Propellar

Card Games

20 April, 2014

After Dark Games


Night time…..time to play, gather your friends and enjoy the night.  When it’s dark ultimately it feels creepy, and the mind wonders about the uncertain. Whether your planning a slumber party, camp outings, music festival, or family gathering these games are perfect, to make your entertainment that little bit different.  Played with just adults will bring out the child in everyone.

Grab some friends grab some bubbly, in fact take the bar, or just your favorite plonk and prepare to have fun in the dark. 
  

Hide and Seek in the Dark

You will need:
4 or more players
Darkness


Choose a large area for play. Try playing outside for added creepy-ness.  Indoors designate a play space it is best in a large room. Clear the area so no one will trip and hurt themselves.  Turn out the lights so it is completely dark and let the fun begin.   
 

Choose someone to be "It."  they must waits for a minute or two while everyone else finds a place to hide. "It" goes and looks for the hiders, the game continues until everyone has been found.  Last person to be found gets a prize or a shot of their favorite drink.

Sardines

You will need:
4 or more players
Darkness

This game is very much like the classic children's game hide and seek.   In this game first choose someone to be "it" that person will be hiding.

All other players must close their eyes and count, while “it” hides. Everyone else must search for the person who's "it," and every time “it” is found, the person who found him must hide in the same place.

The game is over when the last seeker finds everyone, and the last person is considered to be the new "it."


Bugga  Monster

4 or more players

A blanket

Darkness 

First choose a player to be the Bugga monster, and that person must wear a blanket over their head. Choose a large blanket so that more than one person can fit underneath it.

To begin turn the lights out, all the players will try and sneak around in the dark and avoid the Bugga monster.  If the Bugga monster catches someone, that person must also get under the blanket.  This will make the Bugga monster larger, and harder to coordinate. 

The game is won by the last person who is left un-captured by the Bugga monster.  The winner definitely deserves a special prize.
 

Murder in the Dark 

4 or more players

A blanket

Darkness

Paper strips equal to the same amount of players

A sheet of paper is torn up into enough strips so that every player can have a piece each.  On one piece of paper write the letter D and on another write the letter X.   The remainder of the strips are left blank.  Put the in a hat or bowl and mix them up.  Each person must takes one strip and keeps it hidden.  The person who gets the D is the detective. The detective must switch the light off.

The person with the X is the murderer. He must sneak up behind someone and whisper in their ear "you're dead." If you hear “your dead” in your ear you should scream out and drop to the floor.  

When the detective hears the scream, he turns the light on. The detective is now able to question everyone in the room. You must answer truthfully, except for the murderer, who may lie.  The detective must then accuse someone, and if the accused is the murderer, then he must admit it.  If the detective's first guess is wrong, then he may have one more before the game is declared over.

Escape the Aliens

4 players or more 

Wait until it is dark out and then choose one player to be the alien to start the game. The rest of the players line up at one end of the playing field. The alien goes into the middle of the playing field and two minutes later the first player in line heads into the playing area. That player's goal is to cross the playing field to a safety area on the other side of the field. If the player reaches the safety area, he is a winner. If she is touched by the alien before crossing the field, she becomes an alien as well.  

Additional players attempt to cross the field every two minutes, even if the player before him has not completed her way through the field.  Any players that are aliens try to tag the players trying to cross the field. At the end of the game, after the last player has made it across or been tagged, the players that made it across the field are declared the winners.
 

Flashlight Doom 

You will need:

Torch

Flashlight Doom or Flashlight Tag is a great game which is played outdoors.  Once dark outside, divide your group into teams. One team is chosen to be the catchers and lines up at one end of the playing field.   

The catchers are given has many torches as possible, at least one per player. The remaining players on the other teams hide within the playing field.  At this point a dividing line is a good idea.  The goal of the game is to reach home base in the middle of the field.  If a player is caught by a flashlight beam at any time, he becomes part of the catcher team. 
The winning team is determined by which team has the most players, that make it to home base. 

Devils in the Woods 

A blanket

4 or more players 

This game is a lot of fun when played at night. Divide the players into two teams, the devils and the saints. The devils are given a blanket and take it out into the garden. The saints must count to 30 and then enter the garden. The saints goal is to find the blanket that has been placed outside in the garden, you must do this before the devils touch you. 

If a saint is touched by a member of the devil team, the saint becomes a devil. The game continues until all of the players are either devils or are standing with the blanket touching it for safety.

Those that touch the blanket are the winners, if nobody touches it the original devil members are the winners for variety.

Ghost Stories 

Telling ghost stories is one of the best scary things to do in the dark. So turn off all the lights, get your guest some drinks and gather around.  Take turns telling spooky ghost stories.

If you want to make the tales even creepier, go out into the garden at night to listen to the stories.

Flashlight Tag

You will need:

4 or more players
Flashlight
Darkness


Pick a spot to be "home base" (also called "jail"). Choose someone to be "It" to start the game. The person who is "It" should count to thirty. Everyone else should scatter and try to hide.

The person who is it should try to tag people by shining the light on them and saying their names. When someone is tagged, he goes and waits in home base. The game is over when everyone has been tagged. The first person tagged becomes the next person to be "It."

Murder in the Dark  

You will need:

5 or more people
A dark room
Slips of paper


Find a large room that you can completely darken. Move any obstacles that someone could trip over in the dark. You will need a piece of paper for each person playing the game. On one slip of paper write "Detective." On another slip write "Murderer." On all the other pieces write "Victim." Everyone should draw a piece of paper from a hat.

The detective turns off the lights and leaves the room. He should wait just outside of the door. Everyone else walks around in the darkened room. The murderer should feel around in the room and find another person. When he does, he should tap the person three times to "murder: him. When someone has been tapped, he should scream and lie down to show that he has been murdered. The murderer can try to tap as many victims as he can before the lights come back on.

When someone screams, the detective should come back into the room and turn on the lights. Everyone in the room should freeze where they are. The detective tries to figure out who the murderer was by asking everyone questions like, "Where were you when you heard the scream?"

The detective should make a guess about who the murderer is. If the group is large, the detective can have 2 or 3 guesses. If the detective guesses correctly, he wins. If he is wrong the murderer should reveal who he was and the murderer wins. Put the slips of paper back into the pile, redraw, and play again.

Hypnotize Your Friends  

This is a fun to try with friends. Turn off the lights and try to hypnotize each other. See what you can get each other to do while in a trance.

 Touch and Tell  

This is a cool game which can be altered depending on your guest.   Start by finding items for your friends to touch in the dark, these can be things such as; bottle openers, pencils, a television remote, etc.. Your players must guess what it is.  For something gross to feel, find things that feel like raw chicken parts.  If your guest are squeamish try grapes for eyes, cold spaghetti for guts, carrot sticks can be fingers, water can be blood, and a wet sponge can be brains.

Try making up a story to go along with the items, it will be scarier for the people who are feeling it. Make sure they can't see what the items are.   
 

An alternative game is to feel the body parts…guess which leg belongs to which guest, this game can be real fun.