When the weather in Athens gets nice, it’s time to party. So, hop off the couch, get out of your Athens apartment rental, and enjoy some fun in the sun with these DIY yard games. Skip the kiddie play and wrap a koozie around that beer. After all, you’re paying rent for the yard outside your house, too.
Spray Paint Twister
If you play it right, Twister really is just a drunk game for adults. But if you’ve ever tried using the straight-out-of-the-box plastic Twister “board” as an adult, you know someone’s going to get hurt. But as the folks at Brit + Co. point out, all it takes is a circle template (easily constructed with a hole in a piece of cardboard) and some spray paint to make your own Twister game. Multiple boards get the whole party down and dirty in the grass.
Bocce
Bocce is Italian bowling in the lawn, and it’s perfect for day drinking. You’ll need a Bocce ball set. The rules are pretty simple, but you can get more hardcore depending on your preference.
Mega Soccer
Ready for mayhem? You’ll need plenty of balls, around 11 of them, of different sizes, all thrown onto the field. Courtesy of the folks at Popular Mechanics, Mega soccer feels more like pinball then soccer, but other than the fact that multiple balls are in play, the rules are similar to soccer. To up the ante, forget a traditional field. You can play this one on a hill, in a cluster of trees, or better yet a mud puddle.
Spikeball
Popular Mechanics describes spikeball as “a combination of volleyball, trash-talk, and foursquare without boundaries.” Better play this one far away from pavement. Spikeball is a full contact sport, strictly enforced by the law of gravity. It takes a hoop-size net placed at ankle level. Here are the rules as described by Popular Mechanics: “One player serves the ball into the net, making it ricochet up at the opponents who have up to three hits between them to return the ball to the net. The volley continues as teammates palm, backhand, chest and belly-flop after the ball, until one team fails to return it. Only the serving team can score and the first to 21 wins.”
Cornhole or Bags
This game works for apartments with yards of all sizes. If you walk down the any street in Athens, you’ll see tons of students playing.
Cornhole, or Bags, is a very simple game to setup and play. Get two cornhole boards and a few bean bags, three of your friends and a nice day outside and you’re all ready to go!
To play, split into two teams of two, with one person on each team behind each cornhole. Take turns tossing the bags back and forth, scoring one point for every bag that lands on the board, and three points for every bag that goes through the cornhole. First to 21 wins.
Beer pong
Although the name suggests drinking is involved, you’re welcome to play with water or another non-alcoholic beverage.
Also, this game has an edge over its peers, since you don’t even need to have a yard outside your rental to play! All your apartment needs is a porch or outside area, doesn’t have to be grass.
The rules are simple. Stack 10 red solo cups in a pyramid on both sides of a table. Four on the base, then three, then two, then one. Get two ping pong balls, make sure they’re clean, and split into two teams of two, with each team at one end of the table. Take turns shooting the ping pong balls back and forth, trying to land them in the other team’s cup. Every time a ball lands in a cup, one person on the team who was scored on must drink whatever liquid is in the cup; the team with no cups remaining loses.