childhood activities that never(?) became games [Archive]

Kid Ice

03-10-2007, 11:30 PM

I always thought the following childhood games would translate well into videogames, but I've never seen games based on them. I'm sure there are Flash games out there, but I'm talking about console games. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong!

Snowball fighting - unbelievable that there has never been a full on snowball fighting game. I actually made a snowball fighting RPG in Hypercard years ago.

King of the Hill - for some reason VCS Spiderman always kind of reminded me of King of the Hill. Very simple game; find a huge mound of dirt near a construction site, whoever gets to the top first is King of the Hill, until he gets taken down. My favorite move in this game was to lift the body of the opponent before throwing him down the hill, so he would be momentarily airborne, into another kid climbing up.

Kill the Man - kind of like King of the Hill with a football. Best played with about thirty kids. Everyone goes after the kid with the ball. Probably the most violent childhood game, as the goal was to literally hurt the kid that held the ball too long.

Monkey in the Middle - many involuntary games took place in elementary school, usually involving the victim's baseball cap

Run the Bases - sort of an inverted Monkey in the Middle

Sledding - I mean just on regular plastic sleds or innertubes. Could be a mini-game on the snowball fighting game!

Kickball - perennial PE favorite

More?

slapdash

03-10-2007, 11:46 PM

I've always had this image of a MMO version of King of the Hill in my head...

"Kill The Man"? When I was growing up, that game had the decidedly un-PC name Smear the Queer. Bad name, but so much fun. We used a bunch of foil that started as a ball but got smushed into a hockey puck shape by a leg cast, and which we referred to (no idea why) as the dinger.

Kickball and snowball fighting do seem like naturals... There was a pretty fun snowball Flash game a few years back. Someone should port that to the DS or something. :-)

Greg2600

03-11-2007, 12:07 AM

Easy one: the Great game of Wiffleball. Nabisco made a Flash web game of it a few years ago, but that I think is the only one.

Vectorman0

03-11-2007, 12:09 AM

Easy one: the Great game of Wiffleball. Nabisco made a Flash web game of it a few years ago, but that I think is the only one.

It was done for DS. It's fairly uncommon too.

Dr. Morbis

03-11-2007, 12:59 AM

Ski or Die on NES has a snowball fight segment, and it's actually pretty fun. It's not "full on" I guess, but at least its something.

tom

03-11-2007, 05:25 AM

Eat the Worm. Feed worms to little boys and girls, who pukes first, loses.

Doctor. Said to be a childhood's favorite, explore each other, find out what's different, and why.

Doorbell ringing. Go along roads ring doorbells, run away. Make sure you don't get caught out, or even a Michael Myers-type of person comes running after you with huge knifes.

zer0cool

03-11-2007, 06:29 AM

When i was a kid we played "smeer the queer"...i was a small child and usually got suckered into this game only to end up hurt and whinning on my way home.

Steven

03-11-2007, 08:10 AM

Glad no one mentioned TAG, otherwise I would recommend trying PSX/Saturn's GRID RUNNER

Doorbell ringing. Go along roads ring doorbells, run away. Make sure you don't get caught out, or even a Michael Myers-type of person comes running after you with huge knifes.

LMAO! You did this, too? Me and my friends did this once... commonly known as "Ding Dong Ditch"

Ahhh, to be 10 years old...

MagicMajenta

03-11-2007, 09:14 AM

Hey did anyone ever call those videos they advertise on TV where you could pay COD (cash on delivery) and have them sent to random addresses on the phone book/school directory. I did that back then and would laugh/giggle about it. Man, those days bring back memories no matter how old you are now.

GillianSeed

03-11-2007, 09:22 AM

Speaking of kids games, I always wanted to try the Atari VCS version of hide and seek, Sneak'n Peek. (http://www.deeko.com/retro.asp?id=51)

Mad Gear

03-11-2007, 09:40 AM

There's a snowball fight FPS in the South Park game (iirc).

Pantechnicon

03-11-2007, 09:41 AM

In the documentary "Once Upon Atari" Rob Zdybel talked about how Atari's infamous marketing department was always after its programmers to make a game called "Rock Fight". If I ever get off my butt and learn how to program in 6502 assembly this will probably be my contribution to the homebrew scene. I envision it playing something like Activision Tennis but with health meters and little blood splatters. What...none of you ever had rock fights?

