7 Office Games You Can Play with Your Co-workers

August 27th, 2007 by Jason Bartholme

Office games to play with co-workersBored at work? Need something fun to get your through the day. These seven office games can help make the time go by. If your boss walks by, tell them it’s a team building exercise.

1. Air Can Soccer

players: 2

materials: 2 cans canned air, 1 balled up piece of paper, 1 conference table

gameplay: Players are take place on either side of the table and the “ball” is tossed into play. The ball is “kicked” shooting canned air at it. Points are awarded to the player that knocks the ball off the opponents side of the table.

2. Paper Football

players: 2

materials: 1 piece of paper folded like a flag into a triangle

gameplay: Variation A: Player makes an “L” with both of their fingers and touches their index fingers together to make a goal post. The opponent stands the football on it end and “kicks” it by flicking into the uprights.Variation B: Player gets 4 downs (downs) to push the football across the table with his back of index finger. Points awarded for a football to hang over the edge of the table within 4 downs.

3. Pencil Pop

players: 2

materials: Many #2 pencils

gameplay: Player holds a pencil flat with both hands. The other player flicks his pencil against the others in attempt to break the other player’s pencil. Points awarded for number of opponent’s pencils broken.

4. Nerf Melee

players: unlimited

materials: Nerf guns or nerf projectiles

gameplay: Players shoot the nerf guns at one another and are out of play if they get hit by an opponent. The last player remaining is declared the winner. Variation: Players are allowed multiple hits until they are out.

5. Grasshopper

players: Up to 4

materials: Large paper clips

gameplay: Paper clips are bent according to instructions. Players take turns making their grasshoppers “jump”. Points awarded for highest jump for each round.

6. Bullshit Bingo

players: unlimited

materials: Piece of paper, Pen/pencil, Meeting, Bingo card

gameplay: During a meeting conference call, words on the card are filled in once mentioned. Once a player achieves a row across, down, or diagonal they stand up and shout, “Bullshit!”

7. Paper Airplane Jarts

players: 2 - 4

materials: 4 paper airplanes, 2 trash cans

gameplay: Players take alternating turns attempting to fly their paper airplane into the trash can. One point is awarded for each airplane that goes into the can. First player to 21 points wins.

Reader Submitted Office Games

8. Pinchy

players: unlimited

materials: 2 fingers

gameplay: Players take turns pinching one another until the one cries out.

9. Circle Game

players: unlimited

materials: 2 fingers

gameplay: Players try to trick their opponents into looking directly at the player’s hand gesturing an upside-down OK sign. If opponent looks directly at the hand, then play is allowed one punch in the arm. Circle must be below the waist to qualify.

What games do you play with your co-workers? Let me know and I will add them to the post.

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  1. HubmaN:

    August 28th, 2007 at 5:32 am

    Hehe… “We shall egregriously synthesize to meet the capabilities of our targe-BULLSHIT!”

  2. Mr. McGeek:

    August 28th, 2007 at 11:36 am

    I play “Pinchy.” It’s where you take turns pinching each other, and whoever cries out first loses. A great way to annoy your boss during meetings!

  3. Shrike2214:

    August 28th, 2007 at 1:56 pm

    What about the good ol circle game you hold your fingers in a circle shape below your waist if someone looks at the circle you get to punch them :D

  4. Jason Bartholme:

    August 28th, 2007 at 8:44 pm

    Thanks Mr. McGeek, I added you game to the list. My co-worker read your comment and proclaim that it’s “on” for the next meeting.

  5. Jason Bartholme:

    August 28th, 2007 at 8:46 pm

    Shrike2214, I was going to that one originally, but I thought there was a better name for it that just the “Circle Game”. Many other people have said that was simply the name. Thanks for your suggestion and it is now above.

  6. Molly:

    August 29th, 2007 at 11:08 pm

    Well, I’m only 15 so I don’t exactly work in an office, but during school my friends and I play The Drowning Game. When someone isn’t facing you, you call out their name and put your hands, curled into circle shapes, around your eyes like binoculars. If they respond by turning and looking at you then they have to immediately lie down on their stomach on the floor no matter where they are, flail their arms and legs and scream “I’m drowning! I’m drowning!” But if you call their name and have your “binoculars” on and they respond by turning to face you with their thumbs in their ears, wiggling their fingers around, they YOU have to “drown.”

