# 5 Puzzle Types You Can Use for Your Next Team Building Session | PuzzleBuilder > URL: https://puzzlebuilder.co/blog/5-puzzle-types-you-can-use-for-your-next-team-building-session/ Looking for team building activities that people actually enjoy? Here are 5 puzzle types — from crosswords and word searches to photo challenges and Sudoku — that work for remote, hybrid, and in-person teams. --- 14 April 2026 ## 5 Puzzle Types You Can Use for Your Next Team Building Session Most team building activities fail for one of two reasons: they're too competitive in a way that creates winners and losers among colleagues, or they're too passive and people drift off after ten minutes. Puzzles sit in a different spot. They're engaging enough to hold attention, flexible enough to run in any format, and structured enough that everyone knows what they're supposed to be doing. The five puzzle types below each work differently and serve different purposes. Some reward collaboration. Some are deliberately individual but create shared conversation afterward. Some work best in person; others are specifically designed for remote teams. Knowing which type fits your session is the starting point. ### What Makes a Puzzle Work for Team Building Before the list: the qualities that separate a team building puzzle from a puzzle you'd do alone. **Observable progress.** Everyone in the room should be able to see how the group is doing. A live leaderboard, a shared grid filling in, a timer counting down — any visible progress mechanism keeps energy up and gives people something to react to together. **Appropriate difficulty.** Too easy and people stop paying attention. Too hard and half the group disengages. The target is a puzzle where every person contributes something — where the range of difficulty means different people shine at different moments. **No prior knowledge barrier.** A trivia quiz rewards whoever happens to know the most about the chosen topic. The best team building puzzles create a level playing field — or use company-specific content that everyone has equal access to. **A defined time limit.** Open-ended activities lose momentum. A fifteen-minute puzzle with a visible countdown has a natural arc: slow start, building engagement, final push. That arc is what makes the activity feel satisfying rather than arbitrary. ### 1. Crossword Puzzle — Best for Knowledge and Culture A crossword built around company content — the founding year, the CEO's first job title, the product name that almost launched, the internal acronym nobody outside the team knows — rewards the people who've been paying attention. It's the team building equivalent of "how well do you know this place?" The format works particularly well for onboarding groups, annual company events, or any session where the goal is shared knowledge rather than pure competition. New hires who crack a clue that veterans missed creates a leveling moment. A long-tenured employee who knows the founding story gets a moment of recognition. **How to use it:** Create a custom crossword with 15–20 clues drawn from company history, team trivia, product knowledge, and inside references. Run it as a timed individual challenge with a leaderboard, or as a collaborative group activity where teams work on the same puzzle together. The individual leaderboard version creates more competitive energy; the group version creates more discussion. **Works for:** In-person events, hybrid sessions (shared online link), remote teams (everyone plays simultaneously from different locations). → [Crossword Generator](https://puzzlebuilder.co/crossword-generator/) · [Team Building & Corporate Puzzles](https://puzzlebuilder.co/team-building-corporate-puzzles/) ### 2. Word Search — Best for Low-Pressure Engagement Word searches are lower-stakes than crosswords, which makes them more inclusive for groups with mixed comfort levels around competitive activities. There are no clues to decode — just a theme and a grid. If the theme is right, the activity almost runs itself. The most effective team building word searches use content specific to the group: product names, company values, department names, project codenames, city names from the team's locations. A word search filled with generic words is a time-filler. One filled with terms that mean something to the people in the room becomes a talking point. **How to use it:** Use as a warm-up activity at the start of a session while people are still arriving, or as a quieter paired activity alongside a more competitive main game. A timed format with a leaderboard elevates it from passive to active. Print for in-person; share a link for remote and hybrid. **Works for:** Mixed-seniority groups, large sessions where you need something that scales, any situation where you want engagement without high pressure. → [Word Search Generator](https://puzzlebuilder.co/word-search-generator/) ### 3. Photo Challenge — Best for Remote and Hybrid Teams A Photo Challenge gives participants a list of prompts and asks them to find or photograph something matching each one. "Something on your desk that's been there longer than you have." "The most important tool in your work right now." "Something that represents your team." The responses reveal things about people that no other format surfaces. This is the format that works best when the team is scattered — because it doesn't require anyone to be in the same place, and because the photos themselves become conversation starters that go well beyond the game. When someone photographs an unusual item from their home office and explains what it is, the group learns something about that person in two minutes that might not come up in months of