Another one that would be cool to see on a modern console would be something like "Neighborhood Stunt Jumper" in honor of those days when little boys throughout America did their best to emulate Evel Knievel. What you'd do in the game is first go around the neighborhood trading, stealing or doing odd jobs for the stunt components. Then you take what you've gotten and engineer your own ramp and add a gimmick like, say, jumping over two cats in a five-gallon bucket. Then you launch your bicycle over your contraption, earning "cool points" for successful jumps which you can trade in for bicycle upgrades (helmets, banana seats, etc). Do it all in Animal Crossing-style graphics and it would be perfect.

Flack

03-11-2007, 10:00 AM

Around the age of twelve or thirteen, my friends and I began sneaking out on a regular basis. Around midnight, a dozen or so kids would all sneak out and meet out on the street corner. From there we would do all kinds of stuff; wandering the streets, avoiding detection, checking mailboxes, setting of firecrackers ... all kinds of stuff. That might make a fun GTA-Style game.

Also a fireworks-related game (no, not Fireworks Construction Set) might be fun. You would spend your budget buying fireworks, and then set them off. Maybe you could set up plastic green army men or your sister's Barbie dolls and blow them up too.

Has there ever been a game involving setting up dominos to knock down, or setting up card houses? Sounds like those are right up the Wii controller's alley!

drewbrim

03-11-2007, 11:13 AM

Griking

03-11-2007, 12:08 PM

Most of these ideas seem like mini-games to me.

The closest thing ot a snowball fight game I know of is in WoW when winter starts. Ironforge becomes one large snowball fight.

Kid Ice

03-11-2007, 12:30 PM

Another one that would be cool to see on a modern console would be something like "Neighborhood Stunt Jumper" in honor of those days when little boys throughout America did their best to emulate Evel Knievel.

Oh yeah, that was a biggie in our neighborhood. One time my brother loosened all the screws on his bike then jumped off a ramp so the entire bike would come apart in mid-air.

street/parking lot football - or how to play football in the middle of winter :) I cracked a rib in one memorable parking lot game (tackled by a concrete barrier- good times). The best was playing on a snowy street (sliding into cars and whatnot). Only required a min of 4 people. Watch the hilarity ensue, and the injuries mount.

We would play football on a frozen lake. I almost got a concussion punting the ball.

riffraff

03-11-2007, 01:19 PM

what about that game where you take turns punching each other in the arm as hard as you can until someone gives up? Of course this usually meant not having much use of your arm for much of the day :evil laugh:

Snapple

03-11-2007, 01:31 PM

King of the Hill is done in a ton of FPSes. It's just done with guns and such instead of on the playground. Same concept though.

Street football has obviously been done in NFL Street.

Snowball fighting... South Park is the main example, but there's also a snowball fight in the tutorial level of Final Fantasy Tactics Advance.

I'm sure there are a ton of games that have had sledding, not even counting bobsledding from the winter Olympic games.

I'm almost positive there have been multiple games with bug collecting in them, but my mind is blank.

Steve W

03-11-2007, 04:31 PM

I don't remember if it's Marathon 2 or Marathon Infinity for the Mac that has a 'Kill The Guy With The Ball' type game in it's multiplayer set-up. You don't have a ball, it's a skull, and when you have it, you are defenseless against all your rocketlauncher-wielding buddies. All you can do is stay alive as long as you can. Great game.

theshizzle3000

03-11-2007, 04:45 PM

jajaja

03-11-2007, 04:59 PM

Speaking of kids games, I always wanted to try the Atari VCS version of hide and seek, Sneak'n Peek. (http://www.deeko.com/retro.asp?id=51)

Haha, the dicks on the characters LOL

We had a simular hide-n-seek game, dont know the english word for it. One guy/girl was at one spot, i.e at a box, pole, trashcan, whatever object. One guy/girl counted and the rest went hiding. The goal was was for the hiders to reach the box before the counter. The counter's goal was to find the hiders, but to do so he/she had to move away from the box to go looking for them.

When the counter spotted a hider, the counter had to rush to the box, touch it and say "the box is going/walking" (directly translated). If the hider reached the box before the counter, the hider would win the game :)

Dire 51

03-11-2007, 06:18 PM

What about that game where you roll a hoop with a stick?

cyberfluxor

03-11-2007, 06:37 PM

When the counter spotted a hider, the counter had to rush to the box, touch it and say "the box is going/walking" (directly translated). If the hider reached the box before the counter, the hider would win the game :)

Sounds similar to Kick the Can. Those were some good times with 20+ people running around 2 blocks at 11pm jumping fences to avoid the seeker.

