Virtual birthday party ideas that don’t feel like a video call

Everyone has been to the bad version. A video call, a grid of faces, someone’s camera pointing at the ceiling, a slightly out-of-sync “Happy Birthday”, and then forty minutes of people talking over each other until one by one they “have to go”. It is kind, and it is not a party.

A good virtual birthday party gives people something to do together, a reason to stay, and a moment the birthday person remembers. Here are ideas that work for adults, from small touches to a whole virtual night out.

Before the day

Send a proper invitation

Treat it like a real party. Give it a start time in every time zone your friends live in, one link per part of the night, and a dress code, even a silly one. People turn up for an event; they drift away from “a quick call”.

Collect something in advance

Ask each guest for one memory, one photo or one terrible inside joke about the birthday person. You will use these later in the games, and they turn an ordinary round of anything into a roast.

Ideas for the party itself

1. Start with a game everyone gets in ten seconds

A drawing game is the easiest warm-up. skribbl.io is free in a browser; a private room takes 2 to 20 players, and the host can add custom words. Load it with words about the birthday person (their hometown, their worst haircut, their favourite takeaway) and the guessing becomes the speeches. Gartic Phone, also free in the browser, does a similar thing as a telephone game: someone writes a line, the next person draws it, the next guesses, and the chain falls apart beautifully.

2. Play a team game with the birthday person as captain

Codenames Online is free in a browser, from the board game’s publisher, and takes up to 64 players a session. Put the birthday person in charge of one team’s clues. If your group owns a Jackbox pack, only the host needs it; everyone else joins on a phone at jackbox.tv. Quiplash 3 takes 3 to 8 players and up to 10,000 in the audience, so a big group can still vote.

3. Do the cake on camera, together

Ask everyone to have a candle, a cupcake, anything, and light them at the same moment. Count down from three. Singing together over a video call never quite lines up, so let one person lead and everyone else mute and mime. It is funnier that way anyway.

4. Leave the call and go somewhere

This is the idea that makes a virtual birthday feel like a night out: move the whole group into a shared place where you can walk around, split into little groups and wander back together, the way you would at a real party.

That is what party mode in AJ Cities is for. AJ Cities is our free open-world browser game set on the edge of Ajegunle, Lagos, and its party mode is a live, virtual Lagos night for adults. To say it plainly: the party is inside the game. There is no real venue, no real date and no real ticket, and nothing in the game gets anyone into a real party.

What a birthday there can look like:

• Meet at the gate. Everyone arrives outside the main gate of the estate. Ask the police to let you in; most nights about four in five guests who ask get in free.
• Dress up first. The Palmline Unisex Salon and Gatefold Clothing next to the gate change hair, skin tone and clothes for free. Agree a dress code and make the birthday person judge it.
• Go to the club. Prizm is the purple-lit club at No. 1145 June 12 Street, where the artist Joe-Izzy plays every night from 9 pm to 1 am Lagos time. Every ticket opens the ground floor. A VIP ticket opens the pool deck or the rooftop garden, which is a nice birthday treat.
• Or the beach. Past the bush and its football pitch is the beach party, opened by tickets from ₦400.
• Same song for everyone. The estate radio plays the same song at the same moment for every player, so your group hears the same track together.

It runs in a browser on a phone or a computer, with nothing to download. Each estate holds up to 60 players. Pick the same world as your friends (always day, always night or real Lagos time) and you usually land in the same estate. If someone’s set is far off in their time zone, pick always night: it is 10 pm there all the time, so the club is open whenever you arrive. Everyone signs in with their email and must be 18 or over.

5. Make a playlist together

If you want your own music rather than the estate radio, a shared queue helps. Spotify’s Jam lets a group add songs to one queue in real time; Spotify says Premium is needed to start a Jam, and to join one remotely. At launch Spotify said up to 32 people could be in one.

6. End with a toast and a photo

Before people go, do one group photo, either a screenshot of the call or all your characters standing together at the gate. Send it in the group chat the next morning. That photo is what the birthday person will remember.

A simple running order

1. 7:00: the call opens, a drawing game while people arrive.
2. 7:20: the team game, birthday person as captain.
3. 8:00: candles and the song.
4. 8:15: everyone moves to the estate, meets at the gate, dresses up.
5. Late: Prizm, the beach, wherever the group ends up.

What it costs

All of the above can be free. skribbl.io, Gartic Phone and Codenames Online cost nothing. AJ Cities is free to play, and asking at the gate gets most people in; tickets are optional, last 24 hours and run from ₦250 to ₦1,500 at the gate, with Prizm VIP tickets from ₦10,000 to ₦60,000. Every price is on the tickets page.

More: online birthday games for adults and how to host a virtual party.

How do you make a virtual birthday party fun?

Give people something to do together: a quick drawing game, a team game with the birthday person as captain, candles at the same moment, then a shared place to hang out, such as a virtual night out in a game.

Is the AJ Cities birthday party a real venue?

No. It is a virtual party inside the game. There is no real venue, date or ticket.

Can friends in different countries join the same virtual party?

Yes. AJ Cities runs in a browser anywhere. Pick the same world and you usually join the same estate, which holds up to 60 players.

Is it free?

The games named here can all be played free. In AJ Cities, most guests get in free by asking at the gate; tickets are optional.