Statues (game)

Red Light, Green Light is a variation of Statues played throughout North America. The title of the game refers to the colors of a traffic light.

• Like Statues, Red Light, Green Light is played in a field or another long space.
• One player, the Caller, stands at one end of the field and calls out to the rest of the players who line up at the other end.
• The Caller turns around, looking away from the rest of the players and calls out "green light!"
• While the Caller is looking away, the other players are permitted to move, and they attempt to advance on the Caller. The objective is to get close enough to the Caller to tag them.
• At any point while the Caller is turned away, they can call "red light!" and turn back around to face the players. When this is called, the players must freeze in place. If the Caller observes any player moving, they send them back to the start.
• This repeats until another player tags the Caller.
• The caller may recite "red light!" and "green light!" as fast or slow as they would like in order to catch the other players while they are still moving.
• The first player to tag the Caller without being caught becomes the new Caller, and all other players return to the start to begin another round.

There are different levels of stringency in regard to how much movement the Caller may observe to send a player back to the start. Some allow general movement as long as the players are not moving their feet from the ground, while others restrict any large bodily movements, such as swaying of the arms or even smiling. Blinking and breathing are generally permitted.

In the Dutch version, instead of "green light!" the Caller sings in a slow voice "Annemaria", followed by a quick and loud "Koekoek!" ("Cuckoo!") when they turn around (like "red light!"). "Koekoek!" is also the Dutch equivalent of a Peekaboo game played with babies, where the parents hide their face with their hands, then reveal themselves whilst saying "Peek-a-boo!" (also known in Dutch as "Kiekeboe!").

The Flemish version of the game is called "1, 2, 3 Piano", in which the Caller shouts "één, twee, drie, piano!" (translating to one, two, three, piano in English) before turning around to the other players. Only during the time this sentence is being shouted, the participants are allowed to move.

Winnie the Pooh is a variation of Statues where the person playing "Pooh" (the Curator) usually leans against a wall and has to shout "1, 2, 3, Winnie the Pooh, stop!" (so it is long enough for the players to reach some distance and because of the rhyme it provides in Bulgarian, where this version comes from) before turning to face the players. Whenever a player tags Pooh they have to run so it doesn't catch them. If they manage to go back to the wall where Pooh was leaning before it catches them, they become Pooh and the game starts over. In this variation the role of Pooh is more desirable.

Another variation of the game was altered as a team building exercise. It follows the Red Light, Green Light rules with exception that if anybody moves after the red light the whole team must return to the starting line. Also, the object of the game is for the players to "steal" an "object" positioned near the "it" person and return with it to the other side of the field. Once the "object" is moved it has to stay hidden from "it" who has several guesses as to who has it at the moment. If guessed successfully then the whole team must return to the starting line.

• 
  Red light
• 
  Green light
• 
  Guessing who is hiding the "object"