Did we all play the same games in the playground, just under different names?

[Rassilon]

I'm curious about ERA's recollections of playground activities.

Did any of you play something unique that no-one else has since heard of?
If you have kids, are they playing the same games you did as a child?

A few basics I remember:

Tag / Tig
A game in which a player known as 'it' must touch another player to pass on the role of being 'it', they must also exclaim 'tag' or 'tig' when doing so. The objective of other players is to avoid being caught.
Sometimes an additional rule is that touching a lose bit of shirt or garment does not count, and only well-placed contact counts.

Automatic Tag / Zombie Tag / etc
A variation of the above, however when the 'it' player catches another player, the role is not exchanged, instead they are both 'it'. This carries on until there is one 'free' player left, who is the winner.

123 Home / Forty Forty
A game in which a player known as 'it' must guard a pole, tree or other landmark. Other players will attempt to sneak up on said poll and loudly exclaim 'forty forty home' or something similar.
The 'it' player may catch assailants by pointing at them and saying 'forty forty I see X person behind said bush', assuming said 'it' player is touching their base.
The 'it' player must therefore wander around looking for hidden assailants to catch them out, but beat them back to the aforementioned base to get them out.
Apparently, the name 'forty-forty' is from the middle ages, which is neat!

British Bulldog
This was a favourite and was notoriously banned in UK schools for a few years.
Free players attempt to reach the other side of a defined area, however a group of 'it' or 'bulldog' players stand in the middle and attempt to catch said free players.
If a player is caught, they join the ranks of the bulldogs.
It was usually far more physical than 'tag' as bulldogs would rugby tackle 'free' players to catch them, rather than the usual tap on the back.

Cops and Robbers
Essentially a team version of 'tag' in which players are divided into two teams; cops and robbers.
Cops catch said robbers by tagging them, who then must stand in a defined 'jail' area.
Uncaught robbers can free their teammates from jail by sneaking in and tagging them.

 

[Mariolee]

I don't remember forty-forty, and I think British Bulldog had a different name, but otherwise I remember most of those games.

 

[Red Liquorice]

Way to pull British Bulldog from the depths of my brain, wow! lol

I think tag was called catch iirc, because we also had kiss catch, where when you caught the person you kissed them - heteronormative play only unfortunately!

What about What Time Is It Mr. Wolf? Where the kid playing the wolf turned around and everyone else had to slowly walk towards them, then the wolf would turn around and everyone had to freeze. The first person to touch the wolf won. It's kind of like tag mixed with musical chairs I suppose.

 

[MrCibb]

Of that list we played Tug, which is just Tag, and Manhunt, which is just that Automatic Tag.

We played Blocky a lot, which sounds a bit like a cross between 123 Home and Cops and Robbers. Where 2 people start as chasers (usually the fastest) and if they tug you, you need to go stand by a pole. Once they've got everyone, they win. But if someone gets to the pole without being tugged and says "Blocky 1, 2, 3..." up to 10, then everyone in the pole escapes. That was alright, usually limited it to about 2 or 3 streets.

We played Suicide as well, where you need to throw a tennis ball off the wall. Wherever you catch the tennis ball, you need to throw the ball and hit the wall from there, no moving allowed. So goal was hit it your hardest so it flies/bounces away really far so someone's got a hard throw. If you miss, or someone catches it before it hits the wall, you need to stand at the wall and the catcher/last thrower gets a free shot at you.

Love to know where and how the same games get renamed depending on where you lived.

 

[KDR_11k]

What about What Time Is It Mr. Wolf? Where the kid playing the wolf turned around and everyone else had to slowly walk towards them, then the wolf would turn around and everyone had to freeze. The first person to touch the wolf won. It's kind of like tag mixed with musical chairs I suppose.

Click to shrink...

We knew that as "who's afraid of the black man?" Yeah. I always imagined that to be a man in a black trench coat with a black hat and sunglasses, the typical evil spy image.

 

[Rassilon]

What about What Time Is It Mr. Wolf? Where the kid playing the wolf turned around and everyone else had to slowly walk towards them, then the wolf would turn around and everyone had to freeze. The first person to touch the wolf won. It's kind of like tag mixed with musical chairs I suppose.

