So you've got an audience to energize, students to engage, or a team that needs a little extra fun — playing an interactive presentation game is an easy way to do just that.
We've done the research and found the best of these games for you: we looked specifically for games that are simple to set up, fun to play, and flexible enough to be used with a variety of presentations and audiences. Most of these activities work virtually with Zoom/PowerPoint and can also be used in person.
Which of these 14 presentation games do you like best? Take a look and let us know your favorites:
A great way to ramp up the excitement and engagement is to enable a little bit of friendly competition. Trivia is an easy way to do this—plus, it can be whole-group inclusive and large-audience friendly (if you use the right tools).
Here's a great trivia game you can run with your team, students, or any large audience. It's already created for you with questions and scoring built in to make it even easier:
Here's how to play:
This trivia game has questions on many topics to keep your audience's attention and appeal to everyone. It only takes 10-15 minutes to play, so it's a great game for long discussions! Also, this interactive activity is free for up to ten participants and is totally customizable.
To really liven up your group, encourage your listeners to play Sing and Swing. This activity is best for long presentations because it boosts energy, creates a fun, light-hearted environment, and makes people laugh a lot.
Here's how to play:
If you have a fun group or a class of energetic students, consider adding choreography to engage your audience even more.
If you want a presentation game that requires your listeners to talk more than you, 20 Questions is the one to play! A classic and simple activity, this game immediately boosts engagement and gets people laughing.
Here's how to play: Have someone put an appropriate image or word on the screen behind you (this can be an audience member you trust or a colleague or co-presenter). To make things more fun, put on a blindfold so that everyone knows you can't cheat. From there, ask 20 "yes or no" questions to guess what's displayed on the screen. Your group should respond "yes" or "no" to guide you to the correct answer.
To get your audience out of their seats, a scavenger hunt challenge is one of the best interactive games for presentations. It'll immediately energize your audience, team, or students while giving them a fun way to learn.
There are tons of in-person and virtual scavenger hunt ideas you can use to dive deeper into your topic or help everyone learn about one another. But if you want a ready-to-play game that you can instantly launch without having any tech skills, here's a fun one to play:
Here's how to play:
This activity is a particularly fun game because it's a photo-hunt, show-and-tell challenge! That means your audience will not only get out of their seats to find items, but they'll also get to take pictures and share and discuss photos of what they find. This conversational element will help engage your group!
Whether you're speaking to team members, students, or conference-goers, this activity lets you ask questions and get your listeners' thoughts on specific topics.
This game is the perfect way to start your presentation, especially if you're discussing something with a wide range of opinions or are unsure how much your listeners know about a certain subject. Group Word Clouds is also beneficial if you want to do a quick meeting pulse or know how your listeners feel going into your presentation—understanding their energy levels and mood can help you adjust (if necessary) to get maximum engagement and excitement.
To enjoy this activity, keep things simple by using a tool that already offers a ready-to-play Group Word Clouds game. Here's a popular one you can launch immediately:
Here's how to play:
This interactive game only takes 5-10 minutes to play, so it's a fast, fun way to engage your audience and feel out the room. Players can use their mobile devices to answer questions. This activity is also free for up to 10 people and is easy to personalize.
This activity is one of the best presentation games if you have a small group that doesn't really know each other. The Get to Know You Game is a creative way to do introductions, and it's really simple.
Here's how to play the game: Before the event, ask group members to bring a favorite song or item to the presentation (you can do this by emailing them). When you're ready to play, ask each person to introduce themself, present their song or item, and explain why they picked it. For those sharing a song, have them play it on their phones before they explain why it's their favorite.
When you have a large group, it's not easy to find ways to boost engagement—but poll questions are the solutions, especially when they're live and interactive. With this unique setup, large groups engage by answering questions and seeing their answers displayed in a fun way.
Your job is to make sure you actually find a game that showcases responses uniquely to captivate your group. For a quick and great option, here's a popular icebreaker activity that promises to display responses using fun formats like word clouds, donut charts, live graphs, and per-player:
Here's how to play:
This activity is one of those fun presentation games everyone will want to enjoy, so invite all of your team members and students to participate. This game can accommodate up to 250 players and takes 5-10 minutes to complete. Tell your group to use their mobile devices to submit their responses.
