May the 4th: Star Wars Day games

It’s exhausting planning a party, isn’t it? Hopefully you’ve gotten a few ideas as we head towards May the 4th. Next up on your planning agenda is the entertainment.

Naturally, you should either have the movies marathoning or some soundtracks playing to both set the mood and enjoy.

One tradition that the Atlanta Star Wars club likes to do is casually ask new folks if they’ve seen the Star Wars Holiday Special. If they haven’t, we’ll make them watch until they scream. This usually takes no more than ten minutes, so you’ll have plenty of time to move on to the actual movies.

If everyone at the party has seen Star Wars, you can leave the movies on in the background while you play some officially licensed games. There are games for all age groups available.

If there’s some poor soul who hasn’t seen Star Wars, yet, record them telling you what they think the story is before they watch. Try not to laugh at them too much.

Looking for some homemade game ideas?

• On the blog A Lemon Squeezy Home, they came up with some cute ideas like: using the pool noodle lightsabers you’ve made to keep a balloon aloft and printing out Stormtrooper images for Nerf target practice. Want to keep some little kids occupied for a while? Freeze Han Solo in carbonite (aka, ice) and let them chip him out. (Alternately, this could be a way for inebriated celebrants to get ice for their drinks.)
• More Than Mulberries came up with a “cross Mustafar” game where they had to step on stones to avoid the lava. They also used a cast picture and played “Pin the Vader Mask on Anakin.” And, of course, they had a Death Star pinata.
• The Sweet Green Tangerine blog painted cans like Stormtroopers for a carnival game and played “Pin the Lightsaber on Yoda.”
• And for getting some energy out of kids before sitting them in front of the movies, you can’t go wrong with a rousing game of “Clone, Clone, Droid.“

Do you really have to go to the trouble of organizing games for your party? Not really. But it does make for some awesome memories. I still laugh at the memory of Jaders trying to throw a styrofoam Star Destroyer for distance. Or when what started out as one game turned into a rousing game of asteroid baseball.

Release your inner child and have some fun!