by L Wiles - 2008-08-01
This is an imagination driven tag type game. It can be played outside, but it's best played indoors if your parents will allow it. A kid friendly, open style family room and very kid friendly furniture would be the ideal play area. Aunt Ruthie can be played with 2 or more players, but it's best if you have between 3 and 5 players.
I don't think I can easily explain the rules of Aunt Ruthie without explaining the history and the premise of this game. It all started with a dream – no really – an actual dream I had when I was a kid. In my dream, my aunt Ruthie was “in a puddle”, like Lady of the Lake or something – all misty and surreal. Then the dream changed and I was at a different aunt's house and she had a pet alligator that was trained to keep us kids sitting quietly on the couch. Sometimes the alligator would try to get us even if we weren't being bad.
So as I told the dream to my brothers and sister, the two dream segments somehow got put together and developed into a game called Aunt Ruthie. The premise is that a mythological creature, intentionally resembling a friendly relative, but acting a bit like an alligator, lives in the water of a dark, scary, misty swamp and lies in wait of children passing too close to the bank. If a child passes too close the creature, Aunt Ruthie, will “get them”. Aunt Ruthie can not come all the way out of the swamp, but she can reach out of the swamp with her arms and grab any passerby.
The tagging aspect of this game is not so challenging so it is very important to the game that your imagination is in full gear. Really imagine there is a scary, misty, dark swamp looming in front of you. Really image “Aunt Ruthie” as a terrifying, mythical, alligator like creature trying to trick you into believing it's just your nice aunt. The more you can set the atmosphere the better the game.
The basic rules are the player who is IT is called “Aunt Ruthie”. The idea is that Aunt Ruthie is a mythical, alligator type creature trying to appear as a friendly aunt. The creature controls the imaginary, dark, misty, swamp lands, which is usually the floor (or ground if you are playing outdoors). There are elevated zones at the edge of the swamp that are semi-safe. We used the furniture (the sofa primarily – but make sure you ask your parents if this is okay).
The player who is Aunt Ruthie gets on his or her belly in the swamp (much like an alligator) and tries to get the other players by grabbing their ankles and pulling them into the imaginary swamp. The other players are allowed to hang out in the semi-safe areas if they want to, but if you make Aunt Ruthie mad by staying there too long she will reach her arm up and grab you anyway.
Here is where the imagination is so important. Even though Aunt Ruthie can't really get you if you are far enough back in a semi-safe zone, you must imagine how frightened you would be if a strange, mythological, alligator like creature was coming after you, your instincts would be to jump out of the way. This means you jump into the swamp area and try to out run Aunt Ruthie, which is pretty easy because the creature is on it's belly and can't move too fast, put beware of swinging arms that can reach farther than you expect.
The other aspect where imagination is important is when the creature tries to lure you closer by convincing you it's just your nice aunt. “Oh, come on sweetie, it's just your aunt Ruthie, come a little closer.”
You can personalize this game by changing the name of your creature from “Aunt Ruthie” to a name of someone you know, or even a movie or cartoon character if you like.
We played this game indoors when the weather was bad. We played in a large, kid friendly room with old, kid friendly furniture and a smooth, hardwood floor. If you don't have such conditions simply modify the game to fit your play area. Maybe you play in your bedroom and the bed is the safety zone. Or if you play outside change the way Aunt Ruthie moves from crawling on it's belly to crawling on hands and knees, or even walking like a zombie. You can use a front porch or a fence or tree as the safety zones, or even just draw a line and call it the edge of the swamp.