45 Virtual scavenger hunt ideas to try with your remote team

In 2020, the pandemic forced companies to develop new event concepts that are Covid-free, such as various virtual scavenger hunt ideas. And that became one of the few good things created by this crisis.

Nowadays, the pandemic is over. And yet this type of game is still popular. And that’s no surprise, as it allows hosting events without buying plane tickets for members of remote teams.

Based on our vast experience in creating games, we’re going to give you 45 ideas to bring your remote teams closer together!

A simple virtual scavenger hunt using video conferencing software

All you need to have is a conference tool like Zoom or Meet. This is a must to start a virtual game as it has all the tools to create something fun and engaging. And this is true for most of the virtual scavenger hunt ideas mentioned below.

1. A scavenger hunt list with items found at home

This can be engaging virtual scavenger hunt idea for remote employees. It’s extremely simple, because they can play such games from their own home and there are common items found at nearly every place of residence.

2. A remote outdoor game

Wait, what? How can an online scavenger hunt be outdoors? I can tell you that it exists because I’ve developed some of them. In my case, I generated challenges based on the walking distance using a scavenger hunts app such as Loquiz and its odometer feature.

3. A list of items found on Google

If you’re having struggles with creating your list of virtual scavenger hunt ideas, let the internet come to your rescue. If you type “virtual scavenger hunt” on Google Image Search, you’ll find many virtual scavenger hunt lists that you can simply print and use.

4. A horror-themed virtual scavenger hunt

Everyone has to turn off the light! And then everyone has to follow a story. Remote scavenger hunts with a horror story are popular because they offer the participants some additional thrills on top of the regular scavenger hunt. Here’s one that you can easily set up and play straight away: The Dark Manor.

5. A remote ice-breaker

I’ve seen many new employees struggling to get to know their remote colleagues. Well, an ice-breaker would be a perfect virtual scavenger hunt in that case. Instead of items to find, use facts that participants need to find out about their coworkers; such as “what’s their spirit animal?” or “who’s their childhood idol?” and task the participants with finding it out.

6. The Missing Player

Our user Kronos Experience have made some brilliant virtual scavenger hunt ideas by combining scavenger hunt apps and video production. Their game “The Missing Player” is a great example, offering an engaging experience for teams ranging from 10 to 1000 employees.

7. A musical online scavenger hunt

With your group of remote players, try to find a list of songs following different conditions. For instance, a grunge song, an exceptionally melodic song or a song with a bass solo. Let people choose their favorite song for each condition to fill the musical scavenger hunt list.

Virtual scavenger hunt ideas for a workplace

If you’re planning a virtual scavenger hunt for a team building event, where groups of colleagues are working from different offices across various locations, a good way of engaging team members is to make them interact with their surroundings. That way they can step away from the screen that they’re already looking at all the time.

8. Find a list of office items

Blue pen? Scissors? Pink post-it notes? Well, this one is easy, classic, and simple. So, if you’re not into more challenging, this will be super easy to set up.

9. Spread virtual items around the office

If you have several teams playing from different locations, you can use a gamification tool to place different virtual items around each office. Then each team must find these items using their phones as fast as possible.

10. Outdoor virtual scavenger hunt

Who said that you can’t hold an online scavenger hunt outdoors? If you’re using Loquiz for this idea, you can use the object finder feature to set it up. See how we used this feature for one of our own games!

11. Origami making competition

The idea is quite simple – each team gets a list of origami to make and the first one to complete the list is the winner. You most likely have quite a large stock of paper at your office, so you can use it for this purpose. As many people enjoy playing with paper, we can ensure you that this activity will create lots of fun.

12. Color scavenger hunt

One of the simplest ways to create a virtual scavenger hunt list for your coworkers is to ask them to find items of a particular color. And then just watch them roam their home or office to find the colors and fulfill their list. If you don’t want to make the list yourself, we made a color scavenger hunt game that you can play straight.

13. Hand shadows

Do you remember placing a set light on your wall, and then creating various figures with the shadows of your hands from your childhood? You can turn it into a virtual scavenger hunt idea by creating a list of figures that the participants need to create and demonstrate to everyone else. And why not add a bit of storytelling element to make it even more fun?

14. Do an after-hours scavenger hunt virtually

Some people like to go for after-work drinks with their colleagues. If you have a team that works remotely, why not plan a common after-work party for all offices from the same company? And to make it more exciting, why not also make a list of hidden items to find at each office during the event?

15. A webinar virtual scavenger hunt

If you’re hosting a webinar with different offices of your company participating, adding a gamification element with an online scavenger hunt will be a great way to entertain the attendees.

