Hide & Seek Youth Group Activities

Classic Hide and Seek

• In the traditional version of hide and seek, one player closes her eyes and counts to a previously agreed number, usually 100. The other players find a suitable place to hide. Once the countdown is finished, the seeker opens her eyes and shouts: "Ready or not, here I come", and tries to discover where the others are hidden. The first person to be found will be the next seeker, while the last member found is the winner.

Sardines

• Unlike in the traditional version, only one person hides in this reversed hide and seek variation, while everybody else closes their eyes for an agreed amount of time. Then the multiple seekers look for the hidden person and whenever someone discovers the hiding place, he has to stay there until the last person of the search party has found the spot. The title of the game refers to the hidden group that looks like sardines in a tin as the game progresses and more people assemble in the space.

Jailbreak

• The appointed seeker counts from one o'clock through to eleven o'clock, then shouts "Twelve o'clock rock, midnight", and starts searching for the other players who have hidden. When she finds a hidden person, she has to tag her and send her to jail, represented by a predetermined space or room.

  In the meantime, members of the youth group who are not found yet will try to get to the jail and free the prisoners by tagging them. The freed prisoners and their rescuers will hide again. The game can take some time and will first be finished when all members have been sent to jail.

Dungeon Keeper

• This version of hide and seek should be played indoors and requires several rooms instead of one large area. One youth group member is selected to be the dungeon keeper. She will count while the other members of the group hide. While hiding, the players will turn off the lights. The seeker, also called the dungeon keeper, starts searching the rooms, leaving the lights off. When she finds a player, she tags her. The found member stays in the room until the seeker has finished searching it for other hidden players. When the dungeon keeper thinks she has found everyone in the room, she turns on the light. If she missed someone in the room, all the players are allowed to hide again in the dark while the seeker moves to the next room. When the seeker finds everyone hidden in a room, the light will stay on and the players remain there in plain view. The game ends when all the lights are on in every room.

Paintball

• This is a messy version of hide and seek, best played at camps because the children will need a change of clothes at hand. The game requires the use of sheets of paper and water pistols filled with colored water. Divide the youth group into two or more teams and assign every team a color to be used in their water pistols. Every player will have a sheet of paper taped to their chest, and given a water pistol filled with colored water. Everyone will then hide and seek at the same time. The aim is to remain hidden and keep the sheet of paper free from colored water, while trying to shoot at other players' sheets of paper. If a piece of paper gets hit, it has to be taken to base and be exchanged for a new one. At the end, the paper sheets are counted and the team that has had the most hits on the other team's papers wins.