You have 1-3 people that are "it" and the rest have 30 seconds to hide. Whenever someone was spotted either:
1) The person that's it tags a hider they're sent to jail.
2) The two run for the can and if the person that's it kicks first then the hider is thrown in jail, if hider kicks then jail is released and needs to run while the it sets the can back up.

Got crazy sometimes. And if everyone is captured in jail then there was some way we selected the next set of "its".

E Nice

03-11-2007, 10:23 PM

I'm almost positive there have been multiple games with bug collecting in them, but my mind is blank.

You can go bug catching in Monster Hunter. Not real bugs though, but you use a net and collect bugs that you can then use to mix with things to make stuff, or just trade them for other items.

GuyinGA

03-11-2007, 10:55 PM

I want to see Rock-Paper-Scissors along with Roshambo on the Wii.

And with the popularity of Texas Hold 'Em, they NEED a "Drinking Game Poker Series." Imagine playing "Asshole" or "Quarters" on PS3 or X-Box 360....but you don't get drunk just the character-thingie people do!

And Beer Pong needs to be a video game too.

cyberfluxor

03-11-2007, 11:01 PM

A local radio station has run out of ideas of competitions or something and decided to hold a championship of Rock-Paper-Scissors at some night club downtown.

k8track

03-12-2007, 12:22 AM

Dude, you gotta have Tetherball, the official sport of church camp.

What about hopscotch, four square, or jacks? Remember pop-up 500?

In 7th grade I stayed all night at my friend's house in town (I lived in the country at that time) and we went around town and played Ding-Dong-Ditch It, although we called it something else at the time, very un-PC... we called it N----- Knocking. We weren't being racist; that's just what it was called. And we were 12.

diskoboy

03-12-2007, 12:48 AM

What about hopscotch, four square, or jacks? Remember pop-up 500?

I loved me some four square. That would make a pretty fun game.

I could honestly see Rockstar doing a four square game. Maybe using that Table Tennis engine.

bangtango

03-12-2007, 01:19 AM

I may have missed any games based on these but I never saw anything reproduce the following activities:

-Spin The Bottle
-Seven Minutes in Heaven (similar to Michael J. Fox in the closet with his best friend who had a huge crush on him during Teen Wolf)
-Chicken (as played in Footloose or in car movies).
-Anything that involves teenagers smashing pumpkins, smashing mailboxes or egging houses/cars (I did not do this but it was a common activity when I was younger)
-A good old fashioned panty raid!

Steven

03-12-2007, 06:43 AM

snes_collector

03-12-2007, 04:47 PM

There was a boss in Donkey Kong Country two where the whole stage was a snowball fight.

What I would like to see is elimination. Like dodgeball but everyone vs. everyone, with 5(or more) balls being thrown around. Or pins, where the same game pretty as dodgeball exactly there is three *pins* that you can knock over to win in addition to getting everyone out.

And frisbee gold would be sweet on Wii and DS.

c2000

03-12-2007, 05:18 PM

Snowball Fight - South Park (N64) / Skie of Die (PC)
King of the Hill - Red Dog (DC) :rocker:
Kill the man - Red Dog (DC) more or less. :p

There was an Asian ballgame called kickball but it was totally different..can't seem to find it.

JohnnyBlaze

03-12-2007, 07:27 PM

Backyard Wrestling. Not that ICP daredevil crap, I mean when me and a few friends would wrestle on my mom's bed(not to mention how many beds we broke from the Hogan legdrop or Savage flying elbow).

p_b

03-13-2007, 01:39 AM

I'm almost positive there have been multiple games with bug collecting in them, but my mind is blank.

Animal Crossing springs to mind...

Lemmi_Is_God

03-13-2007, 02:30 AM

the 3do has 2 or more rock paper scissors games that get japanese girls naked if you win :)

as a kid we would have races though peoples backyards, from one end of the street to the other (about 30 house on each site of the street) and the winner was the one who made it to the other end first, once jumping over a wooden fence i slipped and ended up hanging upsidedown on one of the points by my pant leg
there was an added bonus if you could dive into a pool on the way and still make it to the end first, everyone playing would have to cough up 50 cents and give it to the winner

we would also play something we called "car lights" at night, we would pick 2 driveways far apart and when we saw a car turn down the street we had to run to make it to the other driveway to be safe, if we didnt make it we would fall down and play dead untill another player ran by and touched you then you had to get up and make it to the farthest driveway from where you died to be safe

what about bumper skiing as a game? (some people call it different things) i dont know how many gloves i lost on peoples bumpers doing that, and ive always wondered what people thought when they got home and saw one glove stuck to their bumper :D

slapdash

03-14-2007, 09:48 PM

And with the popularity of Texas Hold 'Em, they NEED a "Drinking Game Poker Series." Imagine playing "Asshole" or "Quarters" on PS3 or X-Box 360....but you don't get drunk just the character-thingie people do!

