Tag might be the king of playground games, but hide and seek reigns supreme in homes and backyards. There’s just something thrilling about trying not to be found or trying to find your friends and family. It makes your kids examine the nooks and crannies in your home. A usually dull coat closet turns into the perfect hiding place and those coats turn into convincing camouflage. Sometimes though, your kids can get a little bored with the same old hide-and-seek format. After playing it dozens of times, they’ve memorized all of your hiding spots. It’s not as exciting for them anymore. Luckily for you, there are different variations of hide and seek that you can try out. These new versions will inject some fun back into the classic game. Some of these twists require more creative hiding spots, running and actual camouflage, which will take your hide and seek came to new levels.

4. Ring-a-levio

This game is technically not hide and seek, but it combines the basic tenets of hide and seek and capture the flag. It originated in New York City. You hide. Someone else seeks. It’d be better to play with a big group of people for this game. We recommend that you play outside as well. To play, divide your group into two teams. One team gets time to hide, then the other team starts seeking. The seekers try to capture the hiders and put them in a “jail” of sorts. The other hiders can help them break out of “jail.” This game is a total free-for-all, so feel free to establish more rules to maintain order as a parent.

3. Wave

This game starts off like traditional hide and seek, but gets more complicated after the seeker has found one hider. The hider accompanies the seeker in their search for people. If the caught hider spots another hider before the seeker does, the caught hider and hider wave at each other, which releases the caught hider and allows them to hide again. This game puts a lot of pressure on the seeker!

2. Camouflage

Camouflage is a super elaborate game of hide and seek. You’ll need a huge space, ideally some kind of wooded area to hide in, and can played with at least 5 players. The seeker stands in a circle drawn in the dirt. Once everyone hides for the first time, she open eyes her eyes and sees if she can spot anyone hiding from her circle. These bad hiders are out. Now the game gets super interesting, from this point on, there will be rounds where hiders will have to run and tag the seeker while the seeker counts down from a number. If you’re not hidden again by the seeker finishes counting down, you’re out! You have to bring speed and stealth to this game. For more details about this game, read on here.

1. Sardines

This is hide and seek backwards. Only one person goes to hide and then everyone else goes on their own to seek them out. When one of the seekers finds the hider, they have to join them in their hiding place. Hopefully they didn’t hide somewhere cramped, because the seeker has to squeeze into their hiding space with them. All of the seekers have to squish in with the hider until there’s only one person seeking, so make sure that everyone wore deodorant or bathed that day before playing this game. Otherwise, it’s going to get really smelly and gross. The last person who is still looking for the group loses the game and becomes the hider the next round.

This article was originally published on November 14, 2018