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You probably didn't start a business thinking you'd eventually be searching for online games to play with people you've never met in person. But remote work makes the social side of a team harder to build than it would be in an office environment.
There is no hallway chat, no lunch invite, no noticing someone's had a rough week just by walking past their desk, and games are one of the more reliable ways to build that rapport on purpose.
This relationship matters because employees with a real friend at work are more likely to stay engaged than those without one, and that holds whether the team sits in one office or across five time zones.
Those relationships are one of the primary reasons clients like to use Trio for IT staff augmentation. Our developers know one another; they’ve worked together before, so as you scale your team up and down, you get the benefit of those relationships from the start.
If you are interested in hiring senior developers or outsourcing software development, book a call.
A remote team is a group of people, usually spread across different locations, who depend on tools like Slack and video calls to get anything done together.
Nothing about that is exotic anymore, but it does change how team culture actually forms, since it has to be built on purpose rather than happening in a break room.
This applies with extra weight to teams that include staff-augmented engineers specifically.
An engineer who joined through staff augmentation is often working alongside people they've never met in person, on a team whose existing culture they weren't part of building.
On a fintech engineering team specifically, where the work itself is higher-stakes, a communication gap is more likely to cost real time or money than it would on a typical product team.
A five-minute icebreaker before a sprint planning call helps make a new teammate feel like part of the team more than any amount of process documentation.
These range from a two-minute icebreaker to a proper hour-long session, roughly in order of how much setup each one takes.
There are two rules that we strongly recommend applying across all of them. First, skip anything that requires a download or IT approval, since that friction loses people before the game even starts.
Second, be wary of formats where half the team just watches the other half play.
This is the simplest option, and often the best if you can just spare the first five minutes of a meeting.
You want to make sure that you experiment so that you get real answers, instead of just one-word responses.
Some examples include:
"Would You Rather" works the same way with a forced choice instead of an open question, which is often easier for a quieter team to jump into.
"Never Have I Ever" is another well-known variation worth keeping in rotation.
Everyone shares three statements about themselves, two true, one invented, and the team guesses which is the lie.
This is a great option because it takes almost no setup and reliably surfaces something nobody knew about a teammate.
A free browser-based drawing-and-guessing game, Skribbl.io is essentially Pictionary with a timer.
One person draws a prompt, everyone else races to guess it in the chat.
What’s great is there is no app or account needed, which makes it an easy first pick for a team that's never done anything like this before.
A drawing version of Telephone. One person writes a prompt, the next draws it, the next describes that drawing in words, and so on through several rounds.
The reveal at the end can be quite funny. It’s free, browser-based, and works fine over a Zoom screen share.
A newer drawing-and-guessing platform, Doodle Duel is built with larger groups specifically in mind.
It's similar to Skribbl.io, but the paid tier supports up to 30, which makes it a great option if you have outgrown the smaller tools. No account or download needed either.
Some sites provide a free online version of the popular word-association board game, best with 4-8 players split into two teams.
One person gives a single-word clue tied to multiple cards, then their team tries to guess which cards it points to before the other side does.
The game can be quite telling about how differently people's minds connect ideas.
Ask everyone to snap a photo of something that represents them right now (a pet, a plant, a half-finished project) and explain it briefly to the group.
Doing this keeps things as personal as people want them to be, since nobody has to share more than the photo itself invites.
Meccha Chameleon is a viral browser game where "hiders" paint their character to blend into the environment, walls, furniture, whatever the map offers, while "seekers" hunt them.
It's free, plays instantly in the browser with no download, and works across desktop and mobile.
Just keep in mind that this is a general multiplayer game, not something specifically built for corporate use, so expect a livelier, less structured session.
Set a list of household or desk items (something orange, something older than you, something with a story behind it) and a time limit.
Whoever finds the most, or the most interesting version of each, wins.
We like to use this async in Slack too, not just live, which makes it a good option if you aren’t just working with a nearshore software development company, but maybe an offshore one too.
This game drops you, or your team, into a random Google Street View location. People can then take turns guessing where in the world they are, using road signs, plant life, or architecture as clues.
GeoGuessr scores by how close the guess lands. It’s a nice fit for a team that's already distributed across countries, since someone's actual hometown knowledge tends to come up at least once a session.
Donut is an automated Slack app that randomly pairs teammates for a casual chat on a set schedule, weekly or monthly.
It nudges the pair with a conversation starter and, if things go quiet, prompts them to actually schedule the call.
This definitely isn’t for everyone, but we find it useful for larger teams where two people might otherwise never end up talking.
A paid but genuinely well-made party game platform; everything is playable over a shared screen on Zoom or similar.
Quiplash (funniest answer to an odd prompt), Drawful 2 (a stranger cousin of Pictionary), and Fibbage (guess which fake answer is the real one) are the three that land best with a mixed group, since nobody needs strategy or prior experience to have fun.
CrowdParty is also worth a look as an alternative built specifically for remote meetings, with shorter, more structured rounds that fit inside a scheduled block of time.
The classic drawing-and-guessing game is also playable through several free virtual whiteboard tools.
Basing your scoring in such a way as to reward speed, so faster correct guesses are worth more, keeps the energy up even in a large group.
This is probably one of the longest versions we have encountered, and is more suitable for virtual get-togethers aimed purely at socializing.
You could go with shorter, free versions, or even a guided, hour-long puzzle session run by a facilitator over video call. Depending on the specific version you choose, they are usually themed and built specifically for remote teams rather than adapted from an in-person one.
Going with a formal, guided option takes more coordination to book than anything else on this list, but it's also the one people tend to enjoy the most.
Inspired by the reality show “Traitors”, players are secretly assigned roles, usually a mix of Faithfuls and Traitors, sometimes with a Shield or Investigator in the mix, and spend several rounds of discussion, alliance-building, and elimination trying to root out the hidden traitors before it's too late.
We’ve seen a handful of event companies run live-hosted, remote-friendly versions of this specifically.
This is a great way to spend time together and build relationships, but it generally needs a real time block and ideally a host.
The most involved game on this list, one or two players are secretly assigned "werewolf," the rest are villagers trying to identify them before they're all eliminated.
A moderator runs alternating "night" and "day" phases through private messages and open discussion, or through Zoom breakout rooms if the group is large enough to split for the private role reveals.
The only caveat is that this needs at least eight players and about 30 minutes.
The social deduction game became very popular around 2020, and is still a great option for team-building.
Players complete simple shared tasks aboard a virtual spaceship while one or two secret "impostors" try to eliminate the crew without getting caught.
There is a mobile version, and one available to purchase on Steam, but there is also a lesser-known online version that is free to play.
Virtual Trivia tends to work best when you build a round of questions specific to the team (who said this in standup, what year did we ship our first release) alongside general knowledge, using a host like Kahoot for the interface and live scoring.
It works well as a lower-key closer after something more involved like Werewolf.
While these games can be a great asset, nothing beats clear communication, real tools, and sensible processes. However, games are a genuinely cheap way to close the gap that remote and distributed teams otherwise have to work harder to close.
This goes double for a team scaling through outsourcing or staff augmentation.
Team building is only one part of running a distributed engineering team well, though. If the bigger question is finding and integrating developers who fit that team in the first place, book a consultation.
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