I'm a fairly non-games person I know, what a party pooper Of the games I do enjoy, they would be:

"Eat p**p, You Cat" (which I believe is the official name)-- each player has a piece of paper. Everyone starts out by writing a phrase at the top of the page (the page will be filled up quickly so write tiny)--anything from "an elephant eating a carrot", "someone getting their ears pierced", "first day of school" or anything. Once you have written something down, fold the paper just enough to cover up the phrase and pass it to the person next to you. Hopefully the person on your left will quickly finish writing their phrase and they will hand you their paper. Next, you unfold their paper and see what they said, then try to draw a picture (remember, tiny!) that is what the phrase is of. Then you pass it along...so basically it's phrase/picture/phrase/picture until the papers are all folded up. Then everyone opens their papers and reads the hilarity that ensues. It's like Broken telephone except on paper! It's important to remember not to use phrases like "banana" or "American flag" as these are extremely easy to draw and it will never change. Write something slightly more complicated, and the way it gets twisted around will definetly amuse you!

Dutch Blitz

Apples to Apples

Yup, those are my favorite games. My least favorite games would be anything that goes on too long...Monoply especially. I only played it once and I still remember how tortorous it was. I also don't like games that are too complicated, you spend half the time just trying to remember how to play it!

Another fun paper game, I don't know if it has a name, goes like this: One paper per game, and the "template" For the game is thus:

Girl's name
Guy's name
A place they met
Girl says:
Guy says:
The moral of the story is:
The world said:

I haven't played it for aggges so I may have left out a line or two, and you could probably have adjectives to go before the names, but it's pretty fun. The best part is when you use names of people all the players know as when you read back at the end it's even more hilarious (each person fills in the blank, then folds it over to it's hidden, then passes it on until it's done).

EDIT Annnnd I just realized FK said "Favorite games when you were growing up" in which case I'll have to post again to include those

ah the old NES! first I ever had. I loved Mario and Mario 3 for sure! Mario 2 was too confusing for me. I particularly loved the orange gun that came with it as well for Duck Hunt. Zelda, I thought was great, but too difficult for me- I never did finish it.

Card games, I have plenty I like- yes I still play with cards.
I love solitaire, hearts- which no one I know knows how to play. Bridge has always interested me but I don't understand it.

Monopoly, Sorry, and Clue are among my favorite board games. Battleship and Connect 4 were other favorite games. Anyone remember Thin Ice? I loved that one as a kid!!! Hungry Hungry Hippos is fun, as is the fish game where the fishes spin and you grab with a fishing rod.

"Eat p**p, You Cat" - never heard it called that! We play a similar game called "Telephone Pictionary" named both after the popular board game and the "telephone" game kids play, in which the message is garbled in the transmission.

We use notepad-size sheets of paper, with each player having a number of sheets equal to the number of players, and pass it around that way (alternating between drawings and word guesses), but your version would save paper.

It's a great game to play around the campfire. One of our most humorous examples came last summer, when "The Cliffs of Insanity" (from The Princess Bride) became "a house." We've also had some funny confusion between a metronome (the musical timing device) and the Metrodome (the local sports arena where the Vikings play).

Cribbage may be one of the earliest 'adult' games I ever played; about 45 years ago my mother bought a cribbage board at a yard sale even though we didn't know the game (I still have it). We taught ourselves how using Hoyle's Rules of Games - there was no internet to look things up on - and still play occasionally. The 4-person game is a nice variation.

In cards, we also like to play Hearts and 500, and have played some Bridge.

We also played a board game called Merchant of Venus which combined exploration and trade routes. For a while we played it so much we wore it out and had to buy a new copy.

We also played an early PC game called Master of Orion II which allowed players to custom design spaceships, create treaties with each other, or fight computer or human players.

But we weren't indoors all the time. As kids there were vacant lots nearby and we'd play things like tag, pick-up softball games, or Red Light, Green Light until it got dark and our parents called us in.

edit: Dutch Blitz (which I grew up calling Nertz) was another favorite. And way back when our group played a New Year's Eve game - in which we'd all write specific words on pieces of paper and then others would guess - turned out to be a pre-publication form of the game Taboo. Guess we missed our chance to be millionaires then.

(edited)

"Eat p**p, You Cat" (which I believe is the official name)-- each player has a piece of paper. Everyone starts out by writing a phrase at the top of the page (the page will be filled up quickly so write tiny)--anything from "an elephant eating a carrot", "someone getting their ears pierced", "first day of school" or anything. Once you have written something down, fold the paper just enough to cover up the phrase and pass it to the person next to you. Hopefully the person on your left will quickly finish writing their phrase and they will hand you their paper. Next, you unfold their paper and see what they said, then try to draw a picture (remember, tiny!) that is what the phrase is of. Then you pass it along...so basically it's phrase/picture/phrase/picture until the papers are all folded up. Then everyone opens their papers and reads the hilarity that ensues. It's like Broken telephone except on paper! It's important to remember not to use phrases like "banana" or "American flag" as these are extremely easy to draw and it will never change. Write something slightly more complicated, and the way it gets twisted around will definetly amuse you!