  7. Das Pandii:

    August 31st, 2007 at 8:46 pm

    Man,i don’t work in an office but there are some games that we play on the teachers…one wasn’t started as a game, but merely a birthday card that we passed around to 6 different tables in two widespread rows, and got everyone to sign it. The trick was to get it past the teachers. there was also a game that was rather funny to play on the subs that we wanted to strangle.first,we would switch names before class, then halfway through switch back.besides that,we switched seats when they weren’t looking,sprayed Axe every ten minutes, dropped our pencils frequently(not enough to get caught though), and sharpened our pencils right in the middle of lectures.other than that we were angels. its especially great when the teacher comes back the next day and says he got a glowing report from the sub.now,don’t criticize me on the last game,i mean, when you go to a school for geniuses(to put it bluntly) and the sub thinks that the class doesn’t know how to spell banana slug, then criticizes us for into being able to play our instruments when we’ve been labeled as the best damn orchestra in the state, there are gonna be some consequences.

  8. Andrew G.R.:

    September 13th, 2007 at 5:23 pm

    Cool list, nice! I also play Office BINGO to kill the time!
    http://www.jobacle.com/blog/2007/8/22/bored-at-work-play-office-bingo.html

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  10. Steven Snell:

    September 19th, 2007 at 6:38 pm

    Paper football. Wow, it’s been a long time since I’ve played that.

  11. stalkingyou:

    September 23rd, 2007 at 12:20 pm

    at school we always play 2 for flinching you know……but theres this game called peg fight and what you do is pick someone to peg with wads of paper during the day and at the end of school(or work day) whoever has the most pegs wins.or you could use hard things like footballs…….

  12. Rissa:

    October 30th, 2007 at 9:09 am

    We play ‘boss tennis’ - every time your boss comes to your desk to ask a question, you have to send him across the room to a colleague, and keep going like that…loser is whoever makes him leave/return to office etc.

  13. gaz:

    March 4th, 2008 at 5:14 am

    well im in collage doing engineering so i get bored easy so me and m8 play a game so we play games like eyespy(wer u have to choose an object and u m8 gotta guess wat object uve chosing and if they guess u get punched :) but if they dont guess i they get punched fun game ) and we all so play a game wer u throw paper balls trying to hit it in the bin and u get point further away u are

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  15. Simon Wharton:

    May 13th, 2008 at 5:42 am

    Inspired by the joy of bullshit bingo, in the same way that monopoly has grown by exploiting niches, we have spent literally minutes developing
    It’s taking over the world!

  16. dave:

    May 20th, 2008 at 10:43 pm

    we used to call it p-nukle

  17. brandon:

    November 11th, 2008 at 9:40 pm

    We like to play buzzword bingo during quarterly and annual update meetings. Use words like “lean”, “six sigma”, “improvement”, “savings”, and “customer satisfaction”. There’s a host of other fun ones that are industry specific as well.

  18. kk:

    November 12th, 2008 at 10:09 pm

    We play Trust Ball. It’s a team building exercise. Get a ball. Lob it directly at your coworker’s face. The challenge: the receiver has to keep his/her eyes open, hence the Trust, because the receiver trusts that the thrower will be gentle. You can actually use any object within reason and keeping safety in mind. Plush stuffed animal toys work, empty water bottles, trash can…basically nothing sharp. Trust. We also have another game that involves falling off of an office chair after being spun around a bunch and then pushed across the room… More to it than that, but too complicated to explain right now.

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  20. Cheryl:

    March 10th, 2009 at 4:13 pm

    I come from a very large team of bankers….give this one a try. At huddle, which we have every thursday and friday, bring 2 to 4 beach balls.Divide everyone up into 2 to 4 teams. Everyone on the team has to be given a can of air, a straw or piece of hose. Set up an obstacle course around the office, bring the elevator into play if you have one. Use only the air produced from the device you have chosen to move the ball around the office (cannot touch the balls with any part of your body or use anything else other than the air device to move the ball). The first team to finish the race wins!!! No interference with the other team is allowed!!! I know……… but there has to be rules. FUN FUN FUN!!!

  21. Tiffani:

    April 20th, 2009 at 11:23 pm

    The Game of Killer

    This game is only played when our store is closed, so we can’t get into trouble with customers. Basically, if someone makes a gun symbol with their hand and shoots you, you have to die dramatically. If you ignore getting shot three times, you are out of the game for an indefinite amount of time, maybe forever depending on how into the game people are.

    I stole this from The Monkees.

  22. Pete:

    July 10th, 2009 at 5:15 am

    Play Tag round a bank of desks!! :-D

    Office Snowball Fight with paper balls

    Who can shout “SOCKS” the loudest without getting looked at strangely, or fired

    Spot the tard (very easy at my work)

    Stare at one co-worker (everyone stares at one person) till they realise.

