Post-Halloween, Pre-thanksgiving Beach Birthday BBQ Games?

November 9, 2006 11:07 AM

Looking for fun party game ideas for a beach barbecue this weekend.

It won't be warm enough for summertime activities in SoCal, but I'm trying to think of olde-tymey outdoor or autumnal games, like bobbing for apples and a three-legged race. We'll be at a beach house, so indoor's an option too.

This group will be up for most anything fun; we're very much in touch with our inner children. For example, piñatas and red rover may be too "done" by now.

Also, does anybody have expereince with pie-eating contests?

Any good ideas for inexpensive but motivating prizes for mixed 20-30 yr olds?

posted by Ambrosia Voyeur to grab bag (12 comments total)

Beach (or Backyard) Cricket! Google Backyard Cricket Rules, and you'll get a pretty good idea what's going on.
posted by cholly at 12:04 PM on November 9, 2006

Damnit, You're in California. I saw beach games and went a little crazy. =]
posted by cholly at 12:05 PM on November 9, 2006

There are any number of good parlor games worth playing with a fun group, like Spoons, Botcelli, or My Grandmother's Trunk.

There's a game I love to play after a few other rounds that I learned a Decadence. It looks like 20 questions. You send the smug asshole who won the last game out of the room, telling him/her that you're all going to make up a story to be guessed. While s/he's out, you explain the real rules: there is no story - whenever IT asks a question, if it ends in a vowell, the answer is 'no'. If it ends in a consonant, the answer is 'yes'. If it ends in a 'y' the answer is maybe. Now, the real trick here is to get the rest of the group to bone up on their acting, because you want to draw this game out and make IT suffer in the best prankish kind of way. Therefore it's important to agree and to disagree as well. Usher IT back in and explain that you made up a short story together that takes place in and they have to guess it using questions that can be answered in yes or no. Let the fireworks begin. If IT is imaginative you'll get all kinds of astounding questions to attempt to resolve the inevitable conflicts.

Don't forget gunny sacks for a sack race (especially after the Pie Eating Contest). I think you can find them at Oriental Trading Company.

Play pictionary in the sand with a stick.

Kites go great with most beaches as there is usually more consistent wind at the coast.
posted by plinth at 1:57 PM on November 9, 2006

Will there be enough people to play Bacon? We never played for points - we just played until we were too exhausted to continue.
posted by muddgirl at 3:28 PM on November 9, 2006

There will be approximately 35 people present at the peak of the party.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 3:59 PM on November 9, 2006

Werewolf

Tons of fun.
posted by philad at 4:06 PM on November 9, 2006

I too want to recommend beach cricket.

What about kick the bucket? One person guards the bucket, everyone else has to kick it. If the guard touches you, you're out. Or spotlight- one person guards the bucket/basketball/turnip, at night, with a powerful torch. Everyone else starts in the darkness and has to creep forward without being seen and kick the bucket. The guard has to catch you in the light and call out your name to catch you.
posted by twirlypen at 4:50 PM on November 9, 2006

Those electronic 20 questions games that were all over the place last Christmas would be good prizes. Bottles of wine or interesting beer, always good.
You can play charades anywhere. Horseshoes would be good at the beach.
posted by BoscosMom at 4:57 PM on November 9, 2006

Cornholing or Washers is always fun. But I'm from Ohio.
posted by lannanh at 8:04 PM on November 9, 2006

Three-legged limbo. Trust me, it's frickin' hilarious.
posted by eritain at 8:16 PM on November 9, 2006

Oh, and the most interesting useless prizes I ever saw were butterfly nets. Getcha some bamboo, a coupla feet of stout wire and something to bend it around, maybe a pair of pliers, a yard or two of mesh and minimal sewing alacrity, and some brightly colored electrical tape to patch the wire loop onto the bamboo handle. Voila. Especially if you have team games, it's a good trophy to award early on so the team can wave it around and be ceremonious with it and misuse it and so on for a good couple hours.
posted by eritain at 8:22 PM on November 9, 2006

Here's a fun one that's easy to explain: Beach-tionary. Aka, Beach Pictionary. Only difference being that the person needs to draw/sculpt their word/phrase using beach sand instead of using pens and paper. The wild, anguished gesticulations remain the same.

No one actually having brought the game, the way we did it, everybody wrote a bunch of random words (nothing totally obscure or conceptual) on slips of paper then threw it all in a bag. We divided into teams, one person on each team took a turn picking out a word, then had a minute or so to get anybody on their team to figure the word out via their crude attempt at communication using the basest of mediums. Everybody on the team had to go, and whichever team got the most right, won.

Also fun to change things up: get a pair of people, or more, working in the sand together try and get the rest of their team to guess a phrase. It's like watching Angry Mute Caveman Theater.
posted by krippledkonscious at 2:09 AM on November 10, 2006