Click to shrink...

Yup I remember that one!
iirc some kids would cheat by moving horizontally out of sight, where they could move freely.

It was very similar to a game we called 'Grandma's Footsteps'.

 

[Fatoy]

I'm pretty sure British Bulldog is just a version of Kabaddi that we stole.

EDIT: Thinking back, at some point in high school we actually started playing Kabaddi by that name. Not as an official school sport, but on the astroturf. I got a lot of friction burns.

 

[Brotherhood93]

Yep, played all those although we played 'forty forty' with a football and if you beat the 'it' player back to the ball and kicked it away everyone was free to go hide again. Can't remember what we actually called it.

Also 'Cuppy' or 'Wembley', which I am sure anyone who liked football played. Could be played in singles or doubles.

'Curby' was another one.

 

[MoonsaultSlayer]

We didn't call it Forty-Forty but we played something similar (and just called it Hide and Go Seek or Hogginoseek to mock the little ones who didn't break down the words and just copied what they heard lol).

The 'it' would count at a wall which was considered "base" while other players would hide. They would then seek out the other players who would have to remain hidden or make a run for base and yell "ollie ollie oxenfree" (which is probably spelled differently and means something in another language but I don't think I've ever looked it up) to signal that you're safe. Whoever the seeker found first counted next.

I made up a game with my brother and sister and neighbors called "Ball Tag" which had one player in a corner of a yard throwing a ball, dodgeball style, at other players who had free reign of the yard. Hitting a player had them step out and you tried getting as many out as possible. If a player caught the ball, the game resets and they become the thrower. Person with most hits or whoever gets everyone out wins.

Reading football above reminded of a favorite:

Kill the Carrier! A football was tossed high up into the air and whoever caught it or picked it up first had to run around avoiding being tackled by everyone else. Once down, it was their job to toss the ball up but couldn't make a play for the ball unless it was touched and dropped. This sort of separated the tougher kids from those who valued their physical health haha. I cringe at the thought of how hard we could have hit each other but memory is probably exaggerating it. Inwas known for my longevity and tackle avoidance. I was a fast, tall and scrawny kid though. Like tackling a stick figure, didn't give much of a target I guess haha.

 

[Pau]

I'm curious what other people called "mano peluda" ("hairy hand") which for us was tag in a dark room. Whoever was "it" was also blindfolded.

 

[Ashdroid]

When I was a kid (in the US) we played "Zombie Tag" and "Cops and Robbers" but called both of them "Sharks and Minnows". (Game rules were pretty much always explained at the start, so there was no confusion.)

"Freeze tag" was probably the most common version of tag we played, though. There were two teams, and if you got tagged, then you froze in place until tagged by someone on your own team.

Another playground game that still stands out is (forgive the name...) "Smear the Queer", which was like reverse tag. One kid was "it" and every else tried to tackle them. Sometimes they carried a ball or something that marked them as "it", sometimes just one person started out as "it", and the kid who managed tackle them would be the next "it".

There was also "Red Rover". You'd have two teams who'd stand about 30 feet away, facing each other. The players would link arms and call over a member of the other team, who would run at the line of the opposite team and try to break though. Depending on whether they succeeded or failed, they would either join the other team or someone from the other team would join theirs.

"Capture the Flag" was probably my favorite, though. We didn't play it often, but when we did it was a huge deal. Giant field, 100+ players, elaborate strategies, and the occasional deception. The variant we played had the tagged players freeze in place, so the sneakier players would only pretend to be frozen and move closer to the flag when they weren't being watched or make a run for it when they had an opening.

 

[davidnolan13]

123 Home / Forty Forty im sure we called it blocker.

British bulldog had to be banned in our school as people kept getting ragged around and injured.

We used to play a game called polo a lot where you had to run back and forth between 2 points in a sort of a race with someone who was on. i remember tripping and knocking myself out on a wall playing that.
Polo

• One child is it and stands at one end of the garden (as kids we used to play it in the road and run to the other side of the street).
• They call out a category to the other players on the other side of the garden such as animals or colours.
• Each player quietly chooses something from that category and a nominated player calls them out – let's say dog, pig and cow.
• The player who is it chooses one, e.g. 'dog' and the player who is' dog 'races them across to the other side and back.
• The first player back to their place shouts 'polo' and is it the next time.

 

[Deleted member 27246]

We used to play 'poorten' aka ' doodschoppertje' (poorten means kicking a ball through another players legs, doodschoppertje means...death kicker I guess)

So you just start playing football (everyone for himself) and if you shot the ball through anothers players 'gate' (aka legs) that person had to run as fast as possible to a certain point (usually a bottle) to be safe.
All other players would try to prevent it by kicking said player as hard as possible.

Of course the game wasn't allowed on the school yard. It was brutal af.

 

[Rassilon]

Yep, played all those although we played 'forty forty' with a football and if you beat the 'it' player back to the ball and kicked it away everyone was free to go hide again. Can't remember what we actually called it.

Click to shrink...

The 'it' would count at a wall which was considered "base" while other players would hide. They would then seek out the other players who would have to remain hidden or make a run for base and yell "ollie ollie oxenfree" (which is probably spelled differently and means something in another language but I don't think I've ever looked it up) to signal that you're safe. Whoever the seeker found first counted next.

Click to shrink...

Interesting that this one seems to have gone by so many different names.

We actually called it 'Jack Saves All' for reasons completely unknown. Who's jack?
The 'it' player would call out "123 No Jack (name)!" and the assailants would tag the base by saying "Jack Saves All!"

I'm curious what other people called "mano peluda" ("hairy hand") which for us was tag in a dark room. Whoever was "it" was also blindfolded.

Click to shrink...

We called it 'Blind Man's Buff', seems to be another ancient game.

Kinda weird these same games appear in such a wide array of places. Presumably some academic has tracked their origin to some ancient city or something.

 

[Joni]

123 Home is how we played hide and seek.

 

[FaceHugger]

I'm curious what other people called "mano peluda" ("hairy hand") which for us was tag in a dark room. Whoever was "it" was also blindfolded.

Click to shrink...

Marco Polo.

We'd blindfold someone and they could scream out "Marco!" and the rest of us would then say "Polo!". And they'd try to grab us. Looking back on it a lot of heinous injuries occurred because of that game.

 

[Big Boy]

My primary school only had a concrete playground - no playing field - and British Bulldog was a regular for years 5&6. So many injuries. I remember a few kids breaking bones. School eventually banned it.

 

[Rassilon]

My primary school only had a concrete playground - no playing field - and British Bulldog was a regular for years 5&6. So many injuries. I remember a few kids breaking bones. School eventually banned it.

Click to shrink...

Yep! Same here. Living in a rural area meant kids were used to running about in woodland / fields so there were many injuries when the same games were applied to playground tarmac. I have a vague memory of a kid breaking his leg.

 

[Deleted member 31873]

I remember all those except Forty Forty.

British Bulldog was called "Tiggy in the middle" amongst my friends and we played it on the street outside our houses where the "it" players stood on the road and the other players had to get across to the pavement on the opposite side. "It" players weren't allowed on the pavements.

 

[Pau]

We called it 'Blind Man's Buff', seems to be another ancient game.

Kinda weird these same games appear in such a wide array of places. Presumably some academic has tracked their origin to some ancient city or something.

Click to shrink...

I see in the link that it's played outside. Did you guys do that? I don't think we ever did that.

Marco Polo.

We'd blindfold someone and they could scream out "Marco!" and the rest of us would then say "Polo!". And they'd try to grab us. Looking back on it a lot of heinous injuries occurred because of that game.

Click to shrink...

Oh, I always thought Marco Polo was only in the swimming pool. :O

 

[HiLife]

Fumble Annie. Which also has an offensive name that I will not mention, but heard the most of.

Wallball - the one where you actually hit the kid in the back with the racquetball before they touch the wall. How we started playing this idk but I loved it.

500 - another fun football game

 

[PuppetMinion]

Here in Sweden we did play tag and something similar to Forty Forty . "Burken" in swedish, would translate as can. You was supposed to kick the can or an bucket at the home base to win.

 

[Rassilon]

I see in the link that it's played outside. Did you guys do that? I don't think we ever did that.

Click to shrink...

iirc we played it both indoors and outdoors, but outdoors there'd be a defined play area.

 

[HiLife]

Lightning - basketball game where you tried to knock out the other players by scoring before they do. Also called knockout.

 

[sir_crocodile]

we played most of those

bulldog was the absolute primary school fave, played every morning before school started without fail. never banned while I was there, but it was a looooooooong time ago.

we used to have this super long, high hedge next to a fence with various holes in it, so our version of cops & robbers was customised with kids behind the fence being the robbers, had to run back and forth behind the fence and the kids in front of the hedge playing the cops had to try and catch them through the holes in the hedge. if there was one kid behind the hedge remaining by the time break ended they won

lunchtime was just footy

 

[11037]

Growing up we played a lot of British Bulldog and Hide and Seek. We also played "Chasey" which is Tag/It and a lot of Scarecrow, a game where you have to run from one side to the other and if you get tagged you stand still and stretch your arms out and attempt to touch others running past you. You could free the Scarecrows by crawling under their legs.

I'm curious what other people called "mano peluda" ("hairy hand") which for us was tag in a dark room. Whoever was "it" was also blindfolded.

Click to shrink...

We called this "Murder In The Dark".

 

[Brinbe]

i wonder if kids even know what a red ass (Game) is? i'd imagine not and it saddens me. but yeah, there's probably a ton of different names it went under back in the day.

PKEW PKEW PKEW - Red Ass: An Instructional Guide

PKEW PKEW PKEW explains the rules of their favourite school yard game, Red Ass - also the name of their new 7" EP, now available! Featuring "Asshole Pandemic...

www.youtube.com

Butts Up - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

the GOAT recess game along with foot hockey (basically soccer with a tennis ball, which is hilariously fun) which was about as canadian as you can get.

fuck man... kids dun kno

 

[julia crawford]

....play? With other kids?

 

[NHarmonic.]

In my country i played a game called "Alto". Basically every player chooses a color or a country or a name or whatever, they gather in a circle around a player that holds a ball. Said player throws the ball high in the air and shouts one random designated thing (for example, if playing with colors, he shouts "Blue!!"). Then the player that chose that thing before has to quickly catch the ball and shout "Stop", while the other players should try to get far away as possible from him.

After stop, everyone has to stand on their position, and the player with the ball has 3 big steps to try and get near someone and throw the ball at other players. If they manage to touch someone with it, then that new player is the one that has to do the whole "throw the ball in the air" shit.

Wonder if anyone else played this?

 

[Kurita]

Played all of these, yup (France)

Tag is called "Chat" (cat), British Bulldog is called "L'Épervier" (sparrowhawk), Cops and Robbers is the same (Gendarmes et voleurs).

 

[Brinbe]

also 500! where you throw a football up and yell a point amount for ppl to catch. i wonder if anyone even knows what the fuck i'm talking about lol

500 (ball game) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[ClivePwned]

This is want they called those games in my school in the 80s in Australia (Brisbane). How unique these were to our school, I don't know.

Murder in the Dark- Lights out in a room and someone goes to touch someone else.
Tiggy- Tag
Bedlam- this was the one with the base/ Forty Forty
Red Rover- can't quite remember exactly but I think it was trying to cross the field while the other team catches you. In high school they called something very similar "mugby."
Marco Polo- lots of people had home swimming pools back then so one person would be in the water with their eyes shut and they's shout marco and everyone would have to should polo, and if someone was out of the water, the person with the eyes shut would shout "Kublai Khan and anyone out of the water was it.

Heads Done Thumbs Up. This one was one played in the classroom occasionally during primary school (as in the teacher would use it to kill time). Most of the class puts the heads down on the desk and holds out their thumbs. A few who were 'it' would go around and each tap someone on the hands they's have to put their thumbs down. Then the people who were tapped wold have to guess who had tapped them.

musical chairs- obvious but the music plays and when it stops you have to grab a seat. The chairs are gradually removed until everyone's out someone gets the last chair. It's Battle Royale without paying royalties to Epic for using the Unreal Engine.

and the biggy in australia: Handball.

 

[ohabs]

My school's recess area had a large slab of cracked asphalt that had grass growing up through the cracks so we played tag where you could only run on the grass lines but the person who was it could run anywhere. We called that Line Tag. We also played freeze tag where if you got tagged you freeze in place and could get unfrozen by another non-it player. Another version of that is when you got frozen you also had to slowly melt like a candle and if you didn't get unfrozen before you melted to the ground you were out.

 

[The Albatross]

In elementary school we played a game called "Suicide"

One person would throw a tennis or hard bouncy ball against a high wall.

When the ball came back someone had to catch it with one hand

If that person dropped it everybody had to sprint to the wall as fast as possible

The person who dropped it would have to pick it up and throw it at someone sprinting to the wall. If they successfully hit someone then the game would continue. If they didn't hit anyone then the person who threw it would basically face a firing squad where another student would line up behind them and whip the ball at them from like 10 steps.

Game made no sense but we played that a lot for a while in like 3rd-5th grade.

Also played a lot of football and soccer variants.

I've always been curious about how traditions, games, arkane playground rules, and so on, would spread over hundreds or thousands of miles. There was no rule book, no TV show, no printed manual for how to play Marco Polo for instance but the way Marco Polo is describes above even with the kublainkhan rule is 100% identical

 

[kyle mechlachlan]

Played some Red Rover when I was a kid. Our version had two teams on different sides of a yard or playground all linked by hands. One group would say "Red Rover Red Rover, send _______ Over" and that person would have to try to break through the other group.
Telephone game was fun. Big group of kids all standing in a big circle holding hands. One person would think of a phrase and lean over and whisper it into the ear of the person next to them. They'd do the same and so on until it came back to the original person to see if the heard the same thing.

 

[HStallion]

Real kids played bloody knuckles with quarters.

 

[astro]

In the UK, for me it was:

It - this was what we called Tag

40-40 - as described in the OP

Hide and Seek - people hide, designated person has to hide

Stuck in the mud - a variation of It. The person who is It chases everyone else, if they touch someone that person has to stand still with their legs wide apart. Other players need to avoid the person who is It and can unfreeze their team by crawling through their legs. It wins if they manage to freeze everyone.

Grandman's Footsteps - one person stands at the goal, the others stand in at a set distance from the goal. The players move toward the goal. The person at the goal will turn around every now and then (however often they want) and when they do the players must freeze, if they are seen moving they are out (this game led to some ridiculous arguments of "I WAS NOT MOVING" "I SAW YOUR LEG TWITCH" etc...).

British bulldog - as described in OP.

We had a bunch of variants of these, too.

 

[exodus]

We played Red Ass.

You would throw a tennis ball against a wall, and if someone caught it before it hit the ground, the person who threw it would go up to and face the wall. The person who caught it would whip it at their ass. Something like that.

Repeat.

There was an elimination system as well but I can't remember how it worked. We also had a less violent alternative called Chance.

Oh, here it is:

The object of the game was simply to not fumble the tennis ball in any way. The ball would be thrown at the wall and if it came to you, you had to catch it. If you fumbled the ball or it touched you in any way and you could not hold on to it, you had to run to the wall and get there before another player could retrieve the ball and throw it at the wall. If you did not make the wall before the ball, you would receive a letter beginning with "R" and working through the letters of "Red Ass" until the second "S." If you threw the ball and another player caught it before it reached the wall, you would also receive a letter.

Once a player sucked badly enough to spell out the word in its entirety, they would be subject to a potential red ass. They would have to stand up against the wall with their posterior facing outward. In succession, every player from the game would take turns hurling the tennis ball as hard as they could at the losers ass in an attempt to make it – you guessed it – red.

Click to shrink...

 

[Ryuelli]

123 Home / Forty Forty
A game in which a player known as 'it' must guard a pole, tree or other landmark. Other players will attempt to sneak up on said poll and loudly exclaim 'forty forty home' or something similar.
The 'it' player may catch assailants by pointing at them and saying 'forty forty I see X person behind said bush', assuming said 'it' player is touching their base.
The 'it' player must therefore wander around looking for hidden assailants to catch them out, but beat them back to the aforementioned base to get them out.
Apparently, the name 'forty-forty' is from the middle ages, which is neat!

British Bulldog
This was a favourite and was notoriously banned in UK schools for a few years.
Free players attempt to reach the other side of a defined area, however a group of 'it' or 'bulldog' players stand in the middle and attempt to catch said free players.
If a player is caught, they join the ranks of the bulldogs.
It was usually far more physical than 'tag' as bulldogs would rugby tackle 'free' players to catch them, rather than the usual tap on the back.

Click to shrink...

I've never heard of these two (grew up in the US). British Bulldog kind of sounds like Red Light - Green Light, but there definitely wasn't kids in the middle.

 

[ty_hot]

Played all of those in Brazil.

 

[mhayes86]

I played some of those tag-like games at home with family and friends. What I usually played at the playground, however:

Rundown - two bases at either end, and two people guarding each base that would throw the ball back to each other. The object was to run to each base which were safe without being tagged or having the ball hit you by one of the catchers.

Wall Ball - Throwing a ball at a wall, and if you miss catching it, you had to run up and touch the wall before (I can't remember) either being hit by the ball/tagged/ball hit wall from the other player.

4-square - Our playgrounds had 4-square grids painted on the blacktop. 4 people stand in a square and bounce a ball back and forth trying to make the others miss the ball.

Tackle Keep Away (when I was in middle school) - One person had the ball and the rest had to try and tackle them to get it back. Both a friend and I were the fastest in our group, so we typically won.

 

[Heynongman!]

In elementary school we played a game called "Suicide"

One person would throw a tennis or hard bouncy ball against a high wall.

When the ball came back someone had to catch it with one hand

If that person dropped it everybody had to sprint to the wall as fast as possible

The person who dropped it would have to pick it up and throw it at someone sprinting to the wall. If they successfully hit someone then the game would continue. If they didn't hit anyone then the person who threw it would basically face a firing squad where another student would line up behind them and whip the ball at them from like 10 steps.

Game made no sense but we played that a lot for a while in like 3rd-5th grade.

Also played a lot of football and soccer variants.

I've always been curious about how traditions, games, arkane playground rules, and so on, would spread over hundreds or thousands of miles. There was no rule book, no TV show, no printed manual for how to play Marco Polo for instance but the way Marco Polo is describes above even with the kublainkhan rule is 100% identical

Click to shrink...

I remember suicide, it came after my group of friends got bored playing regular wall ball which was basically just poor man's racket ball.

 

[jokkir]

Manhunt - Kinda like tag but when you touch someone, they join your team though I believe there was a version where you can untag them (or was that a different game)

Whip - throw a ball against a wall and if someone catches it, they can throw it at you (hence shipping the ball at you). To stop it, you have to run to the wall and touch it. No head shots. If you got hit evdn though you touched the wall, the person who threw the ball gets one free shot thrown at them. Same with headshots.

Line tag - Can only go on lines to tag them (eg basketball court outlines). Though I was the kid who ended up cheating cause I counted cracks on the ground as lines lol

 

[galv]

This is want they called those games in my school in the 80s in Australia (Brisbane). How unique these were to our school, I don't know.

Murder in the Dark- Lights out in a room and someone goes to touch someone else.
Tiggy- Tag
Bedlam- this was the one with the base/ Forty Forty
Red Rover- can't quite remember exactly but I think it was trying to cross the field while the other team catches you. In high school they called something very similar "mugby."
Marco Polo- lots of people had home swimming pools back then so one person would be in the water with their eyes shut and they's shout marco and everyone would have to should polo, and if someone was out of the water, the person with the eyes shut would shout "Kublai Khan and anyone out of the water was it.

Heads Done Thumbs Up. This one was one played in the classroom occasionally during primary school (as in the teacher would use it to kill time). Most of the class puts the heads down on the desk and holds out their thumbs. A few who were 'it' would go around and each tap someone on the hands they's have to put their thumbs down. Then the people who were tapped wold have to guess who had tapped them.

musical chairs- obvious but the music plays and when it stops you have to grab a seat. The chairs are gradually removed until everyone's out someone gets the last chair. It's Battle Royale without paying royalties to Epic for using the Unreal Engine.

and the biggy in australia: Handball.

Click to shrink...

yea

came here to say handball

also now remember playing heads up thumbs down (musical chairs i think is universal)

but yea

handball

it's like every primary school had their own rules about what you could and couldn't do

 

[Deleted member 33515]

I always picked Global Thermonuclear War

 

[Heynongman!]

Manhunt - Kinda like tag but when you touch someone, they join your team though I believe there was a version where you can untag them (or was that a different game)

Whip - throw a ball against a wall and if someone catches it, they can throw it at you (hence shipping the ball at you). To stop it, you have to run to the wall and touch it. No head shots. If you got hit evdn though you touched the wall, the person who threw the ball gets one free shot thrown at them. Same with headshots.

Line tag - Can only go on lines to tag them (eg basketball court outlines). Though I was the kid who ended up cheating cause I counted cracks on the ground as lines lol

Click to shrink...

In my neck of the woods, Manhunt was as you described except played across the neighborhood at night with walkie talkies. The kind of thing that looking back on was highly irresponsible but fun as shit.

 

[N64Controller]

The most fun games I've played in the playground with bigger groups were

Planet Wars
You had groups forming planets (bigger groups for bigger planets, etc). Everyone hooking each other up using their arms. Then the professor or whatever guardian would yell something like MARS ATTACKS VENUS. And then all the Venus kids would run towards the Mars team and try to rip them from each other. It was so much fun, yeah sometimes it ended with some kids hurt but a lot of the better games can have accidents if people get carried away. Then when you were able to free someone completely (no more arms attached), they were part of your planet.

Bébé clin d'oeil (Winking Baby)
Everyone sits in a circle around someone who's selected to be in the middle. It's 2 by 2, so you have one person sitting on the outside of the ring, and the other on the inside. You sit kind of like if you were in a close rowboat. The one on the outside is the "parent" and the one in the inside is the "baby". The person in the middle winks at a random group, and the baby has to reach the person in the middle and touch their feet. The "parent" role is to stop the baby at all cost. So it's basically wrestling.

Ballon Quille (Bowling Dodgeball)
Basic dodgeball setup, but there are 5 bowling pins in the back of each team's territory. The goal of the game is to knock down all the pins.

 

[Rassilon]

In my neck of the woods, Manhunt was as you described except played across the neighborhood at night with walkie talkies. The kind of thing that looking back on was highly irresponsible but fun as shit.

Click to shrink...

hehe that sounds rad

We did have a go at it on a grand scale in the woods or across moorland, but we never thought to bring walkie talkies!

It think cheap flip phones started to come in toward the end, any were sometimes used to play creepy music to tease whoever was 'it'.

 

[SuperHans]

123 Home / Forty Forty
A game in which a player known as 'it' must guard a pole, tree or other landmark. Other players will attempt to sneak up on said poll and loudly exclaim 'forty forty home' or something similar.
The 'it' player may catch assailants by pointing at them and saying 'forty forty I see X person behind said bush', assuming said 'it' player is touching their base.
The 'it' player must therefore wander around looking for hidden assailants to catch them out, but beat them back to the aforementioned base to get them out.
Apparently, the name 'forty-forty' is from the middle ages, which is neat!

Click to shrink...

We called this Tip the Can some of the time but mainly Forty Forty. I remember my brother rugby tacking me through a wooden stake to stop me tipping the base.

 

[HylianSeven]

Fumble Annie. Which also has an offensive name that I will not mention, but heard the most of.

Click to shrink...

Is this the game where everyone tries to tackle the person with the football? I think I know which offensive name it is if this is the same one.