Messtival

Messtival- Further Games and Ideas

This page is an extension to the main messtival page: Messtival. I will gather more ideas together that can be either used as stand-alone games, or as part of a bigger event. You will need the recipes for slime and gunge that can be found elsewhere on the site: Gunge & Slime to make the best mess possible!

Planning for each year’s event starts with asking for feedback from the previous event, where we find out what games people enjoyed most, tweaks needed, and any new ideas. Over the year between the events we gather up further ideas from a range of sources (web pages, TV-shows, conversations between friends etc.), making notes of them as we go, and then my warped imagination runs riot on the ideas, until we have a firm plan of games to play. I will also experiment extensively with new props, obstacles and ways of making a mess and incorporate these into the event.

Specific materials you need for each activity are listed with each set of instructions. Most of the games can be modified to suit your particular circumstances and available materials- I appreciate most people don’t have some of the more esoteric items I have lying around!

General items for clean-up etc. are not listed, but you can find out more items needed on the original Messtival page.

2014

Team T-Shirts

Team Photo

Paint  Paint  Paint

Paint  Paint Heart  Paint  

In previous years we have provided t-shirts in team colours, however a good alternative is to have every participant bring a sacrificial white top- t-shirt/ vest top or similar (make sure you inform participants in advance). As a first game give teams a selection of items to decorate their t-shirts in team colours. We simply used poster paint and brushes along with coloured face paints, but you could include stamps, stencils, glitter, coloured hairspray or other similar items. You could give a specific prize for the best decorated top.

Messy Faces

Custard Tray  Custard  

  • Chocolate custard (pudding)
  • Large tray
  • 2 Small buckets or trays
  • Dense sweets that will sink in water

Thanks to Instructables user Deeg for their Slime Party for this basis of this idea.

We put about 10 litres of chocolate custard (pudding) into a tray into which were hidden loads of sweets. These need to be picked to sink in water and so we chose jelly sweets.

The game is simply run as a relay where participants have to retrieve as many sweets from the goo as possible in a set time using just their teeth. In our case as we made the custard the day before it was quite cold and lumpy when we used it, and so this didn’t prove to be a particularly popular game for some people!

The chocolate custard can be made with water instead of milk, with cocoa powder added- allow it to cool before use.

Clown Obstacle Course
Slime Basket

  Slime Basket  Slime Obstacle
Gunge Tunnel  Gunge Cargo Net
Gune Obstacle  Water Slide
Gunge Slide  Star Obstacle
Clown Trousers  Backyard water Slide  Backyard water slide
  • Obstacles to suit
  • Two pairs of clown trousers
  • Plastic cups
  • Slime

The idea of this game is to carry a cup of gunge round an obstacle course, and tip it into a pair of clown trousers one of the team members is wearing. The team with the most goo at the end of the game is the winner.

We often have some sort of obstacle course at Messtival as it is always popular; for 2014 we introduced a few new obstacles, as well re-using the old favourites of kid’s play tunnel and cargo nets.

The first new obstacle is now one of our favourites- We built a frame using quadro- a kid’s garden construction set (although wood or PVC pipe could easily have been used). The frame was strung with bungee cord to make it difficult to pass through. The top of the obstacle had a piece of large hole steel mesh placed on it. We made up a big batch of bright pink, thick stringy slime that was placed on the mesh and slowly oozed through the holes making to most fantastic stringy gooey obstacle.

We also had a water slide, which used the slope of the garden to a great advantage. This was a one off build for the event, primarily as we had 20 straw bales around us, previously used as seats at our wedding. To construct the slide we used some long lengths of 2”x4” timber rested on a few bales, and supported with more bales in the middle. To these two sheets of 15mm ply were screwed end to end, with a length of 2”x2” screwed down each side.

We used gaffer tape over joints and cheap camping mat over edges and then stapled a length of heavy duty plastic sheeting over the top. The whole thing was held in place with ratchet straps and stakes into the ground.