16. A virtual scavenger hunt that lasts for weeks

Why would you make a short scavenger hunt that only lasts a single evening? You can extend the fun by making a game that would last for weeks. Every day, you can add a new item to find in each office.

Ideas for a virtual scavenger hunt from home

Many companies work in a setup where every colleague is working from home instead of going to an office. So here are 10 virtual scavenger hunt ideas for remote employees that people can easily join from their homes.

17. Find specific pets

Who has a ginger cat? A border collie dog? A reptile as a pet? This only works if most of your colleagues have a pet. But if you know it to be the case, it’s certainly going to be a good ice-breaker, because we all like to talk about our pets.

18. A scavenger hunt through the window

No, we’re not talking about the most used operating system. We’re thinking of actual windows. Everyone’s window shows something different and that’s what makes this idea interesting. Come up with a list of items that everyone must take a picture of through their windows.

19. Mug scavenger hunt

Most people have lots of colorful mugs in their kitchens. So, create a game where everyone needs to show mugs with specific requirements: color, size, shape and so on.

20. Find items related to specific countries

Create a virtual scavenger hunt list with 15 countries for each person. Then, at their homes, they need to find items related to each of the countries. The winner, of course, is the first one to finish the whole list in the. For example, if the country is Indonesia, players can show a bag of coffee that comes from Java.

21. A virtual cooking game

Create a list of things to cook as a online scavenger hunt game! In the end, players can compare the appearance of their dishes and vote for the best-looking one. Yummy!

22. Bring your clothes on!

Make a list of clothes to everyone needs to show on the Zoom call. The players then must wear them all at the same time. At the end, you can determine, who had combined the most original or funniest outfit from all the items and reward them as a winner.

23. A story time online scavenger hunt

Instead of items, why not create a virtual scavenger hunt list with types of stories to tell? It might be interesting to hear the storytelling abilities of your co-workers – especially, if they tell stories from their personal experience. You can choose different types of stories that everyone must tell, for instance: ghost encounters, stories from their childhood or funny road rage situations.

24. Find your furniture!

Imagine a game where there’s an empty virtual room. This space needs… furniture! To fill it with furniture, each person from the team needs to take pictures of a piece of furniture from their own home and insert them in the virtual room. The winning team is the one with the most satisfying style of interior.

25. Other simple home challenges

What if you ask the players to bring the maximum amount of a specific item? This can lead to some funny situations. Or you can also ask them to bring the biggest item that can be seen in full on a webcam. People love challenges – even if they’re completely remote, with only a webcam connecting the participants.

Murder mystery virtual scavenger hunts

Technically murder mysteries are a separate type of games, bet we’ll also include them among virtual scavenger hunt ideas, because they’re both about accumulating items for a greater goal. So, you can look at collecting clues to solve the mystery the same way as scavenging the items to complete the list.

26. Cluedo online

You might have already heard of the Cluedo board game, where players accumulate hints to find out who’s the murderer. We have great news for you: it can be played online! So why not try it out at your next online team event?

27. Book a remote murder mystery game for your team

If you look on Google, there are plenty of murder mystery games that can be played online, through Zoom. Here is one of the examples among many: Zoom Murder Mystery Party. They offer your team to book a time with a professional actor for a unique experience.

28. A murder mystery game that you can play with nothing but Zoom

Play together with 7 to 14 persons in a Breakout room. Every round, one player is the host. They need to choose a murderer. Then, using the private chat, they will designate one murderer. Everyone needs to turn off their camera and loudly count until 10. During these 10 seconds, the chosen murderer needs to write in the chat directly to the people they choose to kill. At the end of the 10 seconds, all the surviving players (including the murderer) need to turn on their screens. They then have to debate who’s the murderer. Each player murdered gives the imposter 1 point. And each incorrect guess gives them an additional 1 point. In the end, the winner is the one murderer with the highest amount of points at the end of all the rounds.

29. The same game as previously, but with each office

If each office of a company has at least 7 people, then you can play it remotely, office by office. Instead of using Zoom, you can turn the lights on and off. And the murderer has to tag whoever they “kill”. Then you can compare the score of each team!

30. Your murder mystery game

If you’re good at storytelling, why not create your own murder mystery? It won’t be that hard to set up the rules using the Creator from Loquiz. Using the variety of rules it offers, you can implement a complex story. If you’re interested in the Loquiz Creator, but aren’t sure how to use it, feel free to contact us for more information!

Drawing scavenger hunt

There’s a whole set of ideas for an online scavenger hunt game based on drawing. Players can easily share their results on their screens. And sometimes, the outcome can be hilarious.

31. Draw a list of animals

As an online virtual scavenger hunt game, you can create to a list of animals for each team to draw. Then the teams can judge each other’s drawings by giving points. The winning team is the one with the highest score.

