You might be continuing youth/kids work online or be back to meeting in person or be in a transition between the two!  Either way any games we play with kids or youth are supposed to be Covid safe and minimise or avoid contact, avoid/minimise touching the same equipment and remain socially distanced. Even when this changes from law it is still likely to be best practice  and expected for a while, if you aren’t sure check the rules/guidelines of your church or of the building you use to make sure you comply with their rules.
If you are stuck coming up with some games we have some tried and tested ones that are Covid safe and could work for you and your group. Some of them would also work online too. Some are more tailored to youth, but some would work with older kids, have a look and decide based on your own group and context – but hopefully you can find something here that would work!

Mafia 

As pretend murder/killing is a big part of this game I wouldn’t play this with younger kids, I also don’t think any of my kids group would follow the rules to keep their eyes closed without peeking which is the whole premise of this game – but it is a great fun one for youth.

You will need some small pieces of paper with the roles written on that you can use once or throw away so you can hand them out to discreetly tell people their roles. No one should see the paper and the roles should remain a secret throughout the game. Without paper you need another way to discretly tell people their roles, if playing online you could use the private chat feature to do this, or Covid safe in person you could have the roles written down spaced out on one sheet of paper and reveal one to assign to each person by pointing at it and showing them as they enter – this way means you’d have to keep on the ball so you dont assign too many mafia and only one detective and doctor!
This game is an oldie but a goodie, we used to play it as young people back in the 90’s! It’s best played when sat in a circle or around a table so each player can see the others faces, to do it socially distanced just make sure people are spread out.

THE ROLES –
The Narrator keeps time rolling. The narrator does not officially participate in the game, but acts as a moderator. During the night, when all players have their eyes closed, the narrator awakens each role and asks them a question. For the mafia, the question is: Who do you want to kill? For the doctor: Who do you want to save? For the detective: Who do you want to know about? During the day, when everyone is awake, the narrator prompts players to nominate those they’d like to kill, a.k.a. those they think are in the mafia. The game repeats in phases from night to day, night to day, with one person murdered in each phase (unless are saved at night by the doctor).
The Mafia, consists of 2, 3 or 4 people who find out each other’s identity in the first nighttime phase. While the other players are attempting to figure out who they are, the mafia must lie throughout the entire game and act as though they are civilians. This is, in my opinion, the hardest role, since anyone who knows you well might be able to tell you are lying. The mafia must strategize together during the day without giving themselves away. At night, when the mafia awaken, they point silently to the player they’d like to kill. If all mafia agree, the player is offed.
The Civilians are attempting to figure out who is in the mafia simply by talking it out, accusing, and seeing who is acting suspicious. As a civilian, it’s best to use verbal/non-verbal cues and your gut to make alliances.
The Doctor is a civilian role that, at each nighttime phase, can save a player he or she thinks the mafia has killed. As mentioned earlier, if the doctor saves the right player, that player is brought back into the game. The doctor cannot save themselves and they too can be killed by the mafia.
The Detective is a civilian role that, at each nighttime phase, can point to a player he or she thinks is in the mafia and the narrator will nod their head yes or no. This role is perhaps the most fun, because once the detective begins to find out the identities of players, they can begin to make alliances with true civilians and/or persuade the group to kill true mafia. The detective is not safe either though and can also be killed off by the mafia!

HOW TO PLAY –
First Night: The narrator begins at night by telling all players to close their eyes. “Mafia, wake up. See your fellow members,” she says. “Mafia, go to sleep.” In the first round, this is all that happens.
First Day: The narrator instructs everyone to wake up, open their eyes and the game begins. Invite the group to start accusing people out of nowhere. Who is acting shyer than usual? Who is talking a bit too much? Who can’t keep a straight face. Who looks shifty? Ask straight-forward questions about identities and choose someone or a couple of people as a group who you want to nominate and accuse of being in the Mafia. You can have as many nominations as you want, but you need a majority to finalise the accusation and ‘kill’ the accused. Go through the nominations and vote on who the group thinks is most guilty of being Mafia. Once a consensus and a final nomination is made that person is ‘killed’, they should use their best acting skills to comedically fake their murder! (Eg. a shriek and collapse on the table/floor) When a player is killed, they are no longer allowed to speak and their identity is not revealed.
Second Night: The narrator says it is night time, all players’ are instructed by the narrator to have their eyes closed and the narrator awakens the mafia and asks who they want to kill, they make a choice by quietly pointing at the person they wish to eliminate. The narrator sends the Mafia back to sleep and then awakens the doctor for the first time and asks who they want to save. They nominate someone to save by pointing. And then, the narrator awakens the detective and asks who they want to accuse of being Mafia – they point at someone and the narrator has to nod- yes or no.
Third Day: The narrator awakens all players and someone has been killed, unless the doctor has figured out who the mafia had their sights on and saved this player. The game continues in these phases, day and night, day and night, until civilians kill all mafia members (Civilians win!) or mafia outnumber civilians (Mafia win!).
THE GAME WITHIN THE GAME! – Once you are killed from the game, you are then allowed to see the identities of all players at night. You will be shocked to see who has been fooling you and will bond will the other players who have been killed. It is almost just as thrilling to watch the game take place—knowing all the identities—as it is to be alive playing. You will talk about it on your walk home and perhaps the next day. That epic game of Mafia you played where you tricked your closest friends and family into thinking you were on their side and then betrayed them for the win.

