Games and Activities for Youth Groups

A large opaque bag is filled with colored candies. Assign points to each color. For example, white = 25 points, black = 50 points, blue = 100 points, and so on.

Each person puts his or her hand into the container and pulls out one candy. He/she keeps or eats the candy and gets that number of points added to his total. The first one to reach 1000 or 2000 is the winner and will receive a prize. You can have many rounds of this activity if you choose to.

You would need playing cards. Two aces cards stand for gangsters, two Kings cards for police officers, one Queen card for doctor. The numbers on the cards denote professions of townspeople like teacher, shop owner, lawyer, and so on. So if you have ten people, two would be gangsters, two police officers, one doctor, and remaining five townspeople.

Everybody picks up a single card. The gangsters need to keep their identities secret and blend in with the townspeople. For the gangsters to win the game they have to eliminate the townspeople one by one in every round. They should not get eliminated (voted off) during the day.

The police officers have to find out who is a gangster, and who is innocent. They would want to keep their identity secret so that the Gangsters cannot eliminate them early. The doctor will try to protect people during the night. But he or she could be selfish and opt to protect only himself or herself during the night.

Townspeople's goal is to find out who are gangsters and eliminate them from the town during the day.

Arrange the players in a circle, with the speaker outside the circle and walking around it. Each 'day' of the game, the speaker takes the entire town through the following commands in this order.

Part 1 - Nighttime:

'It is nighttime, so everyone go to sleep'. (Each person puts his/her head down and closes eyes.)

'Gangster, wake up'. (Only the gangsters quietly open their eyes. The ones that are still 'alive' quietly and jointly choose a particular person to eliminate by pointing to someone in the group. The speaker takes note of the person chosen.)
'Gangsters, go to sleep'. (The gangsters closes their eyes and place their heads down again.)

'Police officers, please wake up'. (The members of the police that are still alive open their eyes and quietly point to one person who they suspect is a gangster.)
The speaker quietly nods his/her head to indicate whether that person is indeed a gangster.
'Police officers, please go to sleep'. (The police officers close their eyes and place their heads down.)

'Doctor, please wake up and choose someone you'd prefer to protect'. (The doctor, if still alive, wakes up and silently points to someone he/she would like to protect for that day.)
'Doctor, sleep'. (The doctor then closes his or her eyes and puts his/her head down.)

'It's morning time. Everyone wake up.' (Each person opens eyes and raises his/her head.)

Part 2 - Daytime Update

The speaker announces the person who was eliminated, unless the doctor had correctly selected the person targeted by the gangsters for the night. The person who was eliminated should quietly leave the circle. This person may not speak to anyone for the remaining part of the game, but may now keep his/her eyes open to watch everything.

Part 3 - Daytime Discussion and Voting

The townspeople (along with the gangsters and Police officers who may pretend to be townspeople) then nominate and vote on people who they suspect are gangsters. Each person nominated is allowed a defense and plead their case. The person getting a majority vote (50% or above) is eliminated.

After someone is voted off, the day is declared over. The day may also end without any eliminations if the entire group makes a unanimous decision. The day ends, and the pattern resumes. (Nighttime, Daytime Update, Daytime Discussion and Voting)

The police officers or townspeople win if they successfully eliminate all gangsters. The gangsters win if they successfully eliminate all the townspeople. This group game involves a lot of strategy, knowing how and when to reveal your identity, whom to trust, etc.

Have everyone in the group, except one person, form a circle. The person outside the circle is the mastermind. Circle members must reach into the circle and grab the hands of two different people, one with each hand. Tell everyone they can't grab the hands of the people directly beside them.

Once everyone is holding hands, no one in the circle may speak. Circle members must, however, follow any reasonable instruction given by the mastermind. It's the mastermind's task to give instructions that will untangle the circle members so they form an untangled circle. (Sometimes two circles are created).

However, circle members are not allowed to release each other's hands in the process. Keep track of the number of instructions (or minutes) it takes the mastermind to untangle the circle. Then choose a new mastermind and try again. The winner is the mastermind who uses the fewest instructions to untangle the circle.

They can move the hands of the blindfolded person to show them some unique features and the blind can touch the tree as much as they want until they think they are familiar their tree. After this everyone returns to the center. Have the blindfolded players spin around a few times in order to disorient them.

The blindfolds are removed subsequently. The newly sighted players try to recognize their tree while their partners stay quietly in the center. When the first correct tree is found that team wins a prize.

Hope you have a good time playing these games.