Handy

You gotta give a hand to the inventor of Handy. It's a hand game. Probably the only commercial hand game around, that goes hand-in-hand with games like "Cat's Cradle." On the other hand, when playing Handy, you use only one hand to play the game. And yet, you need a hand for your hand of cards. So it's not a one-hand game. Unless someone can spare a hand to turn your cards over.

It's a handy game to have whenever you have a handful of people. Hand-in-hand with this, it was designed by a man named "Handy." Chris Handy.

Games Taster Marc Gilutin said something like "this is one of those games that the Major FUN Award was invented for." Marc is a very handy person to have in a Games Tasting.

You turn over a card, and that tells you what finger to use. The next guy turns over his card, and that tells him what finger to use. And then you and the next guy simply hold a ball between those two fingers. And then, if there's, for example, only three of you playing, then the guy next to you and the gal next to him do the same thing - each pick a finger card and then hold a ball between them. And then she handily does the same thing with you. New fingers. New ball. New cards. Turn after turn after turn. One more ball. Two more fingers. And all you have to do is make sure you don't drop anything. Eventually, as marketing VP of SimplyFun so glibly informed me, ultimately it proves to be "more fun than you can handle."

Yup. Major FUN. Party Fun. Twister for the hands? Hmm. You could have something there....

A Playground Curriculum

It was 1971. After three years of studying children's playground games, I was finally able to publish a facilitator's guide to children's play. I called it "The Interplay Games Curriculum." It was five volumes. Because so many kids' games are related to each other, I was forced to catalogue the games according to a multi-dimensional, and, unfortunately, highly arcane system, breaking them into abstract categories like: Locating, Expressing, Relating and Adjusting; Individual-Self, Individual-Group, Individual-Team, Team-Teamself, Team-Group, Team-Team; Locus of Control....well, you get the picture. It was big. It was kind of useful, but it was burdened by the linear technologies of the printing press. I even had the first edition hole-punched so teachers could organize games anyway they felt was useful, but, well, despite the vast pioneeringness of it all, it was too cumbersome to be used the way I had hoped. Paper just couldn't convey the interrelatedness and fluidity of playground play.

Which brings me to "Playground Fun," an online compendium of playground games that is everything I hoped my curriculum would be - capturing and conveying the spirt of games, functioning as a resource and guide, and, above all, an inivitation and inspiration to play. There are eight kinds of games represented. When you mouse over each category, like "Chasing Games," it gives you an example, "Like It." When you select a game, you are taken to a page of rules, often illustrated with actual photographs. There's a link on the upper right of each game description that reads "Other Ways to Play." This takes you to related games, like "Statues Tig," Zombie Madness," "Question It" - each game selected at random from the collection of games in that category. Then there's a link to "Other Chasing Games," which takes you to a hyperlinked list of more games to play. Then there's a link to Facts about the game, leading you to a page of game history and, often, a video of it being played.

For me, the Playground Fun site is a completion of a work I began more than 35 years ago. Though I had nothing to do with its creation, it feels like a personal accomplishment - fulfilling a need I saw more than 35 years ago, with a depth and integrity I couldn't have imagined possible.