Online Light and Livelies

A set of 25 games, prompts, exercises, and other excuses to move around and be silly during online calls! Not just fun, but great for group processing!

One of the highlights of my training with Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) was the ‘Light and Lively’. Each day during training, a trainee would be prepared to facilitate one or two of these Light and Livelies, which are simple games that move, energize, and shake off the cobwebs. The session facilitators could call for a Light and Lively if we had been sitting for a long time, if the topic was getting difficult, or if we were moving to a new space.

You might think that a Light and Lively might be inappropriate in a setting where the topics often involved the upsetting and traumatic. We found them to be necessary and uplifting, allowing us to continue to do the work. A Light and Lively activates new sources of energy and inspiration, relieves the distraction of uncomfortable bodies, and at a minimum helps us not to take ourselves too seriously. Since then, I’ve been paying more attention to the place of ‘play’ in our meetings, and I’m sometimes the one to suggest a game as a way to focus more on our topic.

Naturally enough, I’ve been looking for ways to do Light and Livelies in online spaces. I asked in a few spaces and received many ideas, which I’ve formatted into this list. I hope they can be useful to you in your own meeting planning and facilitation!

General guidelines

• Consider having a short piece of text to describe the game and putting it in the chat so people can read it along with your verbal instructions. As a friend to re-post this if someone joins late, so they know what is going on (you might be too busy running the game to notice).
• Not everyone will want to join the game, some may not have camera/microphone access either, or might simply be disinclined to play a game either because of the virtual group you are in, or whoever might be around in their physical space. There is a line to walk between encouraging people to be silly and giving them autonomy. It’s important to let people know that they can participate to their level of comfort. You can also give a timeframe, and people can go for a short walk, stare up at the ceiling, or otherwise meet their needs.
• Following on from that – Light and Livelies are not substitutes for ‘biobreaks’. You still need to schedule time for people to eat, use the toilet, etc. Several of these are suited to play at the beginning of a meeting as people join gradually, and you could start to play one of these at the end of a break period as people return, transitioning back into the meeting.
• You’ll need to adapt these games to fit your group. If you have good feedback, or develop new games, share in the comments!
• Consider debriefing the game as part of moving back to the agenda or as part of your normal meeting debrief, inviting people to share what worked and how the game shifted things. This also helps empower and encourage more experimentation!

