Safari is a very large area game (the larger, the better) where the 'hunters' roam the field hunting down animals for points. The animals have various defenses and values based on their difficulty to 'catch'. The game takes a very large number of participants, and an extremely large area to play in. Ideally you want the area to be about a 10 minute walk wide and a similar distance in length. The ideal location would have forested areas, an open field or two, and a lake/pond.

This game takes quite a bit of setup and staff...So don't wing it. You need 20-40 'staff' who will be the animals, and refs, and at least triple the number of players to be the hunters.

• Game Length: ~ 2 hours
• Participants: ~ 60 - 200
• Staff: ~ 20 - 40
• Setup Time: ~ 30 min
• >Teardown Time: ~ 15 min

Materials

Overall

• 3 Large Scoreboards
• Large countdown display and time - usually a stopwatch and white board
• Red/Blue/Yellow Life Tokens - about 2-3 per player (a strip of fabric, 2in x 2ft is good)
• Animal Tokens - about 10 per animal
• 6 Elephant guns (2 of each color) - generally a cardboard cutout of a gun

The Roles

• Guide - Bright colored arm band.
• Sherpa - Bright colored arm band.
• Crocodile - Bathing Suit or wetsuit, and snorkle
• Elephant - Dressed in grey, armed with a pool noodle.
• Gecko and/or Chameleon - Full camo gear
• Giraffe - Stilts
• Hippo - Strong swimmer in a bathing suit or wetsuit, as they will be in the lake the whole time.
• Hyena - Grey/black clothing
• Kangaroo and/or Antelope - pair of kangaroo shoes, or else a fast runner
• Leopard - Dressed in black, armed with a foam sword (or 1/4 length pool noodle)
• Lion - Dressed in brown/yellow, armed with a pair of foam swords (or 1/4 length pool noodles)
• Merecat - 4-5 Hoola-hoops
• Monkey - Brown clothing
• Poison Plant - Nerf gun
• Rhino - Dressed in grey, armed with a half length pool noodle
• Snake - Clothing all one color, and a sock filled with a handful of flour as the 'fangs'.
• Warthog - Brown/black/grey clothing
• Zebras - Usually women in white shirts wearing a black bra over top. Much more amusing for men to wear the same however.

Animal Information

Game Setup

1. Give each animal it's tokens.
2. When the participants gather (next step) the animals will spread out and hide.
3. Gather all the participants in a central area, where there is a building of some sort that you can call the hunting lodge.
4. Divide the participants into 3 groups, red, blue, and yellow.
5. Hand out a single life token to each participant.
6. Explain the rules.
7. Start the game timer.
8. Release the hunters!

Game Play

Hunters

1. A hunter catches an animal when they manage to tag it without being tagged by the animal first.
2. When tagged the animal hands over one of it's tokens. While the transaction takes place, no other hunters may catch the animal.
3. After the transaction is complete, the animal counts down out loud from 3, once the countdown is finished, it can be caught again.
4. A hunter without a token can't hunt or even help hunt animals. If they are caught without a token then their team losses 100 points.

Animals

1. If an animal tags a hunter, the hunter is dead. They must hand over their life token.
2. Animals may still tag other hunters while collecting tokens. But as stated above, can't be caught.
3. Animals with no tokens left are 'dead' and must sit or lay down with their hands on their heads until a sherpa returns their tokens to them.

Elephant Guns

1. Elephant guns can be bought from the hunting lodge for 100 points.
2. If a hunter with a gun dies, they may pass it onto another hunter or keep it.

Resurection

1. When a hunter returns to the lodge, they can get another life token.
2. A tally of hunter deaths is kept at the bottom of the score board.
3. If there are no life tokens left, the dead hunters must wait until some are returned.

Sherpas

1. Sherpas circulate the game collecting player tokens from animals, and returning them to the hunting lodge.
2. They also return animal tokens back to the correct animals.
3. If there are no life tokens left, the dead hunters must wait until some are returned.

Scoring

1. When a hunter returns to the lodge, they can hand in the animal tokens they have collected.
2. The tallys of each animal caught are put onto the scoreboard to show a rough running score.
3. Tokens can only be submitted while there is time left in the game. Once the time is done, no more tokens will be accepted.

End Game

1. Signal the end of the game, either with lots of yelling, a set time, air horn, whatever.
2. When everyone has gathered, tally the points (3 elephant captures x 170 points each = 510 points!).
3. Subtract 5 points for every death from the points total.
4. The winning team is the one with the most points.