Team-based recreational activities for adults that are fun even with large groups
When you’re organizing company events like parties, in-house sports days, or welcome gatherings for new employees, it’s common to include some kind of recreation, right?
If it’s something you can do in teams, it builds a stronger sense of unity and makes it more fun for everyone.
Plus, offering prizes to the winning team can really liven things up, and at welcome parties it can be a great way to break the ice with people you’re meeting for the first time.
In this article, we’ll introduce a variety of team-based recreational activities that adults can enjoy!
They vary in how long they take, and some require very little preparation.
Choose the ones that best fit your event’s situation.
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Team-Based Recreational Activities for Adults That Large Groups Can Enjoy (21–30)
Rock-Paper-Scissors Relay
Here’s an idea for a cooperative indoor game that adults can genuinely get excited about: “Rock-Paper-Scissors Relay.” Divide into two teams and use a ring made from newspaper as the baton.
Each round starts with the first and second person in each team playing rock-paper-scissors.
The winner passes the baton to the next teammate, and the next match begins.
The fun twist is that if you lose, you can keep challenging until you win.
The team whose baton makes a full round trip first, ahead of the other team, wins.
All you need is newspaper, and the rules are simple, yet the game gets really intense.
It’s perfect for company socials, neighborhood gatherings, and any event where you want to build camaraderie.
Ping-pong ball relay
A classic old-school game or contest: carrying a ping-pong ball.
It’s usually played by kids and seniors using a ladle to carry the ball, but how about upping the difficulty and doing a relay where you carry the ping-pong ball with a spoon? You want to go fast, but if you run too quickly you’ll drop it—that tension is part of the fun.
You can make it a solo time trial, or if you have a lot of people, turn it into a team competition.
It’s an activity you can adjust and get creative with depending on the number of participants.
Balloon Relay
Balloon relay is a game that’s especially exciting with a large group, played by splitting into teams.
Keep a balloon floating in the air, tapping it up with your hands as you run, go around the turnaround point, come back to the start, and pass the balloon to the next player.
The team whose last runner finishes first wins.
It’s a very simple, straightforward game, but that’s exactly why it gets everyone fired up—you can really let loose and feel like a kid again.
If the balloon touches the ground along the way, you’re out and have to start over from the starting line!
No Katakana Game
Are you someone who’s good at explaining things to others, or not so good? Either way, let’s have fun with the “No-Katakana Game”! You take words we usually use in English or katakana as the topics.
The questioner has to describe the topic without using any English or katakana, and everyone present tries to guess it.
Even people who are good at explaining will find it tough to think carefully, choose their words, and avoid katakana—and they end up slipping in some Japanglish without meaning to (lol).
Team tag
Not many people have played tag since becoming adults, right? This “Team Tag” turns the classic recreational game of tag into a serious, team-based battle for everyone.
Each team selects one tagger, and within the time limit, the team whose tagger catches more players from the opposing team wins.
It’s a simple game of tag, but you can add a twist—like giving each runner a playing card and requiring the tagger to catch opponents in numerical order—to keep it fun for a long time.
Picture shiritori
Shiritori is a classic for recreation and killing time.
“Picture Shiritori” is a version where you play it by drawing.
You look at the picture the previous person drew, guess what it depicts, then draw something that starts with the last syllable of that word for the next person—and so on.
If your team includes someone who’s not great at drawing—the kind of person jokingly called a “master artist”—it might get a bit tricky, but that actually makes it more fun (lol).
You don’t often get to look at other people’s drawings, so it’s sure to liven things up!
Minority wins! The Minority Game
This is a game where the people who choose the minority—the less popular answer—win.
First, split into groups and set a prompt and two choices.
Since there are only two options, pick one based on your own thinking.
After choosing, hold a debate—i.e., a discussion—within your group about the prompt.
After the discussion, think again about which option to choose as your answer, then everyone reveals their choice at the same time.
If you picked the minority answer at that moment, you win; if you picked the majority answer, you lose.
Pedometer showdown on an acupressure mat
You know that common recreation game where you wear a pedometer, move around a lot, and whoever racks up the most steps wins, right? Doing it as-is can be boring, so here’s a twist that makes your soles ache just hearing about it: play it on an acupressure mat.
You want to move to rack up steps, but the acupressure mat hurts… it’s a constant tug-of-war.
They say healthy people don’t find it painful, so maybe some ultra-healthy warriors will emerge!
11 Recommended Games for Networking/ Social Gatherings
Games with simple, easy-to-understand rules can be enjoyed by everyone from kids to adults.
When there are many participants, head-to-head games are recommended.
Games like Werewolf, escape games, or competitions where you add up everyone’s step counts from a pedometer seem great for deepening bonds as participants cooperate and strategize together.
There are also various other ideas introduced, including online versions.
Be sure to try incorporating them and have fun!
Finding commonalities
Common-ground finding is a fun game that helps you talk with people you’re meeting for the first time and feel closer to them.
There are various ways to play: for example, participants form pairs or groups and, within a time limit, look for things they have in common through conversation; or they present common points they’ve written down in advance—those are standard approaches.
Conversations can stall without a prompt, so set simple topics like “How you spend your days off” or “Favorite foods.” It’s also a good idea to set a target number of commonalities to find beforehand.