Crazy 88 tasks: 64 tasks with points and materials

The hardest part of a Crazy 88 isn't running it, it's the list. Sending teams into the city always works, but the evening before you're left with a blank sheet and have to come up with dozens of tasks that are doable, that are worth points in proportion to each other, and that don't all end up on the same square. Below are 64 tasks in five groups, with the sensible number of points for each and what you need for it. It also covers how to get from 64 to 88, how to judge without it taking an hour, and which tasks you're better off leaving out.

How the game runs in practice

Teams of four to six people get the same list, the same time and a starting point. They choose which tasks to do and in what order, they provide proof in the form of a photo, a video or an object, and they come back on time. Teams that are late get penalty points, and that's the only rule you really have to enforce, because otherwise the last team turns up twenty minutes late with three extra tasks.

That free choice is what the game depends on. As soon as you give teams a fixed route or a fixed order, it turns into a scavenger hunt and the discussion disappears. And that discussion is the best part: five people deciding in three minutes to skip the ten-point task because they can do two five-pointers on the same street. So include tasks that are far apart and tasks that are close together, so there's something to choose.

The list below is written for a town centre on an ordinary afternoon. If that town centre doesn't work, for example because you're on a business park or at a holiday park, keep the group tasks, the creative tasks and the photography tasks and replace the town part with tasks on the site itself. On the page about Crazy 88 you can read how we set that up for each venue.

Points: why not everything is worth one point

A list where every task is worth one point gets played the same way by every team: from top to bottom, the easy ones first, and whoever walks fastest wins. A points scale gives you something different. Then a team has to choose between four five-point tasks on the same street or one ten-pointer on the other side of town, and that's when a plan appears.

The scale that works in practice for us:

• 3 points: tasks that are done in a minute and where nobody has to leave their comfort zone. Looking something up, photographing something, keeping a receipt.
• 4 to 5 points: tasks where the group has to work together briefly or come up with something, but where you don't have to approach a stranger.
• 6 to 7 points: tasks where a stranger joins in, or where you have to make something that takes time.
• 8 to 9 points: tasks where someone really has to feel a bit uncomfortable, or that only work if several people cooperate.
• 10 points: three or four tasks at most in the whole list, so difficult that most teams skip them. That's exactly why they're fun: the team that manages one talks about it all through the drinks.

Build the list so that the total is far above what's achievable. With 64 tasks like the ones below you get to well over 380 points, while a good team scores around 140. That gap isn't a problem, it's the point: nobody completes the list, so everybody has chosen.

Also agree on a single penalty rule and put it at the top of the sheet. Ten penalty points for every five minutes, or part of five minutes, that a team is late works well, because it's enough to make a team run and not enough to turn the result completely upside down.

What every team should get

A Crazy 88 needs little equipment, but the little you hand out determines whether half the list is doable.

• The task list on paper, with the points and the required proof for each task. On paper and not on a phone, because on paper five people can read along at once and you can tick things off.
• A phone with enough battery and the agreement that all photos come from one phone. That makes marking much easier.
• A card with the team number, big enough to read in a photo. It has to be visible in every photo.
• A bag of supplies: a roll of tape, a marker, a pen, a notepad, a few balloons, a paperclip, some loose change, an old newspaper and two scarves. That covers the creative and group tasks.
• A map of the area with the boundary and the starting point on it. Not everybody knows the town, and teams that get lost lose ten minutes.
• A phone number for the organisers and the time they have to be back, in big letters on the sheet.

Keep the briefing at the start to four points and no more. Where the boundary of the area is, what time they have to be back, what the proof is for each task, and that a no from a passer-by or a shopkeeper is the end of that task. Anything else you think of, you explain when it comes up. Groups that have to listen to an explanation for ten minutes spend the first five minutes of the game still discussing rules they've already forgotten.

Do mention two things to do with the surroundings. Shops and cafés are at work, so a task never takes priority over a waiting customer. And teams stay on the pavement and watch the traffic, because a group of five walking backwards with a phone in hand is watching everything except cyclists. That sounds like a formality and it's the one point where an afternoon can really go wrong.

