Kona Kona

Kona Kona is a little odd when you first think of it. First off, the Urdu name translates to English as “Corner Corner”, which really doesn’t seem to make much sense. But it’s fun to play nevertheless.

1. Number of players: Five, but up to seven will be OK.
2. Age range: 4-8 (older kids will be bored out of their minds)
3. Place to play: A large, EMPTY room with corners (as in no furniture etc should be blocking the corners) or at least something against the wall that you can pretend is a corner. Garages without the cars work well, as do large porches or even lawns.

How to play:

1. Ensure there are enough corners – one for each player except one (I mean all players should get a corner except one). Unless you happen to have an octagonal room there are only four corners in a normal room, hence five players are best. However, you can use something large and stationary such as a pillar or a drainpipe to act as a corner if there are more than five players or less than four corners.
2. Take up one corner each. Since all the players will be standing against the walls, think of the place like a grid.
3. Assuming you don’t have a triangular, octagonal, decagonal or hexagonal room, there will be four players in the corners and one left over. Don’t look for a pipe or pillar for that player. He or she has to stand in the middle.
4. Here’s where the game starts. When we played this the person in the middle had to recite a long tirade (something about a poor cat who wants a house, I don’t even remember the whole thing anymore [update – it was “Poor pussy wants a corner”, the English version of Kona Kona is Puss In the Corner but that’s too fancy]) but in modern times you can just yell “Change!”
5. Upon this all the players standing in the corners must change their positions. You have to run to one of the selected corners, not any random spot. The person in the middle also must try to get into one of the corners. In the end there will inevitably be one person left standing in the middle while the others occupy the corners. This poor sap may be the same one from step 4 or may be one of those who was unable to find a corner.
6. Note: it is not allowed to push other players out of corners that they have already occupied, or push someone to the ground in order to get to a corner etc. No violence please.
7. Anyway, just continue from step 4 now, with the person in the middle yelling “change” and everyone changing their positions and new people coming in the middle. Now how does the game end? Oh dear, I’ve forgotten myself.
8. Oh dear x2, I’ve just found out there are two versions to this game. This is Version 1. This is an infinite game, just stop when you get fed up of it. And let me figure out how Version 2 works in my own time, make do with this one until then!

P.S. Sorry for not posting for so long. It’s just how I work.