Sounds just like a youth group game we play called Spanking Yoda... Lot's of fun! Our youth pastor is the subject of a ton of ours sentences.

I also like 4 corners. It's a card game that I play almost every Thursday.

Divide the players into teams of two. The teammates must choose a signal that is obvious to their partner, but not so obvious that everyone. This will come in later. Then deal out four cards to each player.Once all the players have seen their cards lay four cards on the table and say "go". By taking and leaving cards you try and get a book of cards (four of the same. ie: Queens, Aces, etc.). The first team to do their signal and have heir teammate call "four corners" wins the round. We play until one team has 7 points.

1. Speed
2. Dutch Blitz: I'm reallly shabby at it, but it's still fun.
3. Apples to Apples
4. Monopoly
5. That Cerebrum game...called Whonu or something like that.
6. Charades!
7. The classic hide and seek!
8. Fill The Bucket: When there are two opposite teams on a large field. There's a seperation line and one side is the safe for opposite sides, whichever is theirs. (On both sides there's a bucket to fill water, this bucket belongs to whichever team's side it is on. They have to fill a cup from this bucket and then risk going into the enemy's camp to fill their buckets on the opposite side. If you're tagged on the opposite side, you're brought to yet another circle which is the "prison." However, the opposite team's bucket is on the other team's safe side and the goal is to carry cups of water to fill your bucket without having your water pour and without having the dissolvable ring around your neck get dissolved. There's a circle were the buckets/tubs are within and the circle is the other team's rest point in the opposite team's safe side. Offense goes to fill buckets, and defense trys to dissolve offense's dissolvable ring life. *hopes that made sense*
And then there's planned out games as such like Steal the Sock and others...

Outdoor games:

1. Hide and Seek (used to play this a TON with my cousins when we were younger)
2. Kick Ball (something the kids/teens at a camp retreat that my Dad plays at every year play. It's kind of a cross between soccer and baseball)
3. Tag

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Board games:

1. Chess (A classic that's fun no matter what your age is! Well, as long as you have the patience for it... )
2. Monopoly
3. Battleship

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Card games:

1. Battle (My cousins taught me this one)
2. Go Fish

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Video games:

1. Super Mario Bro. 3 (I used to play this game with my cousins almost every time I went over to visit. We would take turns playing through a level/map/thing. It was tons of fun! )
2. Super Smash Bro. (N64) (another console game that I would play at my cousins. We still play this one on a pretty regular bases. )
3. Dragon Warrior Monsters: Cobi's Journey (GBC) (Ahh, the memories of playing this RP game for hours trying to beat the boss on Limbo.... *sigh* Good times.)

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Misc.

1. Charades (The first time I heard about this game, I thought "How can you play Charade?!" )

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I love the awesome game Twister! it's so awesome to get all tangled!

Haha, I've never heard Telephone Pictionary called that either, Val. That's one of my favourite games though.

Card games--Slapjack, Cheat, Scum, Spoons, 52 Card Pickup... My friends and I have played card games for as long as I can remember, they're definitely not out of fashion over here.^^

Dutch Blitz--my siblings and I played it so much that we got bored and started making up variations, i.e. you're allowed to cheat but if you get caught you have to add the card to your pile of ten. We play with two decks and it's crazy and loud and awesome.

Freeze Tag--anyone heard of this? Two people act out a scene, without talking, and someone in the audience shouts freeze and they freeze and the person has to take one of their places, and come up with a new scene. Or Bus Stop, which is sort of a variation of that. They're a lot more interesting to see than to hear about.

Apples to Apples--have played ad naseum and cannot stand the sight of.

Go Fish is awesome! one of my favorite card games. and I love the card game President! I play that with GTG and her sisters a lot!

Goodness...where to begin...

I love boardgames with a passion and have about 30 or so. Of those if I had to take one and only one with me to a deserted island, it'd be Axis & Allies. Of course it'd help if I had 4 other people stranded with me on the island, but just one other would do the trick . Fortress America would be a close 2nd place. Late last year my wife and I purchased Monopoly: Deal at Wal-Mart and it has been a surprise hit, hitting our game table more than anything else. My wife is vicious at it.

We also played a board game called Merchant of Venus which combined exploration and trade routes. For a while we played it so much we wore it out and had to buy a new copy.

I've heard of MoV but I've never played it. How complex is it?