A landing pool was made with some more straw bales. Backed with scaff boards and stakes also held together with ratchet straps, and lined with more plastic sheeting. As this wasn’t to be used for long, we used a garden hose fed down from the top of the slide.

The last obstacle was a giant fluorescent star to climb through before any goo left in the plastic cups we used was poured into the clown trousers.

At the end of the allotted time, the trousers were emptied into a bucket, and the goo measured, with the winning team being the one with the most.

The Tar Pits

Slime Pool  Googly Eyes Blindfold

  • Toy dinosaurs
  • Spray paint in two colours
  • Diving or swimming goggle based blindfolds
  • Pool
  • Slime

The aim of the game is simply to rescue your team’s dinosaurs from the evil tar pits.

We filled a large tank (a rigid garden pond) with about 300 litres of thick, black slime. Into this I put a load of toy dinosaurs bought from the local pound shop that I spray painted with cheap paint (mismatch colours). In turns the participants put on a blindfold and fish out a dinosaur in their team colour, helped by verbal clues from their team. The team with the most monsters rescued at the end of the set time is the winner.

The blindfolds were made by taking pairs of snorkelling goggles (a couple form the pound shop and one from a jumble sale) and blacking them out using sticky backed plastic (vinyl). I added googly eyes on the outside; as everyone knows, everything is better with googly eyes….

U-Tube

Gunge U Tube  U tube

U tube goo  goo tube  Goo tube

  • U-Shaped or capped off tube
  • Ping-Ping ball
  • Gunge
  • Pool

This game has the simple aim of retrieving a ping-pong ball from the bottom of a piece of PVC pipe (or guttering)- the twist is that the pipe is either in the shape of a U, or has a capped off base, and a load of holes drilled into it. Team members fill the tube, whilst trying to block the holes to stop the goo leaking out. The winning team is the one that retrieves their ball first.

2015

The 2015 event was run along similar lines to our 2014 event, but we used a few new games or modified from previous years.

Team T-Shirts

This year we used the new paint cannon loaded with paint in the team colours.

Paint Cannon  Paint Cannon

paint cannon  Paint Cannon
Splatter paint
Paint Cannon

Painting
Pictures painted without using any implements
Picture Paint

Nectar Points

For 2015 we introduced the Messtival flowers; These are a pair of flowers built from PVC pipe, a watering can rose, plumbing fittings, a kids bucket and some foam. The flowers are linked to an electric pump so that they spurted gunge- players came up in turns and gathered the 'Nectar' ina helmet mounted cup.

Gunge Flowers  Slime Flowers

Messy flowers  Slimey Flowers

Oogoo Race

The oogoo race was trial with a new type of goo; we mixed a bit of standard gunge, with slime play and shaving foam to max a wonderful light stringy slime. The tank is a garden pond with a bar across to make an obstacle. The aom was to collect rubber bones from the pool of oats.

oogoo tank  oogoo

oogoo slime  oogoo slime

oogoo  oogoo  oogoo

Worms

A simple race where you put on your worm suit- a goo coated length of stockingette with a knot in one end, and race along the ground by wriggling

Messy Worms  Worms  

  Worm race  Messy Worms

Cake Decorating

We made a 'cake' base from closed cell foam- teams decorate the cakes using only their hands.

messy cakes

Cake Decorating

Goo Tank

A variation on the Alien Eggs game described on the main messtival page, teams have to fish golf balls out of a large tank of goo (700 litres this time), using just their feet. If they pick a white ball, they can keep it to add to their score, if it's coloured alltheir balls get tipped back in.

Slime pool  Slime Pool

Final Thoughts
When you have finished your games, don't forget to leave plenty of time to enjoy the goo!

Goo pool

Goo Pool 2014

  Slime Pool

Slime Pool  Gooey Slime

Slime Pool 2015

My thanks go to the friends who have been involved with these games, and to those who have provided photos. Keep your eyes open for updates as we try new games.

The individual images remain copyright of their respective owners; © 2014/15, M.Pantrey, A. Roberts, R. Challinor & Escaped Creativity.

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