Remember the good old days when summer would roll around and your parents would drop you off at camps like Tumbleweed or Tocaloma? At least for my fellow LA-based folk. Your troubles would all vanish away as you made your way through the ropes course, went for your daily swim, and finished it off with an awesome s’more around the campfire. Well, since summer is upon us, here are some fun campfire games you can STILL play, because you know we’re all still campers at heart.
1. Truth or Dare
A classic bus ride pastime, this game can be played at any time or occasion–especially at a campfire. The game goes that one person asks another player the question: “Truth or Dare?” If the player chooses “truth,” then she might get asked a question like “Which movie could you watch over and over again and never get bored?” On the other hand, if the player chooses “dare,” then she might have to complete a task like “jump into the freezing cold lake.” And she’d HAVE to do it, otherwise she’d get kicked out of the campfire circle. Just kidding, she wouldn’t have to, but refusing a dare is typically frowned upon.
2. Would You Rather…
Pretty similar to the above, except no jumps into cold water needed. Instead, everyone goes around the circle asking each other to choose between two options, an either/or scenario. For instance, a sample question could be: “Would you rather be stranded on an island with Chris Evans or Chris Hemsworth?” Can’t really go wrong with either Chris, since you’re choosing between two superheroes who could easily save you from living the Cast Away life.
3. Two Truths and a Lie
This campfire game is a pretty standard icebreaker, even though on an outdoor education trip in high school, I totally failed at it after admitting an embarrassing truth about myself and then immediately saying: “not gonna lie.” Yup, completely defeated the purpose of the game, but it made for a good laugh. Anyhow, the rules are fairly simple, as the player tells the group three statements: two truthful and one untruthful. Then, the group guesses which one is the lie. Needless to say, I certainly expedited the process of elimination for my round.
4. Twenty Questions
Any topic. Any place. Any object. One player thinks of an item, let’s say “Disneyland,” and the group has twenty questions available in order to find out what the player is thinking of. The catch is, they can only ask “yes” or “no” questions, like: “Is there a famous mouse that started it all?”
5. Telephone
Oh, the basis of miscommunication. This campfire game gets a bad rap for never ending the way it should, but that’s all part of the fun. “Telephone” involves one person whispering a statement into the person beside them’s ear such as “I love Oreo’s and peanut butter.” Then, each person continues whispering that same statement into the next person’s ear until you get to the last person in the circle who says the phrase aloud. However, the phrase never ends up the same as the original. “I love Oreo’s and peanut butter” could instead become “I love bananas and Fluffernutters.” Both delicious, but not exactly correct by the game’s standards.
6. Name That Tune
For both the musically-inclined and the not-so-much, one member of the campfire gang sings part of a song or plays it on the guitar. Then, the group is supposed to guess the name of the tune. Typically, the sung refrain does not include the title of the song, as that would give away the point of the game.
7. Charades
My mother’s personal favorite and great for a large group. First off, to make things easier, you can divide your campfire gathering into teams. Team 2 comes up with an idea, like a movie or novel title, and writes it down on a card. Team 2 then shows the card to an ~actor~ from Team 1 without revealing it to the rest of Team 1. Then by candlelight or campfire light, Team 1’s actor pantomimes the topic to the rest of his team in order for them to guess it. If Team 1 guesses it right within a decided upon time frame, let’s say 3-5 minutes, then Team 1 gets a point. If they don’t guess it, no dice. And then, Team 1 writes down a phrase on the card and an actor from Team 2 repeats the process. Common tips include: pretending to read a book to represent a novel or to crank an old movie camera to represent a film.
8. Team Storytelling
Topics may vary, but with team storytelling, everyone gets to use their imagination to take part in relaying a ~spooky~ ghost story with a flashlight spotlight. One person says an opening line of a story. We could go with the very original “Once upon a time…” And then the next person down the log would invent a new sentence to progress the story forward, like “there was a creepy house on the edge of town…” And so on. Each person would continue along until you reached the last person and completed the story, or you could keep going until everyone runs out of ideas.
9. Roasting Marshmallows
Not exactly a campfire game, but always a crowd favorite. I would always compete with my friends to see who could roast the gooey-ist marshmallow for our s’mores. The more burnt and charred on the outside, the better.
And there you have it. An assortment of campfire games we all adored and played as kids and can still do as semi-adults. Next time you sit around a makeshift campfire with your friends, don’t forget to sing your own rendition of Spongebob’s classic “C-A-M-P-F-I-R-E S-O-N-G song,” because, obviously, it helps if we just sing along.