1. Online Games – check out Kahoot, Codenames, Among Us, and give your recommendations in the comments for other games that can break up a long meeting but without leaving the digital space. Extra points for incorporating movement, jokes, and team-building!
2. Poking Game – in Gallery View. Everyone stretches out of their screen to poke, tickle or pat each other, and react to the others. You can also ‘lean’ against each other, two and two, by trying to match whose picture is next to yours, and then lean to that side. Feel free to say out loud what it is you are doing – if you take turns you can pass the tickle on!
3. Freezing – Pretending that your picture freezes, preferably in the middle of a funny face. Then you can try to mimic the internet catching up, by speeding up your speech into a short burst (this idea comes from some Swedish school children who uses this when they’re in online class and don’t want to answer a question from the teacher)
4. Computer Roller Coaster – In speaker view, step away from the camera and let the people online take a ride on a virtual roller coaster. Surprisingly fun! Make sure not to go too fast so that things don’t get blurry. You can add in sound effects or commentary (reminders to keep arms and legs inside the vehicle!) and a moment of suspense looking down before doing slopes. Encourage everyone to react with arms up when you’re going down a slope, etc – this is where the movement comes in!
5. Bella Banana – The leader says their name and a fruit, animal, etc that begins with the same first letter as their name. At the same time they make a movement. Everyone then together repeats the name, word, and movement. The leader passes it on to someone, and you go around until everyone has said their name. In a smaller group where you want people to really learn names, have the second person first repeat the leader’s name, word and movement before adding their own. The third person will repeat the two before them and so on until the last person, who repeats everyone’s before adding their own. Each time the whole group repeats the new addition only.
6. Gift Exchange – The first person holds an imaginary object, turning it around and miming looking at it. They choose someone and say ‘Hello [Liza]! I got this present for you’. The person receiving the object makes a decision about what it actually is and says ‘Thank you so much for this [broken tiny chair]!’ It can be a guess about what the person was holding or just a wild strange thing. The second person then picks up their own object and sends it on until everyone has gotten a gift.
7. Spot the Difference – In speaker/highlighted view, arrange objects in front of the camera. Everyone can take up to a minute to try to memorize them. Turn off the camera and change some of the things. When the camera is on again everyone has to guess what has changed. This can be done either verbally or using the chat. You are not allowed to do a screenshot! Vary the amount of time to memorize, and consider adding things, rotating them, moving the camera, etc. A variation is to have the group give verbal directions about how to put things back.
8. Funny Face Viral – Everyone is on gallery view, and one person is secretly assigned to make a funny face. When you see it, you copy it, and it spreads until everyone has it. You can add in a noise like a laugh or hum, or a movement, or play around in different ways, including having two people start and seeing what happens!
9. Charades – the classic parlour game. It’s encouraged to have everyone standing, or at least the person doing the charade. If you set up teams, you can ask the whole team to copy the charade of their teammate. For zanier versions, verbal responses are encouraged, for more accurate scoring you might say that the first correct answer in the chat counts – and each team might assign someone to watch the chat and let people know how their guesses work. If you’re not familiar with Charades as a game, there are lots of places to learn about it online, including random generators for suggestions, although it’s more fun to come up with your own as a group.
10. The Long Zoom – In speaker view, you cover your camera with your hand, and place an ordinary object right in front of the camera (toy frog, pencil, glass ball… anything).  Then, very very slowly, pull back the object while people try to guess what it is, until the object is in focus. This is great since it can be played by people who don’t have a camera themselves.
11. Follow the Leader – Have the leader on speaker view with everyone muted, or assign someone to spotlight each leader. It can be done with music or without. The leader performs movements that everyone else copies. After a little while you pick a new leader, or the leader passes it on. To make it even clearer you can write in the chat who the next leader is. To make it more chaotic, let people know that they can might elect themselves!
12. Music and Dancing – It’s nicest when participants can send in a favourite songs beforehand, perhaps as part of an event registration, and you can prepare a playlist. This is especially fun if there are participants from many different countries who shares songs from their home. When choosing music, think about the inclusion needs of people with hearing loss, for example.
13. More dance ideas – You can combine music with ‘Follow the Leader‘, or you can tell people that you will stop the music and everyone has to freeze in the middle of a dance move. Or you can just have a short dance party. If you’re free-dancing in a bigger group, you can encourage people to choose someone to dance with. They can message that person privately in the chat and then pin each others video so that they can really have the party together.
14. Stretching – simple enough! Either led by one person in a series of poses, or passed around with each person leading a pose of their choice. In the former case you can invite people to have their cameras off as a matter of personal comfort.
15. Touch X – Pick a colour, shape, attribute or descriptor. Everyone has to touch something that matches the description.
16. Funny Art Pose – Beforehand, find a set of funny pictures, preferably with a single person and one or two objects. You can find lots of royalty free pictures at Pexels or Unsplash. Display the picture using screenshare, and people get a minute to try and recreate the picture with objects around them. You can then stop screen sharing so that everyone can see one another. You might want to be ready to take a screenshot so that people can relax, especially if the picture is strenuous! Do a few of these to get people loosened up.
17. Colour Wave – A simpler version of ‘Funny Art Pose‘ is to display an object of a certain colour to the camera, and have people quickly try to find something of the same colour. You can award prizes for accuracy and speed if you have a competitive group. Or, you can ask people to find a substitute for the object and see how creative they can be.
18. Everyone Who… – Using a set of statements, either thought up earlier or from the inspiration of the moment, ask everyone for whom this applies to keep their camera on, while everyone else turn theirs off. It can be fun to make references to earlier in the meeting. Try to pick a statement that is true of you as well, and try different things like ‘everyone who’s terrible at being on time’, ‘everyone who has forgotten their own age and have to figure it out from the date’, ‘everyone wearing a a keffiyeh’. To make it more effective, you can ask people to ‘hide non-video participants’. Either have one person giving statements, or after they’ve said the first one, one of the people with their camera on can take over, rotating. You can always (try to) call it to an end by saying ‘everyone who is ready to get back to the meeting!’
19. Climate Confessional – expanding ‘Everyone Who…’, you can pick a theme which might have something to do with the theme of your meeting, for example ‘climate/environmental confessions’ – ‘everyone who doesn’t recycle the sticky plastic packaging’. It helps approach a difficult topic in a fun way.
20. Lipsynch – ask someone to prepare a dramatic reading from a text that the group is (or should be) familiar with – for example, the Bible, a text you are studying, the group’s annual report, etc. They have to incorporate hand gestures, grimaces, flourishes – but no sound. Participants are challenged to type the answer into the chat. There might be several levels of answer, for example, the general topic and the exact reference. A variant called ‘You’re on Mute’ is the same but people speak their answers in the form ‘[Chris], you’re on mute, are you reading from [guess]?’ As with other guessing games it might help to have someone appointed to monitor answers and respond.
21. Do You See What I See? – the leader looks around at the area of the room that cannot be seen on the camera and describes something they can see. Everyone else who can see something like that raises a hand. One person shows or explains what they can see, and they become the next leader. The joy of this game is being creative with the furniture of our rooms and in our view and helping us to pay attention.
22. Guess Who – using gallery view, you pick someone and answer questions about their appearance with yes/no, as the group try to identify who you are looking at. You might want to give some guidelines depending on how comfortable the group is, for example, not guessing people’s gender, or not asking questions that assume knowledge of a person’s life. For the full effect you need to ask people to spend 2 minutes grabbing hats, glasses, or brightly coloured clothing, and change their screen name to a character they are portraying (including pronouns).
23. Giant Screen Pose – Everyone on the call makes a shape with their body that creates a larger shape. This takes some setting up. On gallery view, ask everyone to arrange their windows in the same order. Some might have to re-size their screens, and some, especially on mobile, might not be able to participate fully. Alternatively, you can just give instructions to everyone you can see, and take a screenshot of the final outcome! You might try to make a giant eye, or a tree, or a starburst, or spell out a word. Alternatively to using your bodies, you can ask people to write or draw on a piece of paper and hold that up to the camera.
24. Broken Connections – Write a phrase which can be broken up into multiple elements. For example ‘The bread is in the basket, the basket is under the table, the table is in the living room, the living room is very cold’. Or you can pick a riddle with an answer like ‘fire’ – I have tongues but cannot taste / When I’m fed I grow with haste, / I need air to survive / Give me water and I die. Set up breakout rooms with 2-3 people in each one, and give each group part of the phrase or riddle. Then, you close the breakout rooms and re-assign new random rooms. People can share their parts of the phrase. Do this 2-3 times more, each time using random groups. At the end, see if anyone can assemble the entire phrase, or answer the riddle!
25. Landscape Modelling – Think of some simple nature scenes with gentle movement, for example a kelp forest, a flock of birds, a flowing river, a setting sun. Ask everyone to model this with their body. You can show them a basic version and invite people to innovate. You can also invite people to add in noises to the environment! Let it play for a few seconds before moving to the next one. I liked to give complicated names to the scenes – Jonah’s Ocean Garden was the kelp forest, for example.

What are the other games and activities we have used? Are there variants or adaptions of these mentioned above that we can consider? What would make these games more inclusive?