Cookies: A Night Game Story
What’s a night game?
This is both the most difficult to answer and my favorite question that I get about my job at camp during the summer. As the program director, I oversee the activities of the day, but the majority of my time is spent making sure the night game happens each evening.
(video at the bottom)
Here’s some of the ways I’ve tried to answer that question:
It’s like a video game, only real.
Imagine playing Capture the Flag but there’s 150 of you and there’s 90 flags and getting those flags prevents aliens from taking over the world.
We run away from zombies for an hour.
Have you ever been to one of those murder mystery dinner parties? It’s like that only you have to put some effort in to get the real pieces of the story from the staff members.
We fought the moon and won.
So basically we locked up one of our counselors in some part of camp, but we didn’t tell the campers where on camp, and the campers have to work together to not only find them, but also to locate several keys that will be used to unlock them, all while camp is swarming with bad guys trying to stop them.
Someone stole all the cookies from the kitchen right before dinner.
All of these describe real, actual night games that we played this summer. It’s a nearly impossible concept to describe unless you’ve played something like it. That’s why I’m thankful for Quarius and his camera. He was on the Program Team with me in 2022, so he understands what goes into creating a night game, and how bizarre of a concept it must seem to someone that’s never played one. Here’s the story of one of the games from this summer.
-MK
Cookies stolen at Camp Stomping Ground!
Justice Washington (left) and Washington Justice (right)
On day seemingly like any other in August 2023, dessert was stolen from the campers of Stomping Ground. There had been ongoing speculation as to who done it, and on this particular day we may get to the bottom of it!
Members of Blueberry Village appointed these two outstanding staff members to handle this case.
The future of dessert hangs in the balance. Justice, much like dessert, will be served.
MK & Quarius started at Stomping Ground the summer of 2021, and were even in the same cabin for staff orientation! They are both grateful to have found a camp home and they share a love for buffalo chicken dip, The Legend of Zelda, and Brie Larson.
