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:

31. Willy Wonka
This video more or less says it all:

32. Sandlot
“Probably my second favorite night activity I’ve ever been a part of. Taking the conventional setup of night games and flipping it on it’s head, campers were the stars of the skit and put on a show better than any staff member could have done. In planning the game I recall sitting around a table discussing what we were going to do that night. Someone wouldn’t stop quoting The Sandlot to the point that we all realized it would make a perfect night game. The only problem was we couldn’t figure out what the point of the game was… until another staff member walked by and asked us what we were thinking so hard about. When we told her she replied, with about half a second’s hesitation, “Why don’t you just have them try to get the ball back?” Why didn’t we think of that?! After that it was easy to plan the game where the campers had to find and retrieve the giant soccer ball (which represented the baseball Smalls hit somewhere out into camp) while other campers chased down the other members of the Sandlot team. Staff participation was at a minimal and some of the campers finally got to see all the behind the scenes planning that goes into a night game.” -Scott Lederer

33. The Healing Game
“The Healing Game was my personal favorite of Camp Meeting 2000 which was also the camp where Escape from the Narcolepsy Clinic was first played. The camper groups went out to find people who were blind, lame, or demon possessed and bring them to an apostle to be healed. I had Paul Scott and Ric Tucker as the apostles Paul and Peter dressed in classic bed sheet apostle robes with staffs. Various staff members were sent out as either blind, lame, or demon possessed. When you find a blind person or course they had their eyes closed so you have to lead them through the woods, the lame people you would have to carry, the demon possessed would fight you or throw tantrums or say funny stuff. When you got to the apostle they would send you on a little mission like dip his foot in lake agape or something. It was a little sacrilegious, but not too bad. I just remember Paul Scott got really into it which was awesome, and I remember Jackie Oberparleiter as a demon possessed person kicking and screaming while some campers were trying to drag her along.” -Dave Brown

34. Survivor
Don’t remember this game. Have a recollection? Post it in the comments below.

35. Finding Nemo
Same as above.

36. Lord of the Rings
Same as above.

37. ‘N Sync
And again, the same as the above.

38. Empires
“Every man/woman starts out on their own! This is a game of battles (challenges). If you win the battle, your opponent(s) become a part of your kingdom. The first two battles take place in the dining hall: battle one is man on man rock paper scissors. Winner is the ruler of the empire, the loser is the servant. Then the two individuals compete against another group of two in a game of gorilla, man, gun. Again, the winner of the game is still ruler of the empire and the two losers become peasants in the empire. The group of four will then head out around the camp looking for “battle stations” and find other groups to challenge. winner takes all. eventually one person will rule the empire alone! The good news is. everyone is in the winning empire. When battling on the grounds in games like basketball, volleyball, pyramid building, etc., the ruler of the empires may choose someone from their empire to battle for them. We also included brainteasers and Bible trivia to add another dimension.” -Wally Kappeler

39. Douse the Dean
This was a trivia challenge between the dean and a team of students. I’m assuming at the end of it if the students won they got to douse the dean with something.

40. Inspector Gadget
This was the only night game I’ve ever played at camp where the staff ended up being sacrificed for the sake of the kids having the time of their lives. We had the welts to prove it afterward from the balloons every camper got to throw at us from point blank range. It made for a good sermon illustration but I doubt too many staff people would be signing up to be in this game again.

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:

21. Mission Impossible, Teen 2 2008
“Yet another variation of the age old Capture the Flag game. The one that has been played with gusto for years at Delanco. The opening skit had “Mr. Phelps” being lowered through the ceiling by a rope and suspended in the air for several minutes as our hero hacked into the Evil scientist’s computer. The teenage campers seemed spellbound to the point of rendering the dining hall quieter than a library. Do you have any idea how hard it is to keep 85 teenagers totally quiet for 10 minutes? Once the game started the campers seemed to have an even bigger dose of energy than usual for a night game. So that’s my favorite and that was even WITH me taking a whipped cream pie in the face at the end of the night in front of the kids.” -Ric Tucker

See more photos of the Mission Impossible game HERE.
Continue reading »

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.

Continue reading »