Tag and other childhood games

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

“Hot Lava”

Sort of like Tag, but with more opportunities to loose your front teeth.

Played while climbing on playground equipment. Whoever touches the ground becomes the “Lava Monster” and chases other players around, trying to tag them. Those tagged then become the Lava Monster and so-on. If somebody accidentally touches the ground mid-game then they become the Lava Monster instead. “No tag-back” rules are strictly enforced.

Key “freeze Ray” areas are situated around the playground. When touched they freezing the Lava Monster in his/her tracks for a five-count, just long enough to get away.

In non-league games “Warp Areas” may be used, allowing players touch the ground long enough to run from one end of the jungle-gym to the other, but these are frowned upon by professionals. In fact items such as “Lava Boots” “Force Fields” and “Slow Down Rays” may be incorporated but rarely are by serious players.

22

About 10:35 here in CST. :stuck_out_tongue:
We played all kinds off games in the street. The only bad part were those people who actually insisted on driving through our play area! The colossal nerve of those people…

Anybody ever play Stoop Ball? For starters, you needed a stoop (for those none NY’ers, a stopp is just the steps leading up to your front door or porch). Good brick steps were the best, and a stoop with at least 5 steps was preferred. You could play with 2 kids, and it was a baseball type game.

The “batter” took a spaldeen (ok…a red rubber ball, like a racquet ball) and threw it against the steps. The “fielder” had to catch it on a fly. How far your ball went determined the type of hit. A cheap single would bounce on your sidewalk, a double in the street, a triple on the sidewalk across the street. If you hit the corner of a step just right, the ball would sail across the street and hit the house on the other side, which was a home run.
We also played hockey in the street, on roller skates, using a puck or a roll of electrical tape if we couldn’t find a puck (usually because some dope slapped it down the storm sewer). This problem also gave rise to the inventions of all sorts of wire hanger and rope devices used to retrieve pucks, balls and other stuff from the sewers. Always a fragrant time on a hot summer day. :slight_smile:

23

Wow, Hide the Belt sounds like a lot of fun.

How about all those junior high lunch table “Whose balls are bigger?” contests. This category includes the classic bloody knuckles, but also:

High Point, or the Can Game
You start with a soda can, and set it on its side. The first player “karate chops” it, with the side of his hand. He then turns the can so the highest point is facing up. The next player chops the can as hard as he can. Obviously, this chop will be much more difficult and painful than the initial one. Each player continues in this fashion, taking turns, while the can becomes progressively more mangled and razor-sharp tears form. I think there may have been some criterion for winning. First player to bleed, or last player to bleed or whatever. Or maybe we just played until the can was unusable. It was a great way to show off for the ladies, as well as spread bloodborn diseases. After weeks of playing this game, we’d get the pleasure of showing off the slits and gashes that covered the sides of our hands.

The Comb Game
This one is really simple. You just take turns slashing the other player’s fingers or knuckles with a comb. First player to bleed loses.

Basketball
We often played basketball with some alternative goals in mind. People would go up for a layup and savagely kick people in the gut or testicles while in the air. Or, if someone else is jumping, you can slam him with both fists, knocking him out of the air.

Kindergarten Bowling
I didn’t participate in this particular game. It was pretty mean, but kinda funny. I went to a Christian school until my senior year. It had students from K-12 grades. Before school started, we’d all hang out in the gym, half of the gym taken up by high school kids and half by elementary school kids. Some of the more sadistic juniors and seniors took to passing the time by rolling basketballs as fast as possible toward the little kids on the other side. If they fall over, it’s a strike.

Mosh Pit
There were some blue mats that were in our school’s gym. We could stand them on their sides and attach them with the velcro parts at the end, forming them into a circle. Everyone inside would then run at each other full speed, often leaping at them right before impact for maximum force. This game was a lot of fun. Bonus for knocking someone over.

24

Y’know, this thread is reminding me that I sometimes really miss childhood. Other times, I definitely definitely do not.

25

“Red Light, Green Light” -
(Get to “It” without getting caught)

One person was it and stood aways down the field with his/her back to everyone else and shouted “green light”. Everyone else would walk, run, whatever to get to “It” before “It” turned around and yelled “Red light”, where you had to freeze. If “It” caught you moving, you went back to start. First one to reach “It” became “It”.

Variant - “Statues”

“It” faced everyone else.
On “Go”, everyone headed towards “It”, running, walking, rolling, or just approximating the “Ministry of Silly Walks” from Monty Python. “It” would yell “Statues” and everyone would freeze in position, “It” trying to catch you in the goofiest, one-leg off the ground pose, and sadistically wait to yell “Go”, trying to catch someone wobbling or falling over outright, sending them back to start. We ended up imposing a 10-second time limit on freezing after one kid left people standing for about a minute - takes one to ruin everyone’s fun - and you could count silently and put your foot down on 10 if “It” didn’t release you by then.

My other favorite was a teacher-sanctioned classroom game - “Eraser Chaser”, where 6 kids each had one blackboard eraser on their heads, one was “it”, and chased (walking) everyone around the room without dropping the eraser (the rest of us had to sit at our desks, hands and feet tucked in to no one would trip or get injured, but we could yell encouragement). Nothing like going home after school with chalk in your hair, especially when the teacher used the colored chalk.

26

Moon Man and Ghost in the Graveyard were the best summertime games. However, it’s been so long since I played, I can’t even remember the rules. All I can remember is that flashlights were involved in both games…

If ANYONE can remember the rules to these, please post 'em! I think t would be fun to play again! :smiley:

27

The game that I remember playing most with the neighbourhood kids was Code.