This interactive game is a great way to break up your presentation to see who's paying attention and who can answer questions pertaining to your topic.
Here's how to play:
This activity can be as short and challenging as you want. Also, if your presentation is long, you can play multiple rounds to break up your speaking time and test your audience throughout your discussion.
Want to see where your audience, students, or team lands on controversial topics? Then, energize your presentation with a fun, creative game called Controversial Questions. This activity has prompts that inspire lively debates, so it's a great way to get your group excited and chatty.
However, to maintain a positive environment, make sure to find a tool that offers an office-friendly, classroom-friendly, and conference-friendly game. You don't want to sour the mood by creating uncomfortable division during your presentation. To make sure this game is fun and light-hearted, here's a popular one that's suitable for all audiences and ages:
Here's how to play:
This interactive game for presentations asks fun (but appropriate) questions like:
Players should use their mobile devices to submit answers. Up to ten people can play for free, and you can customize the game by updating the questions!
With this activity, you can keep your audience, team, or students engaged throughout your entire presentation. This game requires listeners to be alert and recognize whenever you say the word of the day.
Here's how to play: At the beginning of your presentation, tell your group the word of the day (it can also be a phrase if you'd prefer). Say that you'll weave the word into your presentation and that your audience must shout it out whenever you mention it.
Whether you're doing an in-person or virtual presentation, you need to warm up your audience to get things started on a positive note. The best way to do that is with a quick icebreaker game.
However, make sure your questions are fun, positive, and engaging. You can easily do this by finding a game that already has the best icebreaker questions included. Here's one that's ready to play (and requiring no tech skills to launch):
Here's how to play:
Your group should use their mobile devices to submit responses to poll questions. Also, this game accommodates up to 250 players, but only ten people can join for free.
This activity is one of the best games for presentations because it's simple yet fun and great at helping listeners get to know each other. You can play it at the beginning of your presentation or in the middle to give your group a chance to stretch their legs.
Here's how to play:
The questions can relate to your topic or be totally random. Also, if you'd prefer to thin out the number of people standing, you can take a creative twist and ask your questions by saying something like this: "Stay standing if (insert scenario)." When phrasing each question this way, the game will end with one person standing. To acknowledge the winner, you can give them a round of applause or award them a prize.
If you're speaking at a big conference, you need an interactive game for presentations that can get everyone involved and ensure every voice is heard. To achieve these goals, you should create an icebreaker game that works for large groups.
Using an easy, intuitive template is the best step to take. That way, you don't have to start from scratch or spend hours making your game. For a template that requires no code or tech-savviness to build on, here's the best option:
Here's how to play:
This template has fun, interactive features built in to keep your large audience engaged. Those features include polls, word clouds, and ratings. Just make sure you sign up for a paid plan to accommodate the large number of people in your group—the free account only works for up to ten players.
This classic game is a fun, energizing way to help your listeners get to know one another. It's perfect for small in-person or virtual groups and is an ideal activity for the beginning of your presentation.
Here's how to play: Pick any topic (for the purposes of this article, the topic will be "movies"). In no particular order, say two movies you've really watched and one you haven't watched. Ask your audience to guess which statement is the lie. The winner picks the next topic and says two truths and a lie.
Oftentimes, people forget presentations within a week or even days, and that's because the discussions are boring. But you don't work hard preparing a presentation for it to be forgotten. If you want your message to stick, all you have to do is make it enjoyable without being corny.
If you want to be remembered and actually get people engaged, you need to make your presentation fun and enjoyable, without coming off as corny or desperate to please. Ivan Dimitrijevic, 10 Secrets of Making Every Presentation Fun, Engaging, and Enjoyable
Luckily, the interactive presentation games in this article are unique and exciting—they're far from corny. So, use them for your upcoming presentations to make your messages compelling and memorable.