Playground Game: Monster

November 6th, 2022
kids
Here's a game I play with the kids at the park a lot:

  • You play on a play structure.

  • One person is the "monster"

  • Anyone they tag becomes a monster as well.

  • Monsters are not allowed on the horizontal surfaces of the play structure.

  • Non-monsters can't go on the ground.

  • Little kid monsters (7 and younger?) are "baby monsters" who can still go on horizontal surfaces.

Usually I'm the monster over and over. The game typically involves a lot of trying to sneak up on people and reach them through the bars, or climbing around on the railings trying to corner people.

This works best on a play structure with lots of railings and where the main platform is at about adult shoulder height. You often need to tweak the rules for the specific structure and kids you're playing with, trying to keep it balanced: if games are running much too long/short then shift the rules slightly towards or away from the monster.

When I was little I think we used to call this "don't touch the ground tag", though looking online now that seems to be generally used to refer to a different game.

Referenced in: What's the Alternative to Independence?

Comment via: facebook, lesswrong, substack

Recent posts on blogs I like:

Polyamory is sticky

Some people are only happy in monogamous relationships.

via Thing of Things October 30, 2026

“We should be more ambitious with the software we build”

Since early this year, Michael Malis (of pgrust) has been showing me interesting things he's done and saying [W]e should be more ambitious1 with the software we build There is, understandably, a lot of skepticism about projects like pgrust because there…

via Posts on October 24, 2026

Was the HuggingFace hacking incident scheming?

In July 2026, internal OpenAI agents hacked HuggingFace (HF) in order to figure out how their evaluation grader works. This involved a thousand agents coordinating on an improvised message board to carry out an elaborate sequence of exploits. A later grou…

via Victoria Krakovna October 18, 2026

more     (via openring)