We’d divide into teams: boys vs. girls and each team would pick secretly pick a word that had the same amount of letters as there were members of your team. Each person was assigned a letter from the word. If teams were uneven someone could have more than one letter. I’ve always had a pretty decent vocabulary so the boys would actually stipulate that I wasn’t allowed to pick the word: “No Tanja words”.

We’d set a boundry limit (Usually between a few apartment buildings) and the first team would get a chance to scatter. About 30 seconds later the other team would pursue. We weren’t allowed to hide, only evade. Once we were caught the catchee was allowed to use whatever method they wanted to get you to tell them your letter. You were not allowed to fight back.

It’s interesting how this aspect of the game evolved as we grew older. When we were young, stuffing grass up someone’s nose and the like where the chosen methods of torture. Once puberty hit that changed to the boys ever so slowly raising our shirts until we gave in and the girls would start stripping the pants of the boys until they coughed up their word. And other things along this nature.

Once one team had all the letters they had three guesses to arrange them into the correct word. If not, then the team that had the word got to pick another and go again.

Ahhh, Code. That was a fun game. :slight_smile:

28

We had a game called victorio. I don’t remember seeing anybody else playing this game ever. Simple rules really.

Two teams of five or six usually, who stand six or seven feet away from a central pile of small slates. Each takes it in turn to try and knock over the pile with a tennis ball. Once one team does this, they run. The other team have to hit each and every one of the opponents (you get hit, you’re out) before they can rebuild the stack. And you can throw the ball as hard as you like. Cool game.

Anyone play anything like it?

::deafening silence::

29

Lesse… we often played Wink Murder, Handshake Murder, Red Rover, What Time is it Mr Wolf, Dr Dodgeball, Freeze Tag, TV Tag, Butcher Tag, Regular Tag, Siamese Twins, Streets and Avenues, Dodgeball, Kick the Can, Chinese Knot, Glow Stick Hide and Seek, Marco Polo and some others…

Wink and Handshake Murder are variations of the same game where one (or more if the group is big) people are chosen to be ‘murderers’ if its wink you sit in a big circle and look around at everyone staring at everyone else. The murderer winks at people and if they see it they die (hopefully really well too but some didn’t) and they lay down. Handshake is similar only you walk in a big group shaking hands and the murderer squeezes hard when they go to kill someone… you then wait a few seconds and die. For both games anyone left alive can guess the murderer and if they are wrong they die if they are right the murderer dies.

Butcher Tag is simply where you can’t tag the person who tagged you. Freeze tag whenever who is it tags someone they must freeze where they are. Anyone not frozen can tag the frozen ones to free them but if they get tagged before they do they must freeze as well. (Much fun in smaller groups… if you have a big group you need more then one ‘It’ otherwise its too easy.) If the ‘It’ person freezes everyone then they win and it runs till then or when everyone is too tired to play.

The other ones we didn’t generally do ourselves it was when we did more structured stuff in Guides or Gym class.

Streets and Avenues you have 2 people… one who plays a policeperson and the other the crook and the crook is of course trying to get away from the police. Everyone else stands in rows to make a square and puts out their arms. When someone yells streets they stand one way (all the same way) leaving rows in one way… when someone yells Avenues they do a quarter turn and there are new rows. You try to either help or hinder the police like this.

Siamese Twins is one of those where you get into partners and someone stands on the sidelines yelling out different things they have to do. The partners stand on either end of the room and run to the middle to make those shapes, whoever gets done last is out and whoever is left at the end wins. The shapes are Siamese Twins where you put your hands between your legs and stand butt to butt holding hands. Leap Frog where one person goes on their knees the other person stands straddling them like they are ‘leap frogging’. Romeo and Juliet one person goes on one knee the other sits on the other knee. Lock Arms where you stand back to back and hook arms together… and I can’t remember if there are other shapes.

Chinese Knot you get people into decent sized groups then have them put one hand into the middle and grab someone elses hand then put the other arm in and grab another persons hand. (You have to make sure no one is holding someone elses two hands otherwise it won’t work) Then you try to untangle yourselves without letting go. Its quite fun actually, I wonder how much fun it would be if people were drunk?

Glow Stick Hide and Seek (its what I call it I don’t know of that’s the right name) you have to play at twilight or evening after dark. You have a field surrounded by trees and a group of people dressed in dark clothing. One or two people are it and there is a glowstick. The ‘It’ people put the glowstick somewhere in the clearing and the rest run and hide in the woods. ‘It’ has to guard the glowstick so no one grabs it AND find the people hiding. The people hiding have to get the glowstick without getting caught by ‘It’. If ‘It’ catches everyone then ‘It’ wins. If someone gets the glowstick without getting caught the hiders win. Oh and if you are caught you have to sit out.

For Kick the Can I don’t know if this is how others play it but this is how we played at camp. We had a big can (like tall… generally it was a big coffee tin with smaller tins duct taped to it to make it tall or something like that) and stood in a circle around it holding hands. You had to try and get the others to run into it without hitting it yourself. If you hit it or knocked it over you were out. You keep playing until there is only one person and they win. You can see why it needs to be tall… if its short then everyone just steps over it and thats too easy. It has to be tall enough that it can be hit easily but short enough that it is possible to step over if your quick enough on your feet.

The others I’m sure you people know how to play. Your all smart people. :stuck_out_tongue: