Our youth director loves to have us play crazy games at youth group. Strangely, most seem to involve masking tape in some way or other! Here are some of our favorites:

Super-gigantic 4-square

You play this just like you did in grade school, except the squares you mark off (with masking tape, of course) are 8-10 feet square. You can play singles or doubles, though in doubles you still only get one hit per team. The king square must serve from the back diagonal half of the square and the serve must make an arc. We use either a "koosh" ball or a 12" soft plastic ball. Lines are in, except you may not hit a line of your own square. Since the ball is required to bounce, if it hits you (even it was going to land out of bounds), then you lose your square.

Here we are playing doubles (two in each square)

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Poop Deck

Mark off two lines on the floor about 6 feet apart. The space between the lines is the main deck and to either side are the poop deck and the quarter deck. Everyone starts on the main deck. The leader stands where the two lines are clearly visible and calls out either "poop deck" or "quarter deck." Everyone rushes to the appropriate deck; the last person to step across the line is out of the game. Play continues until only the winner remains. Special rule: If the leader calls out the deck on which everyone is standing, anyone who steps across the line is out. (Mr. Mullins seems to get unusual enjoyment from doing this twice in a row.)

Human Ping-Pong

Mark a large rectangle on the floor with a line of chairs across the middle. Place the chairs side by side, alternating front to back. (If you don't have enough chairs, you can use tables instead.) One team serves from the back half of their court, by bouncing a "koosh" or plastic ball and hitting it across the "net". The receiving team must let the ball bounce before hitting it back across. Score like ping-pong. Special rule: Your walls can either be in or out of bounds, depending on how brave the youth leader is.

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Indoor Field Hockey

You'll have to assemble a stick for each player. Take 10 sheets from a newspaper and roll them lengthwise. Tape each end and tape the exposed edge along the length, as well (this will keep the paper from shredding as you play). Make two goals and use a ball made of either sponge or foam rubber. Goalies can either be allowed to use their hands or not, depending on the size of the goals. Special rules: Players may not kick the ball, but may use their feet to stop the ball. Depending on how rowdy the players are, a penalty box may be needed for striking another player with a stick.

This shows the size of the ball and the sticks

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Indoor Softball or Kickball

Use a large plastic ball that is easy to hit or bat, and, most importantly, won't damage any walls or furniture. Mark off the bases and have fun. Special rules: In addition to getting players out in the traditional ways, you can also throw and hit them with the ball. We play that catching a hit off the ceiling is an out, but off the wall is "all you can get."

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Never Have I Ever

This is a great game to help learn names. Make a circle of chairs with a couple of feet between each chair. The number of chairs should be one less than the number of people. One person is chosen to start and is placed in the center of the circle; everyone else takes a seat. The center person says, "Hi, I'm [insert name]." The group responds, "Hi, [insert name]." The center person then says, "Never have I ever . . ." and then says something he/she has never done, e.g., sung in a choir, been on a cruise, had a sister. Anyone who has done what is said must get up and move to a different chair. In the process the center person attempts to sit in an empty chair. The person who remains standing repeats the process. Extra fun: this game is especially fun at the beach; use markers (hat, piece of clothing, or soda can) to mark places around the circle.

Take Two

Mr. Mullins learned of this game from a former youth group member who is now a youth leader in Texas; it is one of our group's favorites, because the play moves very fast. Take Two is played with Scrabble tiles, minus the board. You can play as individuals or in teams of two or three; one set of Scrabble tiles can accommodate 7-8 individuals or teams. Play starts with each team drawing 6 or 7 tiles (face down), depending on how many are playing. At the shout of "Go," each team tries to use all of its tiles to make interconnecting words--just like in Scrabble, but without the board! As soon as a team uses all of their tiles, they shout out "Take Two" and every team must draw two more tiles to fit into the crosswords. At any time you may completely rearrange your crossword to try and use all your letters. Play continues until one team uses all of its tiles and there are not enough left to draw. You then score like in Scrabble, but subtract the amounts of any letters not placed in a word. Rules of Scrabble apply for word formation (no foreign words, proper names, etc.); we have found it helpful to have a nonplaying monitor to rule on words and to help minimize "creative spellings."

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Head-to-Head Pictionary

Prepare a set of game answers in advance, e.g., names of movies, songs, TV shows, etc. Set up two easels (with markers) back-to-back and divide the group into two teams. The leader shows an answer to a representative from each team. The representatives then run to their boards and draw clues for their teams. First team to shout out the right answer gets a point. Important rule to clarify before beginning: Artists may not "draw" letters or numbers, nor make sound effects, nor point to objects (desperation does lead to creativity, but it has to be drawn). Set a time limit of 2 minutes and award no points if neither team can get it by then.

Paper Airplane War

This game works best if you have a moveable room divider about 5-6 ft. high, but setting up folding chairs on top of tables works okay too. Divide the room in half with the divider and then tape parallel lines on the floor on either side of the divider, about 3 feet from the divider--this is the DMZ. Place half the group on each side with a stack of paper. Give each side 3 minutes to make as many paper airplanes as they can. At the shout of "Go," each side tries to fly their planes over the wall and have them land in the other team's DMZ--no one may enter or reach into the DMZ. If they wish, teams can continue to make planes while they play. Stop after 5 minutes and count planes in the DMZ; team with the fewest planes in their DMZ wins. Extra fun: Our group likes to play a second round of Snow Ball War by wadding up all the planes and playing again.

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Our New Wheels

Not really a game yet, but we recently procured two sets of wheels off the bottom of industrial-sized trash cans, and we formed two teams and had relay races with one team member sitting on the wheels and another pushing. We tried several variations (sitting, standing, lying on belly, pushing, pulling) and eventually we set up an obstacle course using cones, chairs and tables that they had to go under. It was so funny to watch.

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Match That Pose!

Here's a neat little memory-contest game that we played last Sunday. You need no special equipment or props, just people. Some chairs or a table are a bonus. Divide your group up into small groups of two or three or four, and have each group take a turn at composing a group pose for the others to look at for 15 seconds. Then the posing group re-assembles themselves into a different pose designed to confuse the observers, who then try to re-arrange them into the original pose. We took "before" and "after" pictures with a digital camera to see how close we came to the original. Here's one set of the "before" and "after":

Original	Re-created
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