique abilities but badly want to survive the night.
In this game, the narrator must quietly transmit roles to everyone, and then each werewolf must pick their one common victim. Once the cycle begins, werewolves must go back into sleep mode, and then the medic must point at one player; if the player is the same as the victim, no one dies. After the medic returns to sleep, the seer awakens and points at any one player; the narrator must confirm whether the pointed player is the victim or not using only Yes or No. The hunter slept the entire time.
This cycle continues till everyone dies. And after every kill, the said victim has to mute himself as if they are dead.
3. Gingerbread wars
This virtual game is the perfect combo of entertainment, team building, and morale building.
In this, the host sends the virtual gingerbread decoration kit to all its team and the team has to decorate it in the given time. Sometimes if there are many participants, the host can group them to make it more effective and enjoyable.
4. Guess the resolution
We all enjoy making New Year's resolutions. It doesn't matter if we will follow it, but we will undoubtedly write it on beautiful paper, adorn it, and wish to work on it for the entire year.
This game is similar to that. But there's a catch. Participants can privately send their resolutions to the host, and later in the game, the narrator will announce all resolutions one by one. Each participant must guess whose resolution this belongs to.
Now the narrator has two options for rewarding participants.
- Participants who correctly guess the name first may be rewarded.
- The highest number of pairs with common resolutions can be rewarded.
5. Never Have I Ever
Who doesn't enjoy taking a dig at others? This virtual game is ideal for increasing team bonding and trust. This game only takes about 50 minutes. All participants must raise all five fingers, and each team member takes turns admitting what they have never done, and if the other member has done it, they must put their one finger down; for example, I have never taken my junior’s credit.
Now whoever has taken it must put one finger down, honestly. This is strictly for entertainment purposes, and no one should take offense. Any participant whose all five fingers are down or who makes inappropriate remarks will be eliminated immediately.
6. Virtual Escape Rooms
Virtual escape games can be conducted via Zoom or any other platform. In these games, teams compete to solve riddles and puzzles as fast as possible to escape so-called “rooms”. You can choose the theme of the event, it could be an Egyptian tomb, Harry Potter’s Hogwarts, or even a horror house. The team who escapes the room in time wins.
7. Virtual Bingo
The evergreen Bingo game is super fun to play among virtual teams. Even beginners can play this game very easily. All you need to do is make some virtual cards with 25 random numbers ranging from 1 to 100 and send them to each participant. Then as a moderator, you will call out numbers randomly from 1 to 100.
As soon as you call the numbers, the participants can digitally strike off those numbers from their cards. If anyone manages to strike off all the numbers in their ticket, win the bumper prize. You could also make rules and give prizes to participants who strike off.
- First 10 Numbers
- All diagonally placed numbers.
- All numbers in the first line
If you want to make it more enticing, you can even pick up an online template and play a word bingo.
8. Countdown Clock
Midnight is the primary event of New Year's Eve festivities, and excitement grows throughout the night. Putting up a countdown clock adds to the anticipation.
Here's the simplest method to keep track of the time during your party:
On timeanddate.com, you may create your own countdown clock.
Dedicate one device, such as an extra computer or tablet, to displaying the time. Enter the meeting from the appropriate device, set the timer, and share the screen.
Alternatively, you can make a Zoom background with sentences like "one hour to midnight" and "thirty minutes until midnight" Then, you can adjust your backdrop during the night.
New year games to play in the office
The New Year's office party is a great time to get your team together for a little fun. Nothing stops you from ending the year on a high with an office party. Studies have shown that socializing with your team is a great way to build team cohesiveness and trust.
There are many ways you can do this. One of the best ways is by playing some games at your company party. In the spirit of the holidays, here are 5 of the best New Year games for office party that you can play.
1. Ribbon dancing
This game is an excellent way to encourage colleagues to let go of old grudges and embrace the New Year while playing New Year games in the office, just as they will embrace their dance partner. You'll need a bunch of 3-foot-long ribbons and one hand to hold them all together at the end. There is one ribbon for every two participants. Two people holding the same end will now be each other's, dance partners.
2. Banana bump
This is one of the most exciting and fun New Year games to play in office, The host requires one banana and an orange for each team member. A leader must now place a large hula hoop in the center of the room, which all participants must encircle at an equal distance. The fun part is that everyone has to push their orange through the hoop while holding a banana tied to their waist and not using their hands. The winner will be the one who completes the task first in the given time.
3. Pass the hat
The New Year's Eve party is all about having fun. A New Year's hat and a circle with all members sitting around it at an equal distance are required for this pass-the-hat game. The hat will now move in a circle, with one member passing it to another's head without touching it. Whoever fails to do so will be eliminated, and the last person standing will be declared the winner of the night.
4. Kiss collecting
Hand out 5 Hershey's kisses or parle's kiss me to each member once the New Year celebration games in the office begin and guests start to arrive. The person with the most kisses at the end of New Year's Eve will be the winner. Now think, Is there a better way to get the employees to forget about their work for a while and enjoy the party as the night progresses?
5. Beverage relay race
This New Year game is sure to get everyone in the party mood. For this game to happen, you need a large bowl, champagne or any preferred drinks, empty containers, and teaspoons. Place a bowl filled with any drink at the center of the table, give each person a teaspoon, and have them race to fill the empty containers with the liquid in the bowl.
If the number of participants is huge, they can be divided into teams. The team or member who fills the bottle first wins. Make sure to have plenty of paper towels to mop up any spills. Enjoy your beverage relay race and have a great New Year's celebration.
New year games for the word geeks!
As the year ends, and we look forward to the new one, it’s good to take some time to celebrate. And what better way to have a party in the office? And that makes it even more important for our team to come together, have fun, and bond. And what’s the best way to do it, then by playing some word games? These are 3-word games you can play in the office to have fun at the New Year’s eve party.
1. Balloon pop charade
Remember how we all get nostalgic hearing the game name ‘dumb-charades’? This game is just like that. To make the New Year party ] groovy, fill your office with inflated balloons and put a chit with random words. Now all members have to pop a balloon one by one and have to mimic that word. The one who guesses the word in the shortest time will be the winner.
2. Who Am I?
To play this game, all members can sit around the table, and the host will provide everyone with sticky notes on which they must write their favorite celebrity or character name and stick it to the head of another member sitting beside them without telling them the answer. After all the chit-chat has died down, each person will ask the other to determine who they are, and others can only respond with yes or no. The loser will be the last member to guess the answer.
3. Who’s the winner
Make a long list of random, quirky questions that all participants have to answer, the one who guesses it right will be the winner.
Use questions like
- Who will be dead drunk after this party?
- Who is doing office romance?
- Who ate the most delicacies?
Your New Year's game package ends here. Hope you will entertain your team from the start to the very end. If you still have doubts about making this New Year office party the most memorable event of the year and would like to add more icing to the cake, why not appreciate your employees by rewarding them.
Conclusion
As the new year approaches, you should consider rewarding the employees for their hard work and dedication throughout the year as an employer. It will help increase their motivation and productivity and will inspire them to go the extra mile in the coming year. According to the Economic times, 79% of employees stated receiving rewards makes them feel more driven to corporations and employers.
Feel free to check out Empuls, a tool that helps employers delight their employees with rewards. With Empuls, employers can automate rewards for each individual employee, as per their engagement and achievements, with their employee reward systems. So, what kind of rewards are you planning to give your employees at this New Year party in 2025?