Tasks in town

These tasks need a town centre with shops, cafés and passers-by. They earn the most points and the best stories, and they also depend most on how busy it is. On a Monday morning half of them won't work. So choose an afternoon when there are people on the street.

• Get a passer-by to shout your team name into the camera. 5 points. Needed: phone.
• Ask a shop for an empty box and take it to the finish. 4 points. Needed: nothing.
• Find a street sign with an animal in it and photograph the whole group underneath. 4 points. Needed: phone.
• Get a free glass of water at a café without buying anything. 3 points. Needed: phone for the photo.
• Collect a receipt of no more than €1 from three different shops. 6 points. Needed: loose change.
• Photograph the oldest year you can find on a building in the town centre. 7 points, and 3 bonus points for the team with the oldest year. Needed: phone.
• Ask a passer-by to tie a bow in the shoelace of someone in your group. 4 points. Needed: someone with laces.
• Get the whole group to fit on one bench at the same time and photograph it. 5 points. Needed: phone.
• Swap a paperclip for something bigger in no more than four swaps with passers-by. 10 points. Needed: paperclip, and a photo of every swap.
• Note down the full name of a bus stop plus the first departure time after three o'clock. 3 points. Needed: pen and paper.
• Get a baker to say on camera how many loaves are baked on a Saturday. 8 points. Needed: phone.
• Throw a coin into a fountain or pond while one team member says the wish out loud. 3 points. Needed: coin, phone.
• Collect five different beer mats, little flags or business cards from five different places. 6 points. Needed: nothing.
• Get a shop assistant to take your group photo and make sure they're in it themselves. 6 points. Needed: phone.

Tasks with the group

These are the tasks that bind the team together and that you can do anywhere, including when it rains and the group is standing under a shelter. Expect teams to pick these tasks first, because they feel safe. So include enough of them, because this is the block that gets a cautious team going.

• Make a human pyramid at least two layers high. 6 points. Needed: flat ground, phone.
• Form your team number with the whole group, photographed from above. 5 points. Needed: steps or a raised spot, phone.
• Sing the whole of the Wilhelmus, the Dutch national anthem, from memory, on film. 8 points. Needed: phone.
• Cover fifty metres with the whole group linked together, elbows hooked. 4 points. Needed: phone.
• Line up in order of date of birth without talking, and film the attempt in one take. 5 points. Needed: phone.
• Stand on one leg all at the same time for ten seconds with your eyes closed. 4 points. Needed: phone.
• Come up with an eight-word slogan about your team and shout it all together, in one take. 4 points. Needed: phone.
• Make a conga line of at least ten people, four of whom aren't on your team. 9 points. Needed: phone.
• Play a round of musical chairs using objects you find nearby instead of chairs. 5 points. Needed: phone.
• Have the group walk a twenty-metre route with their eyes closed, guided only by the voice of one team member. 6 points. Needed: scarves as blindfolds, phone.
• Invent a four-step handshake and do it twice without a mistake with the whole group. 5 points. Needed: phone.
• Keep a balloon in the air for three minutes, with everyone hitting it at least once. 6 points. Needed: balloons, phone.
• Make a recording in which each team member takes it in turn to say one word of a ten-word sentence. 5 points. Needed: phone.
• Build a one-metre tower from the group's coats and bags that stays standing for ten seconds. 5 points. Needed: phone.

Creative tasks

The creative tasks provide the material for the debrief. A photo of a human pyramid looks the same for every team, but eight home-made adverts are eight different things, and you want to show those at the end. So plan a quarter of an hour at the end of the day where you put three or four of these entries on a screen, because that gets bigger laughs than the results.

