The Games We Played as Kids: Indoor Games Throwback

Here are the first 5/35 games we enjoyed playing as kids:

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1. Snake and Ladder

This board game is a classic. It's an interactive game with 2 to 4 players and a dice. The goal is to race against their opponent to reach the top (100). Each player will take turns in rolling the dice. The number that the player rolled into will be added into his current position. If the player landed at the bottom of the stair, he will climb up; however, landing on the head of a snake will make the player slide down to its tail. The player who get to the 100 on the board first will be the winner.
This is a fun game I played not only with my brother and sister but also with my parents.

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2. Scrabble

Another classic board game where 2 to 4 players are required to have 7-8 tiles each (depending on the condition before the game starts). The players need to take turns in constructing words attached to the previous words on the board. They draw new letters from the pile of letters to replace the tiles they've used. The goal is to use all the tiles of letters on hand to get a "SCRABBLE." But it is also better to assemble words with high-value-letters such as Z, Q, and J and align them on special boxes labeled Double and Triple Word Score, and Double and Triple Letter Score.

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Playing Scrabble as a kid widen my vocabulary and made me want to read more because I have to know new words to fight my siblings and classmates with. I also learned unusual words from this board game such as FOXEN (from my mom) and if I'm not mistaken, ZEDS (from Kuya Gerald). I even asked my dad to buy me a Scrabble Board Game instead of a phone.

3. Sungka

If you are familiar with Bantumi, the game on Nokia 3310, then you'll be fine. I always played it when I learned how to use a phone and I got bored when I learned how to win on Bantumi. When I was older, I played Sungka with my classmates and borrow the Sungka Board from school. I don't own a board that's why we often just lay the pebbles on a concrete and pretend there were holes.

Image SourceThis game uses a wooden block with two rows of seven hollows and two large ones at both edges called "head". Each hole contains 7 pieces of either pebbles, marbles or shells of the same kind, except the head. This game requires 2 players only. The first to play will be decided by a flip coin or a rock-paper-scissors game. The goal of the game is to collect the pieces on his head as much as he can.

The first player will remove the contents of the hole at the farthest left on his side and allocate a piece on each hole counterclockwise excluding the opponent's head but not his own. If the last piece landed into his own head, he'll get another turn. If it falls into a filled hole (regardless of the side), then all the pieces will be removed to be distributed in the same way in another round. When the last piece drops into the opponent's empty hole, the player's turn ends. However, if the last piece landed on an empty hole in the player's side, the player will take the pieces at the hole directly across and place them at his own head. If the hole across is empty, then no pieces will be taken. The game ends when both players emptied all the 7 holes on their side.

Note: If the player doesn't have any piece at his side during his turn, he is obliged to take a pass.

4. Dampa

This game requires only lastiko (rubber bands) and your own hands. Many players can join the game but it's better to minimize the players into 2 or have a maximum of 3 players. They will decide who goes first by jack-en-poy. The number of rubber bands depend on the selection of the group.

Image SourceThe bands will be slightly tangled and placed inside a line or near the edge of a platform. The goal is to blow the rubber bands in odd numbers past the line or the edge using the air generated by the holes in the players' palms. If the blown rubber bands are even, they will be returned with the remaining bands. The players who successfully dampa the rubber bands in odd numbers, takes the rubber band as their price.

My siblings and I always got scolded by our mother because of the noise our dampa made during the game and our dirty hands after playing it.

5. Teks

We frequently collected texted game cards as children. We ask our mother for money or take it from our allowances. And sometimes, just take coins from the corners of the house. Rascals, I know! These playing cards are a quarter size of Yu-Gi-Oh and magic cards. They contain pictures of anime, cartoons and other trending television shows.

The game is played in two ways. One is tossing the cards in the air until they lay flat on the ground while the other just uses a "high-five" more commonly known as apir.

The first can have as many players as they want. One of the players gather the other player's pamato, their star card and include those with one master card. Or not. The cards are flicked upwards using the thumb and fore finger creating a cracking sound as the fingernail hits the card's surface. The cards who'll win is determined on the result of the master card. If the player's star card laid out the same as the master card (front or back), he wins. If a master card is not included, the card that's laid up front, wins. He'll have to collect opponents' cards. The price is, of course, dependent on the agreement before the game started. Sometimes, the player's count their cards in this manner(each syllable is one count summing up to 20), singing the chant:

"I-sa, munduha, muntoro-torotot, a-nim, pi-to, wa-lo, si-yam, cha!"

Image SourceApir, on the other hand, is simply high-fiving the players' star cards. The player who has his star card that's front up, wins. He collects his win from his opponent.

I remember my cousin, Kuya John Lee who was unbeatable in teks. Until we found out later that he was cheating. His star card is always front upwards because he glued two similar playing cards together. He pasted it perfectly, you won't notice that there are two cards because it was so thin. Cheeky guy but, yeah, genius!

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Message to the ReaderHi guys! I'm supposed to include hand-clapping games in this indoor edition of my childhood games but I didn't because they're gonna get their own write-up. Hope you enjoy playing! Follow me @krizia for more games! Check the overview of the games we played as kids, here.Cheers!