Theme

General

Age Range

14+

Type

Games

Number of Participants

4+

Timescale

5-10 minutes

Quick overview

A fast pace game where young people must take out the opposition and become the ninja master.

Game type

Energiser

Participants

2-10 per team

Supplies you’ll need

None.

Game run-through

There are many variations of this game; here is one such variation.

Have the young people stand up in a circle.

On the count of three they must pull a ninja like pose.

You then go around the circle, taking it in turns to try and take out other members of the circle. To take someone out, all you must do is slap that person’s hand. To make it hard though, the person attacking only has a single movement/swipe with their hand per turn. If they hit or miss it does not matter as to if they have more movements, it is only every a single movement per turn. Whether you hit or miss you must also leave your hand at the end of the swipe, you cannot pull it back to its original position or move again until it is your turn next time.

If you successfully hit the hand of someone else in the circle, that person must put their hand behind their back and are unable to use it for the rest of the game. As everyone generally has two hands, people have two lives, one for each hand; if both hands are hit that person is out of the game. If a person has use of only one hand, then they simply have both lives on one hand.

To ensure there is a challenge in the game, if someone tries to hit your hand, you are allowed to dodge their attack. But, just like when attacking, it has to be a single motion and you must stay in the pose you end up in until it is your turn again to attack or someone else attacks you.

You are allowed to take a single step when attacking to reach your opponent but it must again be a single motion, in sync with the your arms motion e.g.: you can’t just step and then move your arm you must do both movements at once or it counts as two movements.

When taking steps, you can only move towards opponents. This isn’t the strictest of rules but some young people try and wait out the game until they are one of the final two by basically just running away until the end and this rule prevents that, ensuring there is a good speed and flow to the gameplay.

Safety Instructions

Ensure that everyone takes off rings, watches and bracelets to ensure that they do not hurt one another by accidently hitting someone with them.

Ensure there are no items on the floor which could easily be tripped over.

Ensure that there is plenty of space, away from walls; people are unlikely to fall over in this game but it is possible if someone is overenthusiastic.