32. Draw using words

In this scenario, one of the players is drawing, and the other one dictates what to draw – without telling what the outcome should be. The second player can only describe shapes to draw but can’t mention objects. Without a clear vision of the final outcome, results can be funny. And isn’t that a bit like real life, where things tend to go astray when there’s no vision of the final outcome? Thus, this virtual scavenger hunt idea can also be a good teaching moment.

33. Draw an item that the object finder can detect.

Remember the object finder feature mentioned in one of the previous virtual scavenger hunt ideas? It generally asks you to find cats, toothbrushes, umbrellas, oranges and various other items it has been trained to recognize. But what if players draw them instead of finding them? With a bit of persistence, the object detector works with drawings as well – try it out for yourself!

34. Split the drawing

In the beginning, every player receives instructions to draw a part of something on their own sheet of paper. Once everyone is done, they put their drawing in front of the camera. Then one person has to rearrange all the screens om the video conference and take a picture of the final result.

35. Use a virtual whiteboard for your online drawing scavenger hunt

Use Google Jamboard, so that everyone can remotely connect to the same space – a Google account will be all that’s necessary to access it. Then challenge each team to draw a set of items, then ask them to judge each other’s drawings.

Seasonal virtual scavenger hunt ideas

A great way to engage your players is to play a game that fits in with the season. For example, if it’s Christmas soon, then offer a game related to Santa Claus and elves! Here are a few examples of seasonal virtual scavenger hunt games to play remotely:

36. For winter or Christmas

At the end of the year, with Christmas approaching, people might expect a game full of ugly sweaters and presents! If you’re looking for such a game, we have already made a game template for this: The Ugly Sweater Escape.

37. For Easter

When Easter comes, the spring comes too (apologies to anyone who lives in the Southern hemisphere).

It might be a good time to go outside and gather some items, as you do in a scavenger hunt. But what if you’re located remotely and can’t hide physical items? Do it with virtual items instead! We actually developed such a game, with virtual eggs to catch. Once you have collected all of these eggs, you get recipes to make an Easter lunch. Here is the Missing Easter Dinner!

38. For summer, let’s go outdoors with The Loop Game!

Summer is coming and… wait, you still want to play remotely? Do you still require players to remain behind their screens, on Zoom? Let us give you a virtual scavenger hunt idea that will solve this. An outdoor game that can be played online! With the Cilpo games, you get a series of “loop” riddles that you unlock by walking a certain distance. You can already try some of these brilliant games here!

39. When a high season comes

In different industries, different high seasons come at different months of the year. For example, tourism’s high season happens during the summer. Right before it comes, why not entertain your employees with a fun virtual scavenger hunt game? Such a team-building event can be motivating before busy periods.

40. For your own national day

If you’re in an international company, you might have more than one nationality among your colleagues. What if you create some virtual scavenger hunt ideas based on this? You can, for example, ask other people to find items related to your country’s national day. For example, if you’re French, you could ask your colleagues to find something revolutionary in the office!

Bonus ideas

41. Why not some video games?

A virtual scavenger hunt also works on some video games. My favorite example is Animal Crossing. In this cute game, every player lives on their own island, which they can customize to the core. And they can find many items, such as fruit, rare flowers, insects, fish etc. In fact, in Japan, a company tried Animal Crossing to make a remote/gamified meeting. Just make sure that all the participants have a device that they can play your selected game on!

42. A learning scavenger hunt using online tools

If your audience of players enjoys more intellectual stuff, then you can offer them some virtual scavenger hunt ideas for learning! For example, you can give them a list of mysterious words that they need to find on Wikipedia. The winning team would be the first one able to explain each word.

43. A photo scavenger hunt

When everyone is remote, you can challenge each player to go outside and snap pictures of different items from a virtual scavenger hunt list. In fact, we’ve laid down many photo scavenger hunt ideas in one of our articles. One or more might be a good fit with your online scavenger hunt!

44. Remote hybrid game ideas as a part of a real event

If you want to build a game for everyone in an event, but not all of the employees are joining in person, why not make a hybrid game? In this scenario, some people are remote, while others are located in the same location. If you’d like to find out more about implementing it, read our article about hybrid games.

45. Your very own virtual scavenger hunt with Loquiz

We have already offered more than 40 different virtual scavenger hunt ideas here, so there should be plenty of things to try out. However, if you still haven’t found anything that fits your vision, why not create your very own virtual scavenger hunt using Loquiz?

If you already have a strong virtual scavenger hunt idea, you can book 30-minute meeting with us. We’d listen to your ideas and show you the Loquiz Creator in detail, so that you have all the knowledge to bring your online scavenger hunt to life.