For when you’re building comfort.
Give clients a chance to relax, warm up and show a little more of their personality. Sometimes playing together opens a door that questions alone cannot.
Online therapy games, check-ins and guided activities: Better beginnings lead to better conversations.
Opening Play is a tool for leading sessions. Open with one of our online therapy games, check in, then go deeper, with a Playbook for every game to help you explore what comes up.
For therapists, counselors and coaches. In person or over video.
14 days free. No card needed. Client names and answers are never saved.
Screenshot
Start a Session screen
For every kind of session
Every session needs something different.
Sometimes you want to ease into a conversation. Sometimes you need a fresh way to get things moving. Sometimes you’re ready to explore something deeper.
For when the conversation needs a spark.
You ask about their week. They say “fine.” Try something different that gives you both a new place to begin.
For when you’re ready to go deeper.
Explore feelings, patterns and perspectives in a way that feels approachable, not like another round of questions.
The power of play
Sometimes the best conversations start with something else.
A little competition. An unexpected answer. A moment of laughter. Playing together creates opportunities for connection without making every moment about the conversation.
It’s not always about the game. It’s about what happens while you’re playing.
How a session flows
Games open the session. Enhancements take it deeper.
Choose the path that fits today. Use one part, two, or all three.
Screenshot
A game in progress
1. Play & Connect
Start with a game.
Online therapy games for quick warm-ups, strategy, drawing, word play and conversation. Most take ten minutes or less.
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A check-in question on screen
2. Check In
Ask the question that fits.
Ready-made check-in question packs, or bring your own. Ease in, read the room, then decide where to go.
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A Session Enhancement in use
3. Explore & Reflect
Go deeper with a guided activity.
Session Enhancements like Reflection Wheel, Sort It Out and Win, Worry, Wish turn a good moment into a useful conversation.
Playbooks
The games get them playing. The Playbooks help you explore what comes up.
Sometimes the connection is the whole point. Other times, a game brings up something worth exploring. Every game comes with a Playbook filled with moments to notice, questions to try and ideas for where the conversation could go.
Moments worth noticing.
The choice, the hesitation, the laugh, and what each might, or might not, tell you.
Words to try.
Try lines you can say as is or put in your own words.
Ways to adapt it.
Ideas for quiet clients, different ages, one-on-one sessions and groups.
Where it can lead.
Ideas for staying with the fun, or moving into a check-in or a Session Enhancement when the moment feels right.
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A Playbook slide with its Try line
A Try line, inspired by Piranha Pond
“When the piranhas showed up, did you change your strategy or keep going? Does that ever happen outside the game?”
Open a Playbook during a session, or print it to prepare ahead.
What’s inside
Interactive therapy games online, plus the guidance to use them well.
50+
games
Tagged by activity type, who plays and the skills they practice, with levels and seasonal picks.
15
Session Enhancements
Guided activities for reflection, problem solving and practical takeaways.
Every
game has a Playbook
Short slides with moments worth noticing, words to try and where it can lead.
3
session types
Play & Connect, Check In and Explore & Reflect. Use one or all three.
Session Enhancements
When the moment calls for more.
15 guided activities for reflection, problem solving and practical takeaways. Several come straight from Danielle Lloyd’s coaching practice, including Circle of Control, Break the Loop and Stop the Slide.
- Bakery Basket
- Brain Gains
- Break the Loop
- Circle of Control
- Dive In
- Investigating the Iceberg
- Menu Maker
- OOPS → What’s next?
- Reflection Wheel
- Sort It Out
- Spin It!
- Squiggle Scenes
- Stop the Slide
- The IDK Menu
- Win, Worry, Wish
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Circle of Control activity
In the room or over video.
Use it on an iPad, a laptop or a TV in your office, or share your screen to play virtual therapy games over video. Nothing to install.
Using Opening Play for telehealthClient names and answers are never saved.
What a client says, picks or draws stays in your browser’s memory and is cleared when you end the session or close the tab. Downloads are created on your own device. Your clients never need an account.
Who it’s for
Built for the people who lead the session.
The library leans toward kids, teens and young adults, with play that never feels babyish. Many games and most Session Enhancements work just as well with adults.
Therapists
Warm up a session before the harder work, in your office or over telehealth.
School and Youth Counselors
Counseling games and check-ins that fit a short session or a small group.
Coaches
Keep clients engaged while you work on goals, habits and the way they think through problems.
Made in real sessions
Built in a coaching practice. Used six days a week.
I’m Danielle Lloyd, a certified coach in Greenville, South Carolina. I built Opening Play for my own sessions with kids, teens and young adults. I use it every day and keep refining it, so Opening Play keeps growing out of real sessions.
More about DanielleQuestions
Good to know.
What are online therapy games?
They are short interactive games and activities a practitioner leads during a session, on a shared screen or over video. They give you and your client something to do together, which often makes talking easier.
Who is Opening Play for?
Therapists, counselors, coaches and other practitioners who lead sessions. The library leans toward kids, teens and young adults, and many games and most Session Enhancements work just as well with adults.
Do my clients need an account?
No. You lead the session from your own account. Your client simply plays.
Is client information saved?
No. Names, answers, choices and drawings from a session stay in your browser’s memory and are cleared when you end the session or close the tab. Downloads are created on your own device. Your account saves only your own setup, such as presets, saved setups and the questions you write.
Does it work with my telehealth platform?
If your platform lets you share your screen, Opening Play works with it. Everything runs in a web browser, with nothing to install.
Are the games a form of therapy?
No. Opening Play is a tool for practitioner-led sessions, not a treatment. Some games are simply fun, and that’s often the point. You decide what fits each client.
How does the free trial work?
Try everything in Opening Play free for 14 days. No card needed.
Your next session could start with a game.
Try everything in Opening Play free for 14 days. No card needed.