video calls. **How to use it:** Distribute the prompt list in advance — even just an hour before — and have everyone submit photos during the session or beforehand. Review responses together as a group, either by sharing screens on a video call or projecting during an in-person event. Award points for creativity, relevance, or group vote. **Works for:** Remote and hybrid teams specifically. Also strong for in-person sessions where you want a more personal, less competitive format. → [Photo Challenge Generator](https://puzzlebuilder.co/photo-challenge-generator/) ### 4. Bingo Challenge — Best for Icebreakers and Large Groups Bingo in a team building context means Find the Guest Bingo — each square contains a prompt about a person in the group, and participants have to find someone who matches. "Has worked in more than three countries." "Joined the company in the same year as you." "Can name every member of the leadership team." "Has a side project outside of work." The format forces interaction in a way that feels like a game rather than a structured networking exercise. People have a reason to approach colleagues they don't know well, ask a specific question, and move on without it feeling awkward. It works especially well for large events — conferences, all-hands meetings, company retreats — where the guest list includes people from different departments or offices who might not otherwise talk. **How to use it:** Distribute printed cards at the start of an in-person event, or share an online link for remote sessions. Set a ten to fifteen minute time limit. First person to complete a row wins — or first to fill the card. The online version with a live leaderboard works well when you want a competitive finish. **Works for:** Large groups, events with mixed departments, any session where the primary goal is getting people to talk to each other. → [Bingo Challenge Generator](https://puzzlebuilder.co/bingo-challenge-generator/) ### 5. Sudoku — Best for Individual Competition with Shared Energy Sudoku is the outlier on this list — it's a purely individual activity. No collaboration, no team knowledge, no content from the company. What it offers instead is clean, equal competition. Everyone starts with the same grid. The fastest correct solution wins. Seniority, department, and tenure are irrelevant. That equality is what makes it work in a corporate context. It removes the social dynamics that make many office game activities awkward. The junior analyst who finishes first beats the department head. The person who's been quiet all session suddenly tops the leaderboard. A shared online round with a live leaderboard projected on a screen creates genuine competitive energy without any of the interpersonal complexity that team-based competition can introduce. **How to use it:** Run as a focused ten to twenty minute competitive round. Use medium difficulty for most adult groups. Share the link, start everyone simultaneously, and let the leaderboard do the rest. Works well as a standalone event or as one round in a multi-puzzle session. **Works for:** Any group size. Especially effective as a palate cleanser between knowledge-based activities, or as a closing competitive round that doesn't depend on knowing anything specific. → [Sudoku Generator](https://puzzlebuilder.co/sudoku-generator/) · [Why Sudoku Makes a Great Party Activity](https://puzzlebuilder.co/blog/why-sudoku-puzzles-make-surprisingly-great-party-activities/) ### How to Structure a Multi-Puzzle Session The five formats above work individually, but they work even better in combination. A well-designed team building session uses two or three puzzle types in sequence, each serving a different purpose. A structure that works for most groups: start with Bingo to get people talking and interacting (fifteen minutes), move to a company crossword as the main competitive event (twenty minutes), and close with a Sudoku round as a purely individual finale (fifteen minutes). That sequence covers icebreaking, shared knowledge, and clean individual competition — three different modes in under an hour. For remote teams, replace the Bingo with a Photo Challenge and run everything through shared links. The format changes; the structure holds. For more on running competitive puzzle events, see [How to Host a Live Puzzle Competition at Your Event](https://puzzlebuilder.co/blog/how-to-host-a-live-puzzle-competition-at-your-event/). For a broader comparison of puzzle formats across different event types, see [7 Puzzle Types, 7 Ways to Use Them at Your Next Event](https://puzzlebuilder.co/blog/7-puzzle-types-7-ways-to-use-them-at-your-next-event/). ### Getting Started All five puzzle types are available in [PuzzleBuilder](https://puzzlebuilder.co/start/). Each builder takes about ten minutes to set up — choose your puzzle type, enter your content or let the AI generate it, pick a design template, and either download the print-ready PDF or publish the online version for a live leaderboard session. The same puzzle works in both formats, so you can run print and online in the same event without creating anything twice. **[Build Your Team Building Puzzle →](https://puzzlebuilder.co/start/)** ### Ready to make your event unforgettable? Open the editor and build your first puzzle in minutes. You only pay when you're ready to download or publish — and every purchase is covered by a 14-day refund. [Start Building →](https://puzzlebuilder.co/start/) --- Path: [Home](https://puzzlebuilder.co/) › [Blog](https://puzzlebuilder.co/blog/) › [5 Puzzle Types You Can Use for Your Next Team Building Session](https://puzzlebuilder.co/blog/5-puzzle-types-you-can-use-for-your-next-team-building-session/)