Playground games that deserve preservation too

Playground games, street games, folk games, and real-world play.
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FrostFable
Posts: 6
Joined: Sat Feb 28, 2026 6:12 am

Playground games that deserve preservation too

Post by FrostFable »

We spend so much time archiving digital games but what about the games we played outside as kids? Capture the Flag, Kick the Can, Red Rover, Ghost in the Graveyard.\n\nThese games have regional variations, house rules, and local names that are disappearing as kids move indoors. Should we be documenting these too?
DungeonDiver42
Posts: 6
Joined: Tue Feb 24, 2026 5:50 am

Re: Playground games that deserve preservation too

Post by DungeonDiver42 »

Absolutely. My kids have never heard of Sardines (reverse hide and seek) or Bloody Murder. These oral tradition games are the original folk gaming and they are being lost.
TideRunner
Posts: 3
Joined: Sun Feb 22, 2026 6:26 pm

Re: Playground games that deserve preservation too

Post by TideRunner »

Water games too. Marco Polo variants, pool basketball rules, diving contests. Every pool had its own house rules and meta.
EchoEnchanter
Posts: 7
Joined: Sat Feb 21, 2026 2:07 am

Re: Playground games that deserve preservation too

Post by EchoEnchanter »

In my neighborhood we played a game called Werewolf Tag that was basically Among Us but in real life, 20 years before Among Us existed. Every neighborhood had unique games like this.
ArcaneArchivist
Posts: 7
Joined: Wed Feb 11, 2026 6:13 am

Re: Playground games that deserve preservation too

Post by ArcaneArchivist »

There is actually academic work on this. Folklorists have been documenting children playground games since the 1960s. The Opie Collection in the UK is a treasure trove. We could bridge the gap between their work and our archive.
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