 

Logic
You could adapt this for younger kids by simplifying the ‘Logic’ that becomes the rule of the game and have an adult lead the game so you can encourage or help any kids who struggle. It is a good game for youth though and you can make it even more difficult by complicating the logic/rule for older teenagers.

This is not an active game but it is ideal as a time filler for any down time such as an icebreaker, waiting for something, sitting by a camp fire etc. It is a brain teaser/riddle type of game.  Ideally sit in a circle so it is easier to tell whose turn it is.

1. Tell the group that you are taking a trip (to the moon, camping, whatever).

2. The person who is leading the game creates a reason (only known to them) as to why certain items can or cannot be brought on the trip. For example, my logic could be that only things that start with the letter C can be brought on the trip (again, don’t tell the group that).

3. The person leading the game (could be a leader then next round could be a young person etc.) begins by saying, “I’m going to take a ____ (something that corresponds to their logic, such as a Cat.) “I’m going to take a Cat. John, what are you going to take? 
3. As you go around the circle or group, each person gets a turn to ask if they can take ____. If John ask if he can take a Backpack, the answer would be no because it doesn’t start with the letter C and therefore doesn’t correspond to the logic (this is not told to the players until the game is over).

4. Each time someone asks if they can take an item, the leader says “yes you can take a ____ or no you can’t take a _____but doesn’t explain why.

5. Each time everyone has asked about one item, the leader shares a new item that he can take. This gives the players more opportunities to observe the reason or “why” behind the items.

6. The game can continue until either everyone figures it out, one person figures it out or everyone gives up, depending on how your group wants to play. 

Any logic or “why” will work but here are a few ideas.

A. People can only take items that begin with the first letter of their name. (Michael can take a map, Susan can take a sword, etc).

B. Someone can only take an item that begins with the letter of the last letter of the last item that was asked about. Meaning, wether someone’s last item was denied or accepted, such as- If the leaders’ (John) item was a book, the next item would have to begin with the letter k to be accepted. If Mark asked, “can I take a chicken?” the answer would be no. But if the next person (Luke) ask, “can I take a nail?” the answer would be yes because the last word was chicken, and it ends with an N. And the next item would need to start with an L to be accepted.
C. People can only take animals that are usually kept as pets.
D. People can only take things that are also words that contain 3 letters.
E. People can only take items that would fit inside a trouser pocket.

 

Wink Murder

Again with the ‘murder’ theme I wouldn’t play this with small kids unless you change the name and make it ‘Blink to Sleep’ or something – where instead of ‘pretending to die’ they act as if a blink from the special person can force them to fake go to sleep.

Arrange the whole group seated in a circle (ideally cross legged on the floor, spread out to be socially distanced) and your Detective standing in the centre.

  The game requires the Detective in the centre to identify the chosen “Murderer”. 

 While the detective is out of the room or has their back to the group and eyes closed – secretly select a ‘murderer’ (or perhaps more than one) …

The game is a foot!….

Our vigilant detective is scanning the group to see who our killer is.  While the ‘Killer’ is trying to send a fatal WINK 😉 across to another person in the circle do away with them.   Supposedly while in the centre, our detective would have their back turned to the ‘killer’.  Whoever gets winked at by the ‘murderer’ overacts dramatically their slow and drawn out death as they fall backwards or forwards onto the floor – where they remain for the rest of the game.  


The aim is for the detective to find the ‘killer’ before everyone gets ‘killed’.  No winners really but the competition of who can subtly knock off the most victims before being identified.  And there will be some in the group who love being the best at drama and ‘out dying’ the last victim!

 

Empires
Materials Needed- Paper

This one can be a bit complicated for kids and would be harder to keep them socially distanced – unless you’ve got some advanced ones with good memories who are good at following instructions!

First of all sit in a circle on the floor or on chairs, (spaced out if you are following social distancing) elect a adjudicator to go into the other room or a corner of the same room.  A topic is chosen i.e. Food, Cars, brands, pop stars, films, countries etc. and one by one each person playing goes to the adjudicator and tells them what ‘thing’ of the category they are. (if the topic was food, Player A could say- Apple). The adjudicator then writes the players name and their chosen thing.  Once everyone in the room does this

, the adjudicator then randomly reads out every bodies things once (and once only).  

Everyone has to try and memorize all of the things throughout the entire game.  Starting with any player they call out the name of a person and what thing they think they are.  If they are wrong the person whose name gets called just says no, but if the guess was right they say so and then get up and move to stand next to the person who got it right (socially distanced if needed), the person who correctly guesses is now the King of an Empire.

This same process goes around and around the circle gradually building up more empires.

  If your thing has been guessed and you are in an Empire you cant guess any more peoples things but you can however help your King to decide whose thing they should guess next. (Your turn is just simply skipped.)   