• Write a four-line rhyming poem about the reason for the day and recite it on film. 7 points. Needed: pen, paper, phone.
• Make a logo for your team out of things you find on the street and photograph it from above. 7 points. Needed: phone.
• Make a twenty-second advert for a random product from a shop. 8 points. Needed: phone.
• Build a hat for one team member from newspaper and tape, and have them wear it for the rest of the game. 8 points. Needed: newspaper, tape.
• In three minutes, make a drawing of the whole group in which everyone adds one line with the same pen. 5 points. Needed: pen, paper.
• Think up a new name and slogan for the street you're standing in and write it on cardboard. 5 points. Needed: cardboard, marker.
• Make an instrument from what you find along the way and play a recognisable tune on it. 9 points. Needed: phone.
• Come up with a fifteen-second dance to a song chosen by the organisers. 7 points. Needed: phone with music.
• Make a four-panel comic strip about the day so far. 6 points. Needed: pen, paper.
• Invent three new proverbs that include your team name. 5 points. Needed: pen, paper.
• Turn one team member into a statue made of newspaper and tape that stays still on the street for thirty seconds. 8 points. Needed: newspaper, tape, phone.
• Come up with a new traffic rule and act it out in one photo. 6 points. Needed: phone.

Dares

Dares are the part where you as organiser have to pay the closest attention, because this is where the line sits between uncomfortable in a fun way and uncomfortable in an unpleasant way. Two rules keep that under control. A dare is always about making a fool of yourself and never about someone else, and a no from a passer-by is the end of the task and not the start of pushing.

Say that last part out loud in the briefing. A team that hears that asking politely three times is enough for the points won't pester a shopkeeper. For the tasks below, therefore: a filmed attempt that gets turned down earns half the points. That sounds soft and it works excellently, because teams then dare to take on the difficult tasks.

• Speak to a passer-by for thirty seconds in a language you don't speak. 6 points. Needed: phone.
• Ask at a café terrace if you can sit at a table of strangers and take a group photo there. 8 points. Needed: phone.
• Sing a song to a shop window, loud enough that passers-by turn round. 7 points. Needed: phone.
• Ask three passers-by for their best dance move for the camera. 7 points. Needed: phone.
• Ask in a shop whether you can use the PA system to announce your team name. 10 points. Needed: phone.
• Walk backwards for a hundred metres along a busy street, with one team member showing the way. 5 points. Needed: phone.
• Do a thirty-second warm-up with the whole group in the middle of a square. 7 points. Needed: phone.
• Have a passer-by explain the rules of your game to the camera, without knowing them. 8 points. Needed: phone.
• Challenge a stranger to a game of rock, paper, scissors and film the result. 5 points. Needed: phone.
• Ask three places for a discount because you're such a nice team, and note down the reactions. 6 points. Needed: pen and paper.
• Ask inside somewhere if you can give the staff a round of applause, and do it. 6 points. Needed: phone.
• Interview someone aged at least seventy about what the town used to look like, at least one minute on film. 9 points. Needed: phone.

Photography tasks

Photography tasks are the easiest to judge, because the proof is the result. No conversation about whether something was good enough: the photo is right or it isn't. That's also why they're good for filling the list if you want to reach 88 quickly.

Do agree on one thing: all photos come from one phone and are shared in one go after the game, for example via a link or a shared album. Eight teams each sending twenty photos separately is half an hour of searching at the judging table.

• A photo of the whole group without anyone taking it. 5 points. Needed: phone with self-timer.
• A photo in which someone from the group seems to be holding a building in their hand. 6 points. Needed: phone.
• A photo of the group reflected in a shop window or a puddle. 6 points. Needed: phone.
• A photo in which all team members are jumping and nobody is touching the ground. 7 points. Needed: phone.
• A photo with an animal in it that isn't yours, with the owner's permission. 6 points. Needed: phone.
• A photo in which your group recreates a famous painting. 8 points. Needed: phone.
• A photo of the group from above, taken from at least the first floor. 6 points. Needed: phone.
• A photo in which the letters of your team name all come from different shop signs. 9 points. Needed: phone.
• A photo in which the whole group is wearing the same colour, with clothing you borrow along the way. 8 points. Needed: phone.
• A photo in which the group imitates a statue in town, in exactly the same pose. 7 points. Needed: phone.
• A series of four photos that tell a story without text. 8 points. Needed: phone.
• A photo with one of the organisers in the background, without them knowing it. 5 points. Needed: phone.

From 64 to 88 tasks

The 64 tasks above are enough for ninety minutes with eight teams. If you really want to reach eighty-eight, add tasks written for your situation. That's also the part that pays off most, because a task about your own organisation is remembered better than a human pyramid.