I've so been wanting to see our Cocoa Crunchies drinking game on the DS, but we didn't start playing that until a couple years out of college.

And frisbee gold would be sweet on Wii and DS.

Did you mean frisbee GOLF? Because there IS, allegedly, a frisbee game coming out for DS -- Frisbee Disc Freestyle / Frisbee Disc Golf -- though it's already missed a couple ship dates.

scooterb23

03-14-2007, 10:24 PM

Did you mean frisbee GOLF? Because there IS, allegedly, a frisbee game coming out for DS -- Frisbee Disc Freestyle / Frisbee Disc Golf -- though it's already missed a couple ship dates.

The newest street date I saw was June of this year, I hope it comes out, because I'd buy it in a heartbeat. Although honestly I fear it'll be a bad flash game port like the Wiffle Ball game. Can't forget there is a Monkey Disc Golf mini game on the Wii Super Monkey Ball disc.

As well as a couple older PC disc golf games. If you ever see the Innova disc golf game, it is quite good.

downfall

03-15-2007, 12:05 AM

There is totally a kickball game for the TG-16. Japan-Only, and I'm thinking it's just called "Kickball". Weird too - one of the teams is comprised of what appear to be seals and several other completely random (but probably completely sensible in Japan) teams that I can't remember. It's strange, but it plays pretty well - you have to hold down a button to run up to the plate, and release it over the plate with the right timing to kick the ball. One of my personal TG-16 favorites.

I really want a "spotlight" game - not everyone has played it, because cities aren't good for it. Basically, hide and seek in the dark, with the seeker being allowed use of a flashlight. You can hide anywhere, and seeing as how it's dark, the darker you dress, the better you hide. You could start off with a t-shirt and shorts, and earn camo pants, long-sleeve black shirts, etc. And start off with a pen-light flashlight, and work your way up through to big maglites or whatever. Could have a realistic weather system too - rain, snow, etc., as well as a realistic moonlight system - spotlight as a game changes when there's a full moon compared to a tiny sliver in the sky. Overcast skies make a difference too.

That would be awesome.

bangtango

03-15-2007, 01:22 AM

What games were represented in Crash N' the Boys Street Challenge?

Flack

03-15-2007, 09:04 AM

We had a simular hide-n-seek game, dont know the english word for it. One guy/girl was at one spot, i.e at a box, pole, trashcan, whatever object. One guy/girl counted and the rest went hiding. The goal was was for the hiders to reach the box before the counter. The counter's goal was to find the hiders, but to do so he/she had to move away from the box to go looking for them.

When the counter spotted a hider, the counter had to rush to the box, touch it and say "the box is going/walking" (directly translated). If the hider reached the box before the counter, the hider would win the game :)

Here that was called "Ghost in the Graveyard."

street/parking lot football - or how to play football in the middle of winter :) I cracked a rib in one memorable parking lot game (tackled by a concrete barrier- good times). The best was playing on a snowy street (sliding into cars and whatnot). Only required a min of 4 people. Watch the hilarity ensue, and the injuries mount.

Sounds like Street Sports Football for the C64, almost!

Hey, here's another one that could be done -- Slug Bug!

Cryomancer

03-15-2007, 11:21 AM

Flack's idea of sneaking out game is somewhat represented by the game Bully, actually. You can even get ninja outfits to improve your sneaking.

There are tons of bug collecting/fighting games in Japan.

Quarters is part of Leisure Suit Larry Magna Cum Laude. Game also has a Tapper clone.

PentiumMMX

03-15-2007, 12:12 PM

Snowball fighting - unbelievable that there has never been a full on snowball fighting game. I actually made a snowball fighting RPG in Hypercard years ago.

Mario Party 6 has 2 snowball fight mini-games Anyway, I'm surprised they havn't made a Bumper Bikes game.

EDIT: Also forgot to mention a game I used to play with my cousins. "The King", where you'd have at least 3 kids on one side and 1 kid in the middle, who is trying to keep the 3 kids from reaching the other side.

Kid Ice

03-15-2007, 05:46 PM

Here that was called "Ghost in the Graveyard."

We had a variation of that one called "jail break". The "warden" had to find the "convicts" back to the "jail". But he or she could not stray too far from the jail, because a convict could come and and tag the jail, allowing all the convicts to escape. We occasionally adjusted the rules of this game to include actual bondage and physical violence.