    Slowly hide one particular co-workers posessions again, till they realise (hopefully they wont).

    Have fun!!

  23. Christy:

    September 5th, 2009 at 4:43 pm

    Everyone takes turns saying a famous person’s name then the next person has to say a name that begins with the same letter as the previous person’s last name…like: Britney ‘S’pears…’S'arah Jessica ‘P’arker…’P'enelope ‘C’ruz…’C'hristina Aguilara…and so on…pretty easy but when you work at a manufacturer there isnt much to do so time flies with this one

  24. Doug:

    January 29th, 2010 at 2:04 pm

    Ive found switching ink colors in co-workers pens is quite amusing. As is constantly emptying their staplers or stapleing thing together on all 4 corners

  25. Joe:

    February 23rd, 2010 at 1:40 pm

    We play a game called claymores. For those who don’t know, a claymore is an explosive device used by the military. We hide a claymore in plain view (around a corner, in the refrigerator) and if another participant walks by your claymore, then you get a point.

  26. office skiver:

    June 28th, 2010 at 9:36 am

    The fruit game- get a piece of fruit, like an orange or grapes, leave it on your desk for a few weeks until it goes black and mouldy (drawing a face on it with black pen adds a personal touch- we’ve had bob, and dick- then when nice and wrinkly, you have to eat it.. or, if you want to wind a collegue up, put the mouldy fruit in their bag- or car!

  27. Ward Bachhuber:

    November 17th, 2010 at 1:45 pm

    we have different office chairs in the office and i love to use those office chairs with clothe cover “~*

  28. Bobby:

    December 13th, 2010 at 5:09 pm

    A good office game to play - although it does depend on having an actual wheelchair lying around is…

    Wheelchair Racing. You only need 1 wheelchair!

    We had one in the office as a leftover prop and I filmed me competing against a workmate in a time trial!

    Have a watch! Comment, please do! :-)

    http://www.bobversus.com/2010/12/13/bob-versus-tom-wheelchair-racing/

  29. Chris:

    December 22nd, 2010 at 9:58 pm

    Glad we don’t play any of these games at my office … This would ultimately result in death…

  30. safeena:

    January 7th, 2011 at 9:21 am

    Thank u for the tips and it s fun to be involved..

    We also play Baloon sticking… Take a long strip of celo tape and strick it on the ground. Now tell each team to stick same sized baloon on it. The team with maximum baloon wins the game. We can substitute baloon with some other amtirials as well.

  31. Horaxium:

    January 28th, 2011 at 4:02 pm

    We play “The killer” , the staff is splitted, 2 teams trying to kill each other, every body knows in which band are they, each band has a boss which select assasinations the members of the clan will try to kill, but is not able to be mention name just 3 features (body, behavior, work), also select one to be protected. The play can take weeks to decide who wins it depends on the team size. Te kill can be performed on several ways, by putting a paper on their backs so they are not aware of him being killed, but others do, using paint ball, no dangerous stuff, so he will be retired from service.

    of course a band wins being the suvivors.

  32. Fiona:

    February 24th, 2011 at 6:58 am

    This is a solitary office game I made up for all you small business administrators going slowly crazy:

    Shredding Game
    The aim of the game is to have continuous shredding. This means feeding each page into the shredder, ensuring that there is paper being shredded at all times.
    For each successful page that you shred without any break, you get a point.
    If you feed the shredder before it stops running altogether, but after it has finished shredding the previous page, you get half a point.
    If the shredder motor stops, your points are halved.
    Rules on overlap: an overlap of around 1 to 2cm is acceptable. Anything more and you are playing easy mode.
    Easy Mode: Feed 2 pages at a time. All points are halved for this, as you get extra time to feed the next page.

    It’s slightly addictive, but sadly the paper always runs out before the fun :(

  33. Amey G:

    March 11th, 2011 at 6:08 am

    Well I have invented a game we call as “BB Rubber (eraser) Shooting.”
    BB is secrete word for out company ;)
    The Game is played as bellow.

    Take 3 Post-Its roll them and create a Pillar like shape.
    mark one line around 1.5 Feet away from three pillars
    Take 1 Eraser (Rubber) shoot at the Post-It Pillars.
    Each player gets three chance per round.
    The player who hits most pillars will win

    Extra Rule:
    Pillers would not be picked up for a player untill all pillers have collapsed.
    Keep the Rubber (Eraser) vertically to make it hard to shoot.

  34. IT Rush:

    March 18th, 2011 at 8:14 am

    #8 looks like it’s a very fun game to play with.. maybe we’ll try it out next week with my co-workers..