If you are the King of an Empire and your thing is guessed you AND your ENTIRE empire has to get up and move to that persons empire.

The winner is the King whose Empire has everybody playing in it. i.e Towards the end there will be just two Empires left (they could be 1 person or 20!) and if a King guesses the other Kings thing they win everybody in that Empire and WIN the game.

NOTE: The adjudicator must never read out the list of things again during the game. They can only tell people what they are if they forgot (quietly or in another room of course!).

NOTE: An Empire can have only 1 person in it (The King) it doesn’t have to be more than 1 to be an Empire (i.e. if there were 30 people playing at the start there would be 30 Empires)

 

Two Truths And A Lie
i’ve played this one with kids and youth, for kids though I usually add a discalimer that we are only allowing them to tell fibs for this game, and remind them honesty is still always better in real life!

You can either sit in a circle for this and have everyone take a turn, or choose a couple or few people to play and reveal 3 statements which would make for a quicker game.

For this great get to know you game, each person must make three statements about themselves, one of which isn’t true.  

For example: I have two brothers, I was born in Australia, I have a motorcycle.  

This works best when you give the group some time to think of their statements, and write them down if they need.

  Once one person makes their statements, the rest of the group must guess, or vote on, which statement is the lie.  You can either reveal the lie each time as you go or reveal all the lies at the end.
You could play as a team, or individually.   It could work well to get each group member to write down their own answers and see who gets the most correct.

 

Walrus
This game works a lot like the game ‘psychiatrist ‘but has it’s own twist and humor. 

Start out by having one person leave the room (or mute their audio if playing online).  Easier if you have the kids or youth sit in a circle on chairs or on the floor so it is easier to tell whose turn it is.  With the rest of the group decide upon an action the person has to guess. This could be anything like: Reading, Sleeping, biking, taking a shower… etc. Then decide on a random other word to replace that action with such as: ‘Walrus’, or you could pick another random word for subsequent rounds like ‘Zeppelin’, ‘Teddy bear’, ‘Zippedy-doo-dar’, ‘Beep-boop’ … etc. When this is decided the other person enters the room and starts asking people questions about the action. The youth have to answer with the substituted word in a sentence. The goal is for the other person to guess the action without giving up.

This game is a lot of fun and will cause a lot of laughs – it can go as many rounds as you want and will continue to amuse. (Especially if you pick a random funny word to say instead of the action!)

Example of what the question and answers may sound like: (Walrus=Blinking)

Q.”How often do you to do this action?” 
  A. “I tend to Walrus every day”

Q. “Do you usually Walrus alone or with other people?”
  A. “I tend to Walrus when I’m alone and with other people”

Q. “Do you Walrus while you sleep?”
  A. “No I don’t tend to Walrus when I sleep”

Q. “Is Walrus seeing?”
   A. “No, Walrus is not seeing.”

Q. “Do you Walrus while you’re under water?
  A. “I try not to Walrus while under water, but it happens”

Q. “Is Walrus blinking?”
   A. “Yes, Walrus is blinking.”

 

 

Heads or Tails
You will need a coin to flip.

Get the young people to stand up and guess whether they think the coin will land on heads – by placing their hands on their head, or tails by placing their hands on their…tails just kidding! – hips!
You flip the coin and call our whether it landed on heads or tails – those that get it wrong are out and sit down, those still in keep playing for the next round – continue until you have two people in the final and play to get 1 final overall winner!

 

Rock, Paper, Scissors Battle
Players will need nothing but one hand to play!
I’m sure you’ve heard of Rock, Paper, Scissors – you play one-on-one with an opponent to see whose hand action trumps the other. Paper beats rock and rock beats scissors and scissors beat paper. To play a Rock, Paper, Scissors battle, get all the young people to pair up across the room (socially distanced of course!) They play each other in pairs and the loser sits down, winner finds a new partner to play. Continue until you have the final two who battle it out to become overall champion. Depending how much time you need to fill you can either do each round as a best of 3 with each opponent or if you want it to be quicker just do a best of one.  If you need this one to be Covid safe it might be worth adding a few reminders at the start about social distancing while moving around the room and making sure they dont touch hands with other players – and if they accidentally do – have sanitiser nearby!

 

Scattergories
Players will need their own pen & paper (To keep it Covid safe don’t share pens or have sanitising wipes to clean them before and after use)
Have a list of 8, 10 or 12 categories such as boys name, girls name, shop, brand, place, something found in the kitchen, a game, vegetable, animals, items found in a vending machine, football team, spices, companies, things that are cold, things you save up to buy, items to take on a trip, fish, reptiles, mammals, crimes, things to do at a party, etc. You give a letter that each round must start with and players have to name an item for each category beginning with the chosen letter. For points it has to be an item no one else has written and for double points it can be a two word alliteration eg. Cartoon character beginning with M – Mickey Mouse!
For each round you can either change the letter or categories or both.
To play online or to present the game in person on a screen you can use: http://swellgarfo.com/scattergories/ for a free online version that has categories, a timer and auto generates a random letter – this can be screen shared on Zoom or any other platform.