As far as old Nintendo games go I was a huge fan of Final Fantasy I and Legend of Zelda. Super Mario...bleh...it just never had the appeal to me that those other two did. I also played the old Pro Wrestling (the Amazon with his head bite move was my favorite) and the classic Mike Tyson's Punch Out. Star Tropics was another title I felt never really got the credit it deserved.

PC Games...well, could write a novel on which ones I loved, but if I had to distill em' down to just two or three I'd go with Half-Life, Civilization 2 (4 is outstanding as well) and Star Control II.

We also played an early PC game called Master of Orion II which allowed players to custom design spaceships, create treaties with each other, or fight computer or human players.

That was a great, fun game! I still have my original copy and it will run on XP, although it gets a little clunky (I still have the original MOO on floppies too, but they don't run on XP ). Those Orions are meanies, aren't they? If I can't play as Humans I'll usually pick Psilons, but the Bulrathi or Alkari usually just invade and kill me off anyways. You should check out Galactic Civlizations. It has the same flavor as MOO2 with a few bells and whistles added. You'd probably like Star Control II as well.

I particularly loved the orange gun that came with it as well for Duck Hunt.

Did anyone besides me ever play Duck Hunt with the gun actually touching the screen?

Freeze Tag--anyone heard of this?

We played it a ton in high school drama class as an improv training game. We called it Freeze Frame or just Freeze.

PrinceCor, I love your layout so I'm gonna copy it.

Outdoor or indoor games

Hide and Seek. Yeah. I played this a lot as a kid. My main memory from this one was when my dad hid in the air return duct in our house... yeah.... took us FOREVER to find him. He started making noises to help out.
G.I. Joes vs Ninja Turtles A completely made up game with my neighbors that spanned across three or four backyards. We set up all of our action figures and they battled. Not sure how they battled, but the fun part of course was getting everything set up strategically.

Board Games

I played a lot of Chutes and Ladders. Yeah....
Anyone here ever heard of Stratego? I played that a lot with my dad.
There was also a spinoff of the game Sorry called Trouble. I played that a TON.
Scattegories
Taboo

Card Games

Cribbage (as mentioned above)
Pitch (the official family card game)
Oh Heck! (the real name isn't appropriate for this site But it's the second official family card game)
Uno

Old School Video Games

The Legend of Zelda (NES)
Dr. Mario (NES) (I never could get into Tetris, this was the game I played in its place)
Shining Force (Sega Genesis) Goodness I played this a lot. I STILL play this one from time to time to try different characters.

New(er) Video Games

Burnout 3 (XBox). The BEST racing car game... no contest.
Mario Kart Wii... ceppault and ramagut, you still owe me a game.
Wii Fit Plus... The Snowball Fight game to be specific. A year or two ago I made some Narnian Miis for fun. They often show up in the snowball fights and I get to pelt them with snowballs. BWAHAHHAHA

PC Video Games

Um... Myst.
Gotta toss in a mention for Minesweeper.... 91 seconds on Expert is my best time. Never found anyone who can beat it.
Empire Earth ... I don't know if this was the knockoff of Age of Empires or if it was the other way around, but Empire Earth was waaaaay more fun, even though it was much less known. Me and some gamer buddies would have LAN parties playing this game in college.
Civilization 3 (sorry Shadowlander )
Heroes of Might and Magic 3 & 4. 3 for the better storyline, 4 for the better gameplay.
And finally, um, World of Warcraft. No other game has taken up so much of my life as this game. Three and a half years of hardcore gameplay. I quit about a year ago (finally and thank goodness).

Board Games: Rummikub (Best game ever invented), Chess, Checkers, Chinese Checkers, Sorry, Monopoly Junior, Yahtzee, and any puzzle

Card Games: Rummy, Go- Fish, War, Klondike Solitaire, Spider Solitaire, Canfield Solitaire, Spoons, 21-Black Jack (I NEVER bet!)

Video/ PC games: MarioKart (Wii), Toy Story (Sega), Mario Andretti Racing (Sega), Zoo Tycoon +expansions (PC), Zoo Tycoon 2 + expansions (PC), and all games I've played so far in the Nancy Drew Adventure Series (PC)

Sports/ Outdoors: Capture the Flag (second best game ever invented), Floor Hockey, Speedball, Dodgeball, Kickball, Matball, Frisbee, and 4-square

Other: Hangman, I Spy, Brain teasers, Sudoku, and Sharades (sp?)

There are many more, but those are just a few that I like.

Hide and seek never fails to be entertaining!

^Oh I forgot that. Once we played that in church at my youth group, and I had an idea to hide in the drawers of a shelf (if you could call it that, It was more like a closet cause it had doors) So me and this other kid (his brother was it) hid there and we were the last ones to be found. The only downside was that we got sawdust in our mouths.