2-person tag-like game in the backyard

March 27, 2020 10:40 AM

How can we make the game of 'tag' more interesting when we're only 2 people?

Hi all,

with the snow finally melting in the backyard, and COVID-19 keeping us from going out, i'm trying to think of some games i can play with my 8-year-old in the backyard. he likes tag-like games, but i imagine just plain-old tag between just me and him might become real boring, real quick.

any ideas to make it more interesting?

thanks!

posted by bitteroldman to Human Relations (15 answers total)

Set a category before-hand and make it to where you go through the alphabet calling out an answer when you tag someone - wrong letter/no answer means the tag is invalid and the person remains "it".

For example - you both decide on the category "furniture", and you're "it" first. When you tag him, you have to say a piece of furniture that starts with an "a" when you tag. Then he is "it", and when he reaches you he has to say something that starts with a 'b'. If you make it to 'm', and then the next person accidentally repeats and also uses 'm', the tag doesn't count and the "it" person keeps being "it".
posted by FirstMateKate at 11:00 AM on March 27, 2020 [1 favorite]

Wear a mitten on one hand. You get points by tagging the other person with your mitten, but you have to get close enough without getting tagged in return.
posted by gideonfrog at 11:18 AM on March 27, 2020 [1 favorite]

Flashlight tag (at night, obviously) and Marco Polo!
posted by DarlingBri at 11:21 AM on March 27, 2020 [1 favorite]

You're only allowed to run while you're holding your breath.
posted by Lorc at 11:29 AM on March 27, 2020 [2 favorites]

My kid and I would have ping pong ball wars. She's almost 18 and sometimes we still do.

You can basically whip a ping pong ball as hard as you can and you won't hurt the other person. Our rule was that if you hit someone in the head they had to give you a fist bump. You had to be at least six feet away though.

So it's kind of like tag only with ping pong balls. It's way more fun that it sounds.

Also if you're not opposed to it, Nerf Guns can be a lot of fun. Wrapping paper tube lightsaber wars as well.
posted by bondcliff at 11:30 AM on March 27, 2020 [2 favorites]

The part of the body that you tag must be used to then tag you the next time.
posted by oxisos at 11:31 AM on March 27, 2020 [2 favorites]

me and my sister used to play a tag-ish game where we each had like.. maybe 5 coloured easter eggs (the plastic kind but you could use whatever) each, so she had 5 blue ones and I had 5 pink ones. and you had to count down from 100 or 50 or whatever while dashing around hiding them (and pretending to hide them to throw the other person off) and then when you reached 0 you had to frantically find the other person's eggs, and run each one back to the basket on the back porch or at the top of the stairs (but I do not recommend running up and down the stairs since this isn't the early 90s and it was definitely extremely unsafe), and then when you had all of the other person's collected, you won?

it sounds kind of dumb but it was fun. we also sometimes played tag but with a bouncy ball, so you had to "tag" the other person with the bouncy ball, but it had to bounce before hitting them.
posted by euphoria066 at 11:45 AM on March 27, 2020 [3 favorites]

Do you want other game ideas too? I'm a fan of the egg toss-like approach to playing catch. Start with your toes touching. You throw them the ball, then they throw you the ball. Once you've thrown the ball back and forth like this one time without dropping it, you both take one step back. Throw the ball to them. They throw the ball to you. Step back. Repeat until someone drops the ball or you run out of yard space.
posted by slidell at 11:55 AM on March 27, 2020 [1 favorite]

I recommend reading all the Calvinball related Calvin and Hobbes strips for reference. Also just in general.
posted by Zudz at 11:57 AM on March 27, 2020 [3 favorites]

Similar to the mitten tag above, we played a game called "knee coup." The object is to tag someone on the knee.
You can cover your knees with your hands, BUT you can only move if your hands are off your knees. Adds a bit of strategy.
posted by mcgsa at 12:35 PM on March 27, 2020 [1 favorite]

Have an object or feature in the yard like a post or lawn chair. "It" can only tag "not-It" if "It" is the last one who touched the object. If "not-It" touches the object, "It" is disarmed until they touch the object again to re-arm. No fair moving the object.
posted by under_petticoat_rule at 1:30 PM on March 27, 2020 [1 favorite]

we used to play ball tag using soccer rules, no hands.

it was super fun and challenging, best obviously if you have a cushy kind of ball.

It was a medium small yard, too large a space would make it too difficult, might want to set boundaries if you have a large area.
posted by skinnydipp at 4:02 PM on March 27, 2020 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: thanks everyone, looking forward to trying these tomorrow!
posted by bitteroldman at 7:03 PM on March 27, 2020

We used to play with balloons and pins. You have to stab the other person's balloon with your pin for the tag to count. Now that I type it out I suspect our schools/parents were not following optimum health and safety procedures and perhaps this is not a good idea.
posted by lollusc at 11:41 PM on March 27, 2020

wheel tag. You make a 10 or 20 ft wheel in the snow, with spokes, and you have to stay on the wheel as you run. Makes it so much more fun, because you can't triangulate to intercept your prey; you have to stay on the line to the corner. One variant is that you can leap from spoke to spoke, another variant is that you have to step on each intersection to turn (no cutting corners).

Thanks for bringing this to mind. We used to play on the beach by scraping a shallow trench for the wheel and spokes. We'd also play on 4 square courts on playgrounds, in gyms with all those lines for different sports. Expansion joints in concrete driveways, plazas, rug patterns. You can use tape on carpets. TMI, I'm embarrassed now.
posted by at at 6:59 AM on March 28, 2020