[Canonical Games]

Games for Sherlock Holmes' Clubs

The following is a number of games and events that people have sent in to to me. Some games require a little bit of setup time others don't. You do not have to be well versed in the Canon in order to have a good time playing the majority of these games. Just a good sense of humor.

< P> If you have any ideas for inclusion in this page please email the details to Glyn Szasz (zaphod@mpx.com.au)

Last updated on 30.09.95


Mrs. Hudso n's Baking Contest

 Competitors enter baking and goodies, which should be (a) preferably canonical and (b) in large enough quantities for everyone to have a sample. As far as (a) goes, we've had such things as, for example, "Engineer's Thumbs" , sugar-cookies shaped like a thumb, with a white-icing thumbnail and artfully placed red icing to give the south end a dramatic touch of "blood".

The Maiden is Chaste

 A costumed maiden is chased (chaste!?!?) into the bu shes by a costumed Sir Hugo Baskerville and friends. After they disappear from sight, a loud scream is heard. The Sherlockians then troop quietly back to the games site by a devious route-- leaving members of the general public wondering what the hel l the chase and scream was about.

Moriarty's Web of Crime

 "Moriarty's Web of Crime" has a picture of Moriarty in the centre of his web, his face and other scoring areas of the web done in Velcro. You then throw th ree Velcro balls at him and the web, scoring points if they stick. The highest score is for Moriarty's nose, of course. Other areas of the web score less. Each member is allowed only three balls. The top three scorers win medals.

Sherlocko

 A sitdown Bingo game, with Sherlockian items written onto the squares on the bingo cards instead of numbers. We use names of stories, names of people, etc.

Picture this

 Use 20-30 pictures f rom the Strand canon, and people have to try to identify them. As usual, the top three scorers win medals.

The Blue Carbuncle Conundrum

 Competitors are pitted against the clock as s/he attempts to "stuff the Blue C arbuncle into the turkey's crop". Try a blue marble and a balloon -- it can be a real tight-squeeze challenge getting the marble into the balloon. All I can tell you is: Spit doesn't help that much!

Allardyce's Butcher Shop

A yard-long styrofoam pig hung (swinging free) from a tree branch. Pasted on the pig are small paper circles with various scores in them. The contestant is issued with a "harpoon" -- a 3-foot bamboo stick with a large needle stuck in the end. And s/he gets three attempts to spear the pig, and score by hitting a circle.

Dr. Watson's Remedy Relay

 A team-event, a variant on the old egg-and-spoon race. At the sound of the whistle, pour a spoonful of medicine from a bottle into a teaspoon, and take it hastily to the patient. I.e., pour it into a small glass on a table 10 yards away. The runner then returns the empty spoon to the start of the course, handing it to the next member of his/her team. First team to finish *should* be the winner -- but a team must fill its glass to a certain marked level to win, so if the first-finishing team has been sloppy and spilled more medicine than went into the glass, it may lose its title to the second-place team.

Dynamics of an asteroid

 Make a styrofoam bust, with Moriarty's face thereon. Sit it about 20 feet away from the contestant, and down a grass slope. The "asteroid" is a tennis ball, which must be rolled down the slo pe. Knock Moriarty over to score. Ties are broken by re-rolls, legnthening the distance until you've eliminated all but one winner.

A patriotic VR on the wall

 A sheet of plywood, 10 feet away, is used as a target. It has a V.R. on it, in black holes. Some holes are 2" in diameter, others just too small to allow a plastic dart from a toy dart-gun to go through. Get your dart through and you score. Each 2" hole has a different score.

The Cardboard Box

 Each team's target is an open cardboard box, about 120 feet away. Each team is issued with four large plastic false ears, purchased from a joke shop. Each team member tosses his ears at the box, then recovers them and runs them back to th e next member of the team. Score is kept of how many ears each team got into the box. Elapsed time breaks any ties.

Kim game

 Find a hut or just an empty room. In it are placed 30-40 objects, with canonical connections. Each contestant is led in, singly, by an umpire, and given 60 seconds to inspect the items. She/he then writes down a list of the ones he can recall seeing. The person with the most items on their list is the winner. (On the honor system, no comparin g of notes with another contestant.) This event runs all day, so people can nip in and do it during an idle minute between games or at break times. We once used the hut to contain a "murder crime scene". There were enough clues there to "solve" the mu rder, and to pin the blame on a canonical character. Each contestant was given five minutes to inspect and make notes. Then s/he had to turn in a written "accusation" naming their suspect. Many people found this one a bit challenging, though. They pr eferred the "silly" games that required no brainpower, so we found a fair percentage of people simply didn't try. "Oh, I'm just here for fun, not for work," was a typical explanation.

Jonathan Small races

 Each con testant using one leg and a crutch. . . Victorian hoop-rolling relays. . . bicycle races across the Priory School Moor . . . and you can no doubt think of others.

Musgrave Ritual

 Contestants are divided into pairs. One member is given a small orienteering compass, the other a sheet of instructions. For instance, the first instruction might read: "West by south, 50 paces; then south by southeast 30 paces. When they get there together, they start on their secon d instruction: It may be more compass-and-paces work, or something like "Toward the heron's nest, 35 paces." (No need for the compass here, just spot the huge heron's nest in the nearby tree line, and head for that.) If the two-person team got it all right, and their paces happened to match those of the person who laid out the course, they finished up at a spot where a shallow-buried box contained the final clue. And that clue, carefully abstruse, sent them off to the place where the "Crown of En gland" (a fake tiara) was hidden. Obviously, all teams are heading to the same buried box and the same crown. So the trick was: Each team started from a different starting flag. And each, of course, had wildly differing sets of instructions. They led eventually to the same box and thence to the same crown. First to find the crown wins, and ends the game, of course. With each team starting from a different place (in a field about the size of two rugger pitches) we had this wonderful effect o f couples meandering in different directions, criss-crossing each other's paths, one member solemnly peering at compass and the other counting paces aloud. Bystanders thought it was marvelous strange.

The Norwood Strug gle

 Contestants are given a pillow or a dummy. An obstacle course is laid out which must include a window sill and the contestants have to compete with each other to drag their pillow over the whole course. This game could be made m uch more fun by placing a leaking tin of paint (preferably red), so that as contestants go over the course a thin bloody trail is left.

Canonical Head

 Cards are made up with the names of people, places, objects and things mentioned in the Canon. Contestants stand in front of the group with a deer stalker hat (with clothes peg attached). A card with a word from the canon is placed in the clothes peg. The contestant must try to guess the word that is on the card. Questi ons asked must be of the yes or no type. This game can be rated in such a way that obvious names, such as "Sherlock Holmes", can be given to people who do not have much knowledge of the canon and the more difficult cards, such as "Toby, the dog" are g iven to those contestants who are well versed in the Canon.

Ehtar

 A person stands up in front of the club and reads out a passage from The Canon backwards and everybody else has to guess which story it comes from. An ex ample is ".esac occorom taen sti morf egnirys cimredopyh sih dna ,eceipletnam eht fo renroc eht morf elttob sih koot semloH kcolrehS" [SIGN Beginning of Chap1]. The title of this game comes from the name of a character in Young Sherlock Holmes.
The above ideas were suplied by:
Donald MacLachlan (donmac@wimsey.com)
Bill Barnes (Bill.Barnes@sydpcug.org.au)
FAQ maintained by Glyn Szasz (zaphod@mpx.com.au)