5

A Group of Friends Has Been Playing "Tag" for Nearly 25 Years (and Counting)

Mike Konesky

Tag doesn't end; it fizzles out when the kids either get bored, or it becomes apparent that the fattest kid is just going to stay "it" forever. One group of childhood friends kept the dream alive, however -- they're still playing the same epic game of tag today ... as 40-year-olds.

Mike Konesky
Yes, it goes on and on, my friend ...

The game started during a school recess in 1982 and just ... didn't end. It did pause for a seven-year break to allow the 10 players to go to college, start families and develop back problems, but they picked right back up where they left off afterward. To prevent the game from degenerating into the "bawdy spectacle of mayhem (...) into which it had deteriorated in June 1982," they all signed a Tag Participation Agreement laying down some rules: tags are only valid during February every year, whoever is "it" at the end of the month will make a donation to their dear prep school, and for Christ's sake, no tagbacks.

4

The British Army Played a Giant Game of Scrabble Using a Stadium

AP via cnn.com

Scrabble has lost a lot of its luster since the advent of the Internet. Now anyone can look up word definitions, which is practically cheating as far as we're concerned -- convincing your younger brother that an "exjiquary" is "a hotel for small birds with glaucoma" was half the fun. Back in 1998, though, the game was still all the rage, which might explain why England decided to celebrate Scrabble's 50th anniversary by holding a special match in the old Wembley Stadium. This place:

John Gichigi/Getty Images Sport/Getty Images
If you scratch your monitor, you can smell the soccer hooliganism.

3

A Massive Game of Jenga Played With Heavy Machinery

Cat

Jenga is a game where you remove wooden blocks from a stack and use them to make the stack higher until it collapses and everyone yells the game's catchphrase: "fuck!" Caterpillar is a company that makes heavy machinery. This is what happens when they team up:

2

Board Games That Span Entire Cities

Christopher Jobson

1

Epic Scavenger Hunts Pulled Straight Out of "The Game"

Allan Tannenbaum

You may remember scavenger hunts as the teacher's way to get you off her back for a few hours while you retrieve the wacky stuff she wrote down, like "something purple," "a leaf that looks like Nixon," or "vodka." Ah, some fond, fond memories, hunting down that hooch. That's why some folks are trying to relive the thrill, with massive, high-tech versions involving abandoned palaces, mysterious luminous cubes with wireless transmitters, and a game of "laser mini-golf" played with mirrors.

That sounds pretty expensive. Who the hell is funding this stuff? Goldman Sachs? Well, yeah.

Joshua Schwimmer, MD
Pictured: Two entrants cheat by consulting Senior VP Beelzebub.

The New York investment firm holds a yearly, citywide scavenger hunt for its employees called "Midnight Madness," after a forgettable Disney movie of the same name. Just to give you a taste of how elaborate the puzzles can get, one involves recognizing a fake company name on a poster in the street, rearranging the wires on a circuit board, and placing that board on a thermosensitive panel in a synagogue to reveal a secret location in the map. Another was far simpler: you just had to figure out how to change the color of the spire on top of the Bank of America building.

Joshua Schwimmer, MD, Zach Seward
One option: acquire Bank of America.

Goldman Sachs isn't the only one going nuts on this whole "scavenger hunt for rich adults" thing. Across San Francisco, Seattle, and New York City, large-scale games known simply and ominously as "The Game" are played by thrill-seeking programmers. "The Game" began as simple all-night puzzle hunts in the 1970s, eventually escalating into something bigger when important nerds at Microsoft and other large companies began to butt in -- the infamous 2002 version, for example, had a complex storyline that started when a guy showed up at your house, delivered the cryptic invitation and promptly got kidnapped by burly men. From there, players were chased by helicopters in the Nevada desert, spotted clues that were flashed on Las Vegas roof billboards, and sang "It's Raining Men" in drag at a karaoke bar.

Kevin Shields, Shelby Logan's Run
See if you can spot the exact second they ran out of money in the scavenger hunt budget.

See more insane versions of our childhood in 9 Extreme Versions of Things You Loved as a Kid. And then check out 15 Unintentionally Perverted Toys for Children.

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