Tonight the girls and I were playing games like Simon Says, Follow the Leader, and Climb All Over Dad Until His Arms Fall Off. We had almost moved into Hide and Seek when I got an epiphany.
I got over it, but then I remembered that I had had an idea earlier in the week that was applicable to my current situation – and would allow me to avoid stuffing myself poorly and awkwardly into a closet.
You may remember that some time ago I wrote a post about how much my daughters enjoyed Doctor Who (in fact, I realize now that sadly that was the last one I posted, though it’s been almost 2 months). The first “monster” they were exposed to was the Weeping Angels* – and they loved them. Since then, we’ve found that they are a little too scared of the alien monsters – even the fake-looking and kind of silly Slitheen – so we’ve taken a Doctor Who break for a while. But they were excited when I came up with the Weeping Angels game.
For those who are unaware, the Weeping Angels in Doctor Who are scary aliens who are extremely fast and can send you back in time just by touching you – which is a problem if you don’t have a time-travelling space ship to get back to your own time. They’re virtually unstoppable. They are so fast they can move meters foward in the time it takes you to blink. BUT – if you are looking at them they turn into a statue. As long as you have them in your sight, they are immobile stone. As soon as you look away, or blink, they are right back on the attack.
So the game works on that premise. It’s a bit similar to “Red Light, Green Light.” Here’s how it works.
One person is the Companion: we had Amy and Rose tonight (I got to be Rory).
The other players (the Weeping Angels) spread out a set distance away from the Companion. It should be a decent distance so the game lasts more than 30 seconds. Depending on how many players you have I suppose you could make it really challenging and surround the Companion, but we had two and were indoors so I put each of them down the end of hallways at right angles from where I was standing, so I could see both of them.
The Weeping Angels start the game with their heads bowed and their hands over their face (the classic Weeping Angels pose). The Companion says “Go!” and the Angels can drop their hands and move forward. They can move as long as the Companion is not looking at them. If the Companion looks at them, they must freeze in position like a statue. If they move while the Companion is looking at them, the Angel has to go back to their start position. (You can choose how much movement constitutes a violation – we chose very obvious movement like losing balance or something, but you could go down to twitchy noses if you want.)
The Angel who touches the Companion first wins and gets to be the Companion in the next round.
The kids loved it and want to play it again tomorrow. I was actually surprised how much I liked it, too. With the Angels spread out, it’s really hard to keep your eyes on them. It actually got a little tense!
So there you go… the first game I ever came up with and I’ll probably never see any royalties for it. I might even get sued now that I’ve put it out there on the web. Danger is my middle name.
Hopefully I’ll be back before 2 months go by this time. If you’re hungry for more of me, come over to the Caddickisms Facebook page. I do post there more frequently (though honestly it’d be hard not to at this rate).
*no, it wasn’t “Blink” – I’m not sadistic.
