When I was younger I used to get very inventive with my cousins in the rental bounce houses we played in at family parties. The bouncers were filled with air, so all four walls and the floor were “bouncy” in a way. They always had the shape of cube, looked like a castle, and had a floor size of about 12’ by 12’. Many different games could be payed in the bouncer, but there was one specific game my cousins and I played at every family party. We called the game Pulpo, which means octopus in Spanish. The name we came up with stemmed from the basic gameplay and rules of the game itself.
The game involved one player laying down in the center of the bouncer and all other players in random positions near the walls of the bouncer. There was usually around six players in the bounce house playing this game at a time. If there were more players, the bouncer got a bit too crowded to play the game. The players standing around the center would need to jump around the bouncer without letting the person in the middle touch them. They always had to be moving in a clockwise motion around the bouncer, this way there is still a possibility for the the person in the center to tag the other players. The person in the middle, also known as the pulpo, would need to stay in the center of the bouncer with their back always on the floor. The pulpo had the ability to flail their arms and legs to try and tag players in order to get them out of the game. The goal of the game was to not let the person laying in the middle touch you anywhere, or else you would be out of the game. The winner of the game would then go on to be the pulpo in the next round. No one could leave the bounce house during the game, unless they were tagged. When a person did get tagged by the pulpo they had the option to either leave the bouncer or stay in the corners of the bouncer where they were out of the game’s way. This game was played at all of the family parties when I was younger, and still is to this day to be honest.
