Canadian HR Reporter

www.hrreporter.com 27 Jason Harney is director of product d e v e l o p m e n t a t Wo r k s t a r s i n Manchester, U.K. For more information, visit www.workstars.com. storyteller. They take a story prompt, either from the story card pile or a pool of story prompts prepared before the game. The storyteller then reads this prompt out loud, which is something along the lines of: "I have a terrible secret." And that's when the fun begins. Turn by turn, each player cross- examines the storyteller, asking ques- tions about the story, such as "What is your secret?" or "How long have you been hiding this for?" To make it more interesting, they throw random words at the storyteller along with their ques- tion, which the storyteller must use as part of their answer. The storyteller must survive for as long as they can before failing to think of an answer, giving an answer that contradicts a previous answer or simply running out of time. Drawasaurus: Remember the classic game of Pictionary? That's the one where you pick a card and draw whatever word is on it, and everybody else has to try to interpret your terrible drawing and guess the word to score points. There are plenty of places to play Pictionary-style games online, and it's a ton of fun. One of our favourites has to be Drawasaurus. It's free, it's super easy to set up, and it seems to have unlimited room for players — so far, we've experimented with creating virtual rooms for three to 80 players, and it works like a charm. Murder mystery: If you're a fan of Sherlock Holmes, Miss Marple or Columbo, then no doubt you've often fancied trying your hand at solving the crimes yourself. Or you may have attended a murder mystery dinner evening with friends, where actors play a scene out around you while you enjoy delicious food and try to piece together the clues. Whodunnit is a wonderful virtual murder mystery game for seven to 21 players that brings the thrill of detective work right to your living room. Just meet up with colleagues via Zoom, download the Whodunnit app for Android or iOS, and off you go. Spaceteam: This is probably the loudest, most panicked and hilarious game you can possibly play on Zoom or Teams. All you need is the free Spaceteam app for Android or iOS and a way to communicate. In a game of Spaceteam, you and your colleagues work together to… well, it's not exactly clear at first. We think you're meant to be flying a spaceship? But the trouble is that your vehicle seems to be falling apart. Here's the catch: You' ll find yourself receiving commands to fix things that may or may not be in your control — and may or may not make sense. That means you'll find yourself amid a noisy flurry of phrases like "Increase chemical quartz to three" and "Fluff the pillow" in your desperate bid to complete your journey alive. The key is to communicate as calmly and effectively as you can, but you' ll soon see that's not exactly easy. Mystery singer: The Masked Singer is a popular TV show that first aired in 2019. The premise is that a singer performs while wearing a costume to conceal their identity. Panelists must then attempt to work out who the masked singer is. You can easily play your own version of this game via Zoom or Teams by simply asking everybody to select an anonymous alias and then join the call without their webcams on. The selected mystery singer will perform for the rest of the group, who will then vote on who they think it is, and each mystery singer can then reveal themselves. This game takes quite some confidence, but if people can build up the courage, then it's totally worth it. CHRR

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