Four kinds that work well as additions:

• Tasks about your own organisation. Have the group re-enact the first product, or take a photo at the building where the company started. Do ask the people it's about beforehand whether they're happy with it.
• Tasks tied to the place. A well-known statue, a bridge, a market, a square whose name has something behind it. Walk the route once for this, which takes an hour and gives you ten tasks.
• Tasks with an object you've handed out. A balloon, a ball, a roll of tape: ten tasks around one object are quick to write and easy to judge.
• Knowledge questions as fillers. Five or six questions about the town or the organisation, with answers teams can find in the town centre. Two points each, and they give teams something to do while they walk.

What you shouldn't do is fill the list with variations on the same task. Four group photos with a different background feel like padding, and teams see through it within five minutes. Better sixty real tasks than eighty-eight with twenty of them the same.

Judging without it taking an hour

This is where self-organised games most often go wrong. Eight teams come in at the same time with thirty photos each, and then you go through them on a screen with the whole group. That's fun for four teams and then half of them want to go to the bar.

What works in practice:

• Have teams fill in their own list. They tick off what they've done and add up their own points. That takes five minutes and you only have to check.
• Spot-check the results. Ask each team for five tasks, including the most valuable one they claim. That's enough to see whether a list is right, and the teams know it too.
• Meanwhile, run the photos on a screen. While you check, the group watches everyone's photos. That's the debrief and it costs no extra time.
• Choose three prizes instead of one. The highest score, the best photo and the team that completed the most dares. That gives three moments and no single team feels like the loser.
• Read out the standings from the bottom up. That works better and keeps the tension until the last name.

Allow half an hour for this whole block with eight teams, and put two people on it. One to check the lists and one to run the screen and do the talking.

Five things that make a Crazy 88 grind to a halt

1. A playing area that's too big. If teams have to walk twenty minutes from one side to the other, they do half as many tasks. Keep the area to ten minutes' walk in each direction and mark the boundary on the map.
2. Tasks that depend on one shop. Eight teams all knocking at the same baker's: the baker has had enough after team three. Write the task in general terms: at a baker's, not at one particular shop.
3. Not handing out any supplies. Half of the creative tasks don't work without tape, a marker and paper. That costs you €3 per team and doubles the number of tasks that are doable.
4. Making everything worth one point. Then it's a running race instead of a game with a plan. Put in a points scale and make three tasks so expensive that almost nobody completes them.
5. Not preparing the marking. Without the team number on the photos and without teams filling in their own lists, you spend an hour sorting while the group stands waiting. Sort that out beforehand, not afterwards.

Run it yourself or let us do it

A Crazy 88 is easy to do yourself, and of all the city games it's the most forgiving: if a few tasks turn out not to work, nobody notices, because teams chose them themselves anyway. The work is in the list, the supplies and the marking. Allow three to five hours of preparation, including an hour for walking the route and an hour for printing and preparing the bags.

It comes down to two things. Above about forty participants you need more than one person on the street, because then there are eight teams out and something always comes up: a team that's lost, a shopkeeper who wants to know what's going on, a phone that's run out of battery. And if you want to take part yourself, it won't work, because the person who wrote the list knows which tasks earn the points.

If you have us run it, we write the list for your group and your town, supply the materials, stand on the street and handle the judging and the debrief. We're based in Enschede, at Piet Heinstraat 12, and travel to the client's venue anywhere in the Netherlands. We come up with and build everything we use ourselves, so tasks about your own organisation are included. A compact version starts at €195 for the whole group, from about six to sixty participants. A more extensive game with its own tasks, supervision on the street and a final presentation starts at €550, depending on group size. We quote for large projects on request. Send an enquiry through the quote page and you'll hear within one working day what it will cost for your group.

What you get from this

The 64 tasks above are enough for ninety minutes with eight teams. Take them, keep the points as they are, and add six to ten tasks about your own organisation or about the town you're in. That last part is what makes the difference.

Remember four things when running it. Keep the area to ten minutes' walk in each direction. Give each team a bag of supplies with tape, a marker, paper and balloons. Put the team number on every photo. And have the teams fill in their own list, so you only have to check.

If you're looking for a format that goes further than working through tasks, take a look at the city game or the overview of activities.