Childhood Games

[Riqo]

Now I'm not Talking about Video games, although those Are cool! I am talking About those Wacky games you And your siblings, Cousins, Friends, ETC ETC would Come up with While outside on a Cool Saturday Morning .. Me and my Siblings would Usually just go For pretend! My brother Specifically would Always skew Our imaginary Scenarios where HE would have COOLER POWERS than Me, which Was always a Bother Say if My little Lego figure Attacked his Lego figure, he Would suddenly Announce that His figure Is immortal .. I guess That Inevitably comes with The Possibilities of Imagination!
Now That I am thinking About it .. I have This one Memory where My sister Broke my bike Helmet with a Stick so That it "can refuel Her magical Powers" .. Wacky stuff!

[Yoylecake420]

I remember playing the Papa's Games on a Windows XP, specifically Papa's Wingeria and HotDoggeria.

[HalfOfBilly]

We lived right across the road from a small woodland common, which we'd often visit with some neighbourhood friends to fight with sticks or built forts.
I remember we were all really into Clash of Clans at the time we first explored there, so we started out by building a base inspired by structures in that game; we had a pile of sticks act as our Gold Mine, and built a huge Town Hall between some trees.

The common also had a lot of random junk that had been dumped there, which we then salvaged as rare items with high economic value. It was there I also learned what asbestos was after trying to use planks of it I found as high-denomination currency. 

[BlazingCobaltX]

Ahh this topic brings back some memories. We used to have a big forest right behind our house, that was the setting for most of our make-believe games as kids. Usually it involved being a bunch of warriors doing stick fights, occasionally there would be more futuristic plots like piloting a ship from a pod (one of the corners of the forest looked like that), and pretty frequently there would be some high-speed chase because it was just fun to run through the forest and have your friends lose track of you. To be honest, I think this is why games like Perfect World and RuneScape were very attractive to us - they were like visual replications of what we were doing with our imagination.

The most elaborate roleplay I did was with one friend a few streets away from us. We created our characters, an overarching plot, and most vital: A "save" mechanism for when he had to go home. This is how we were able to continue the story over several sessions, our characters and the world around us growing. The story ended when other friends of ours wanted to get in on the story, except that they weren't as committed to the bit as the two of us were. After its death it was soon followed up by another roleplay; the amount of stories seemed nearly endless.

When the forest was cut down, my friends and I all felt a loss of childhood. It's like our world of fantasy and wonder had its doors shut, and we could never go back to what was before. Safe from pictures of the woods themselves, the only thing that survives from that era are the characters from the roleplay my friend and I did. They are now the cornerstone characters of my main OC story.

[ABlueRose]

I loved playing in the woods around my house as a kid, and had so many games for it! I would pretend it was a whole magical world, where I was the princess/knight/guardian sent to protect it. I made a bridge over a small ditch, out of fallen tree limbs and sticks. There was also an area where trees had fallen years before, that made a large sort of triangle shape, and I would pretend it was a cottage. I had so much fun "cooking" (putting leaves and things into old bottles) and taking care of the cottage.

My friend and I would play out there, pretending to be peasant women working to support of our kids (actually our dolls). And we would make "cat soup" sometimes, where we would put one of my family's cats in this huge bucket, along with sticks and leaves (no water).

And it is technically a video game, but I do have a soft spot for those old web browser games that would let two people play on one keyboard. One person controlling wasd, the other the arrow keys. So much fun playing on coolmathgames, and American Girl 

[-bdjqp-]

my grandparents used to have quite a spacious plot of land next to the railroad track and when there was a train passing and me and my cousins would pretend that there was a children-kidnapping goat-man inside so we had to hide in a treehouse, sometimes we would pretend to be kind of his slaves and we would walk around and collect dry grass for him. It sounds messed up now that i think about it. I remember it being fun though. Very eastern european

[MilkJar]

When my friends and I were in our teen years, we had 2 games that were in effect 24/7, while camping or hanging out or whatever.

Game 1 was called "Mr President". At some random interval, one member of the group would put their finger up to their ear like a secret service person listening to the wire. Then when another member noticed this, they would also put their finger up to their ear. Then so on and so on until the last person remains without a finger to their ear. At that point, everyone would yell "MR PRESIDENT, GET DOWN!!" and tackle them or push them over.

Game 2 was called "Doorknob". Whenever you were around one of the friends, and you farted, you had to say "safety." If you did this, you were safe! ezpz. But if you fart and dont say safety quick enough, if someone else hears it, they can call "Doorknob" on you. If they call doorknob, everyone gets free reign to beat the shit out of you until you touch a doorknob. Needless to say, this game rocked when camping.

[candycanearter07]

Dunno if this counts, but I ran around annoying people when I was forced to go to the ice rink as a kid

[RockinTech]

My best friend at the time and I would act out our fan fiction for our favorite games at the time. Which happened to be Halo 3 and Left 4 Dead. We had elaborate stories and would pretend to be a mix of in-universe characters as well as OCs.

I miss those days. Running around the neighborhood, running up hills, playing with nerf/BB guns. I'm kinda sad my daughter probably won't be able to experience that as a kid. It seems like kids don't play outside much these days. I hope that changes, but the way things are going, idk.

[Riqo]

I'm kinda sad my daughter probably won't be able to experience that as a kid. It seems like kids don't play outside much these days. I hope that changes, but the way things are going, idk.

I've been Thinking the same Thing too! Some relatives Of mine have Children who spend most Of their time watching Shorts on Youtube or whatever, Which makes me a Bit sad Recently my Mom and I went to go Visit someone who Lives in a trailer Park though, and There were a number Of kids who Were outside playing Ball, which Was a nice Breath of air! Maybe the Majority of kids Are growing up With an Abnormal amount of Time spent on Apps and such, but Its good to Know there are Still some Fooling around outside As usual Hopefully your daughter Can experience this! I'd say Not all hope Is lost!

[warlock]

This is a great question!!

I remember playing with nerf guns all the time, with my friends and alone. Most of the time it was somewhat tied to an ongoing story I had in my head, where there was a persistent invasion by some outside force, and me (and my friends when they happened to come over) were part of a special forces group trying to stop it. This would include stuff like aliens, giant kaiju, robots, paramilitary forces, helicopter crashes, everything you could possibly think of. Of course, in real life, it was just me running through the woods making fake shooting sounds with a nerf gun.

There was a persistent game of tag that was called "Hunger Games" at school which became a craze for a short period of time before it was banned. I'm not quite sure what the rules are anymore, but almost everyone in my grade would play it during recess. There were some legitimately intense sessions where kids would duck beneath swings and sprint up and down the jungle gyms in a desperate attempt to shake off assailants. It eventually got banned because the three kids who liked to play soccer were annoyed that they didn't have any other players. Shockingly, it wasn't because my friend broke his wrist.

There was another game which was just one kid standing at the top of a hill and throwing a ball down at a large group, and then whoever got the ball got to be the one to throw it down. That was also legitimately intense, and inspired some serious grudges amongst the group that would play it. I don't think I ever caught the ball for the month that I played.