Starting Sunday, you’ll get a chance to vote for your favorite night games in our first ever Blog Madness. But before we get the seedings in our own field of 64, we’re going to introduce the contenders.

Over the years, there have been hundreds of night games/activities played and put on at our youth camps. They often involve a skit, some tie-in to the pop culture of the time and involve campers running around in the woods in the dark. While not all of the games we play are original to Delanco Camp, the night games as we do them at camp are certainly a trademark.

Here are 10 more:

11. Escape from Arkham Asylum, Camp Meeting 2009
This video pretty much says all you need to know about this night game and the nightmares Joe Cusack’s Joker impersonation gave some people.

12. Hypnosis Game, originated Camp Meeting 2000
The hypnosis game was originally known by the not-so-PC name of Escape from the Narcolepsy Clinic. A Dave Brown creation, teams attempt to return the patients to the clinic but whenever the bell rings the patients go to sleep, making it a difficult chore.

13. National Treasure, Teen 1 2005
Back when the dining hall doors weren’t reversed and you were able to have people come running in for skits at full speed… those were the days. Around the height of this movie’s popularity, putting it into a night game made complete sense. In planning we couldn’t agree on how best to make the clues for the treasure the kids had to find. They scampered around camp only to find that the treasure was hidden somewhere with a virtually indecipherable code. When they figured out the code led them to the dock the game ended with everyone wanting more. -Scott Lederer

14. Delanco Idol, various
This has been done at a few camps over the years and is more or less a thematic version of the Talent Show, but word has it Rich Dugan and Blake Gederberg are pretty dang good at putting one of these events together. Which makes sense because Rich and Blake are pretty much my personal Delanco idols.

15. Coffeehouse
This is more or less the Talent Show done in the dining hall instead of the Tabernacle. I’ll never forget the year Mike and I were visiting Teen Camp and Ricky asked us if we could put a coffeehouse together for that night. We rounded up some permanent staffers to help us transport all of the furniture we could find on the grounds to the dining hall. A huge roll of bright pink shag carpet we found in the rafters of the Pavilion also came in handy to create a kind of ’70s motif and atmosphere to match the dining hall’s wood paneling.

16. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
I don’t remember a lot of the details about this one, but it was for an ’80s themed camp when Chuck Thornley was dean. I remember people dressed up as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and having a blast with my team, but not too much else. T-U-R-T-L-E Power. If you recall more, post about it in the comments below.

17. Star Search
This one was Kevin Wolf’s “favorite night game ever.” In this game, campers had to run around and find stars that reflected off of a flashlight’s beam.

18. Balloon Game
I don’t know the name of the game, but there was one where there were balloons all over camp and they were worth different points. You had to get as many as you could while there were staff out taking your balloons or popping them. It made hiding them from the staff challenging. -Mel Herring

19. Scavenger Hunts
Back in the day when I was a camper we did a lot of scavenger hunts. If camp had a scavenger hunt king, it would be Wally Kappeler.

20. Who Killed John Candy?, Junior High 2 2006
Played on John Candy day at the Canada-themed Junior High 2 camp. Campers find out that John Candy didn’t really die of natural causes and must track down characters from John Candy’s films to find out who killed him and why. The Jamaican Bobsled team practicing on the bridge and the polka band from Home Alone were my favorite parts.

Have a recollection of any of these games? Share it in the comments. Have photos, videos or other recollections of any of these or other games? Send them to matt.ralph@delanco.org.