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:

Some thoughts on sexual harassment

I.

via Thing of Things September 30, 2026

There's no point at which turning your brain off will work

In early 2025, I started seeing people turn off their brain as they use LLMs1. They would have an LLM take an action (summarize text, write some code, etc.), and just assume that it worked2. This generally didn't work in early 2025 and the result was …

via Posts on September 18, 2026

My Weirdy Creatures

Over the last few days, I've been working on some little creatres. But they're very weird. I call them "weirdy creatures". I've made quite a lot of them, I think maybe 5-6, not sure. Weirdy Predator This is a weirdy predator. They'…

via Anna Wise's Blog Posts September 13, 2026

more     (via openring)