immeasurably if everyone plays at once, leading to a chaotic biscuit scrum. More advanced players could try playing the game with something thinner, such as an oatcake.
Crazy Stair Climbing
Crazy Stair Climbing is the perfect name for what appears to be a more mobile branch of House Gymnastics. All that is required is a narrow stairwell with strong banister rails on each side and some imagination. A variety of methods can be used to traverse either up or down the stairs, but at no time must your feet touch the ground.
The basic Crab method involves holding onto the banister rail with both hands, placing your feet against the wall below, then ‘walking’ in a hand-over-hand style down the stairs, keeping toes off the ground at all times. With one player on each rail, this makes for a grand race.
For single players, the Crab Straddle involves placing a foot on top of each rail and then, by stretching forwards, placing your hands on the rails too. In this straddle position you now have to shuffle upwards to get to the top of the stairs as quickly as possible. Once mastered, the next step (sic) is the Downhill Crab Straddle. Something only for the bravest stair climbers, this is exactly the same but involves moving head first down the stairs.
Airplanes
Airplanes (1) is a trick game that can probably only be played once, unless you keep participants out of the room until it is their turn. Two strong players are required to hold a plank of wood at hip height a few feet above the floor. The partygoer who is playing the pilot is shown the plank then blindfolded and helped onto it. They stand there and support themselves by placing their hands on the shoulders of the two carriers, who then proceed to walk the plank around the room. These carriers then carefully kneel down so that the plank is as close to the floor as possible. To the partygoer, whose hands remain on their shoulders, it appears if anything that they are lifting him higher above the floor. The carriers then announce that the plane is about to crash and the pilot needs to parachute to safety. What feels to the blindfolded pilot to be a metre or so is merely a matter of centimetres. Will they dare to jump?
Airplanes (2) is an Inuit game of strength. In teams of four players, one forms the airplane by lying face down on the floor with their feet together and arms outstretched. The other three teammates now pick up this player, one holding his ankles, the others holding a forearm each. The airplane player must now keep their body totally rigid for as long as possible whilst teammates ‘fly’ them across the room. The team that achieves the greatest distance, before the airplane gives up and begs their teammates to stop, wins.
Firing Squad
You can’t beat the addition of a lighted candle to a game to bring that extra element of danger.
Firing Squad is for two or more players at a time. Players fix a candle to the top of a cycle helmet using molten wax, then strap the helmets to their heads. The candles are now lit. Each player is given a fully loaded water pistol and their aim is to extinguish the other’s flame in the quickest time possible. The last person to retain a lit candle is the winner. Players can move about to avoid incoming water, although they must do so cautiously as this increases the risk of the candle going out through their own movements.
For even greater fun, play at night with the lights out.
Grasshopper
Fun indoor games based on hit television shows are few and far between—Blind Man’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer was never going to be a big hit at children’s parties. But Grasshopper, a game based around one crucial scene in the hit 70s show Kung Fu, is the TV-to-indoor-game conversion that really works.
Simply get a long roll of bubble wrap and lay a path out on top of a solid floor. Players now take it in turns to walk barefooted along the length of bubblewrap—just like Kwai Chang Caine (Grasshopper) did on rice paper in Kung Fu. In the series, under the direction of his mentor Master Po, he would try almost painfully hard to walk delicately down the paper only to get to the end, turn around, and see rips galore. He only achieved a perfect walk once he had reached true lightness of spirit through his Kung Fu training.
So any player who is heard to pop a bubble is out until it’s his turn again—or you can simply count the pops each player makes and add a time penalty for each one. Players must aim to walk along the bubble path as stylishly as possible with as much Zen poise and balance as Kwai Chang himself.
To add to the game, place a candle at the end of the path for the Kung Fu master to place his hand in the flame and yet feel no pain.
Atmosphere is added if a non-player can commentate on proceedings using the wise words of Master Po: ‘ It is only through a lightness of mind and spirit, Grasshopper, that your feet will leave no mark.’
Heinz and Seek
Dragging uncooperative children around the supermarket is hell at the best of times. Heinz and Seek is the perfect game that is guaranteed to keep squalling siblings entertained all the way from the cheese counter to the checkout.
Very simply, one parent enters the supermarket first and moves an item (one that is easily recognisable by all players—such as a branded tin of baked beans, packet of crisps, etc.). The item must now be placed somewhere else in the store, in an incongruous place but at a reasonable height for all the players to find.
The rest of the family then go into the store and are told what the product is that they are looking for. Whilst shopping, the seeking players must find the moved item before reaching the checkout.
Obviously this is not a game that you would want all the shoppers in the supermarket to play simultaneously, otherwise it would turn food shopping into a totally random experience.
Strange Jumping Games
Inuit culture has produced many fantastic games, but with Tiliraginik Qiriqtagtut, or the slightly easier to say Jump Over Stick, they have created one of the great strange games that requires athleticism, jumping ability and the ownership of a good stick.
To play, get a solid stick (a broom handle works well) and hold it in both hands in front of your body. Hands should be shoulder-width apart. The objective is to jump both feet off the ground at once and over the stick, without releasing your grip, and land without toppling. You should now be in a slightly crouched position
with the stick behind your knees. Now simply jump both feet backwards over the stick to return to your starting position. Repeat until exhausted.
There is a modern-day equivalent of Jump Over Stick, namely Underpants Jumping (or the Sport of Philanderers, as it is sometimes known). Keep your clothes on and use a spare pair of underpants (old ones where the elastic has gone may be the best, but whichever you choose, avoid the use of the thong). To play the game, hold the pants in front of your body and jump both feet simultaneously into them, then pull them up to your waist, take them off and jump again. Players play against the clock to see who can do the most underpants jumps within a set time.
Minesweepers
Minesweepers is the modern name for a game which used to be known as Battle of the Atlantic. There is nothing to beat the
