GAMES

10 Best Nostalgic Games Malaysian Kids Played In The 90s 

Kids nowadays all on the phone playing candy crush, PUBG, ML and all those games which numbs them physically and mentally. Kids nowadays are more advanced, many say but they would never understand how excited and fun 90s kids and their childhood was. We learned ways to overcome hurdles without google's assistance and inputted our critical skills while dealing with strict parent without going Kumon. All those skills mostly resulted from the games we played daily that boosts the mind's health.

1. Nama Benda Tempat Haiwan

  

            This iconic game is also known as a knowledge buster as we tend to learn new words from others. The games we played in the 90s era is mostly game which consumes no technologies that will develop our physical and mental health to become healthy and fit. 
            In this game, we usually list down words from categories such as Name (Nama), Things (Benda), Places (Tempat), and Animals (Haiwan). 
            This can be played with more than two-person. A person has to say an Alphabet, so if it's Letter 'A' we need to list down categories from Letter 'A'.
     There are also scores for the participants. 100 points if you managed to get all words and if your words are the same as the other participant, 50 points will be deducted. 

2. Board games

    

            Playing board games on a rainy day with family members while sipping hot coffee or eating Maggi hits just different. This entertainment during gatherings or parties hasn't lost its fun factor. Boards game like monopoly, snake & ladder, checkers, and more.
            Every 90s kid back those days owned at least a board game and bring it to school once final exams are over. Here, Scrabble joins the post-exam season party. Scrabble is a word game in which two to four players score points by placing tiles, each bearing a single letter, onto a game board. it also helps to build our vocabulary and creativity level.   
            Next, Snake & Ladder a straightforward game involving just dice and more than two players can play during each round. It’s also interesting because no matter how close one is to win, they might encounter a snake that’ll send them back to the start of the game. 
            Whereby the monopoly board game can be played by more than two-person. Players are needed to roll their dice to move around the board. The board consists of assets, buildings and places which involves buying and trading. In the end, the player with more assets and money wins.

3. Card games

 

            Being a kid of the '90s, we were flooded with a lot of fantastic indoor games as well as outdoor games. We have always allocated time to play and study ( basically continue playing without mom's knowledge). Our era was so beautiful with family bonding. The maths teacher's favourite topic "Probability" mostly focus on these 52, it one other than card games. Uno, Old maid, Donkey, Happy family and our favourite card games also enhance our "Matchy-Matchy", pairing up and recognizing numbers skills as well as improving our patience and memory power. 

• Happy Family 

    The game rule to play "Happy Family" is as simple as ABC. This game has 8 families and each family has 4 cards. We can easily recognize the cards of a family with the same feature and letter, the same colour and the same character. As soon as a player collects a book of cards of the same family, he must say "Happy Family". The cards must be shown and then placed face down. The game continues until either someone has no cards left in hands or the stock runs out. The winner is the player who then has the most families.

• Donkey

    Donkey is a collecting card game played by more than two people and is best for five or six players. The player who has received the card needs to check if they can make a set of two same cards. If the set is formed, they can place the set in the middle. If not, he can pass the card to the next player. The person in the end who is left with one card is the "Donkey". As they receive a card from the player on their right they look at it quickly and decide whether to keep it or pass it along. Play continues until a player has 4 cards of the same rank.

• Old Maid

    Old Maid cards are colourful and attractive but their rule to play is just the same. To play this, the players need to deal with all the cards face down. Players then sort their cards keeping them hidden from all other players. The dealer then offers their hand, spread out face down, to the player on the left, who draws one card from it. If there are pairs of matching cards, with the same number or picture they should put them down face up. If the player has a card that cannot be paired, they are the "Old Maid".

• UNO

    We have been playing UNO card the wrong way since childhood, it has been a lie! Heres the correct rule, you need to score points while playing this. A set of seven cards are dealt with each player, and the top card of the remaining deck is flipped over and set aside to begin the discard pile. The player to the dealer's left plays first unless the first card on the discard pile is an action card ( just see below ). A player who draws from the deck must either play or keep that card and may play no other card from their hand on that turn, A player may play an action draw Four cards only if that player has no cards matching the current colour. The player may have cards of a different colour matching the current number or symbol or action card and still play the action draw Four cards.

    A player who plays an action draw Four may be challenged by the next player in sequence (to see Penalties) to prove that their hand meets this condition. If the entire deck is used, the top discard is set aside and the rest of the pile is shuffled to create a new deck. A player who plays their last card must call "UNO" as a warning to the other players. The score rules go as the first player to get rid of their last card, wins the round and scores points for the cards held by the other players. Number cards count their face value, all action cards count 20, and action and action draw Four cards count 50. If a Draw Two or action draw Four cards is played to go out, the next player in the sequence must draw the appropriate number of cards before the score is tallied. The first player to score 500 points wins the game.

4. Lat Tali 

Picture credit: The stars

" Lat Tali Lat Tam... Plom "

         You need to split the team? wanna know who is right? confused? When in confusion, just go "Lat tali". You're definitely not a true 90s kid if you have never played this. According to google translate, there is a meaning for each word in other languages, they're so weird. 
    
    LAT in Polish means "YEARS"
    TALI in Italian means "SUCH"
    TAM in Vietnamese means "GREEDY"
    PLOM in Catalan means "LEAD" 

            The rule to play this is very simple, We stand in a circle and wave our palms upwards and downwards while saying "lat tali lat, tali tam plom".  It can be used to single out a person from the group. they keep repeating the game till one person is odd (the only one with their palm facedown or the only one face-up). this person is "out" of the group. continues till 2 persons are left. The final winner or loser is determined depending on the circumstances.  

5. Paper soccer 

            The soccer every boy have played when PJK was cancelled in school. They insert all their creativity here, from folding papers to writing down the players names without spelling mistakes. Basically, this shows how creative 90s kids were. Paper Soccer is a game played on a table like real soccer. It requires a football and made out of paper with a folded sheet into a small triangle of two opponents sitting across from each other at a table 

            The rules of the game are very simple. Basically, the object of the game is to score touchdowns. To get a touchdown, you must flick the ball with your finger to go in the goalpost. Scoring occurs with a touchdown being six points and a field goal one point. 

Pushing the ball excessively, double flicking, kicking the ball so that it lands far away from the table, or disturbing the ball during an opponent's play may all result in penalties.

6. Ceper

            90s kids were hard workers in collecting gems such as Bottle caps. They were rare and treated as golds in mines. The rule of this game is simple. You need five or seven bottle caps with two or more players. Just simply place the bottle cap on edge while holding with one finger. Using your other hand, flick the edge of the bottle cap to set it spinning.
             You could have a contest to see whose bottle cap spins the longest or how many consecutive times the cap spins more than 2 seconds. The player who tosses the cap and gets a big number of caps get the advantage to start the game. Overlapping the bottle cap makes you disqualify If the game can continue with taking one of the bottle caps which is scattered. 

7. Fortune Teller

 

                90s kids were always curious about getting married and settle in life since small. They had the flowchart of life as "Study hard-graduate-rich-marry-kids-die", in order to have an overview to achieve heights we have fortune teller and a friend who folds it professionally to fix the problem.  To fold this origami, all you need is A4 paper, a ruler or scissors to trim off and follow some simple steps.

STEP 1: Crease a square piece of paper diagonally and trim off the excess pieces.  

STEP 2: Fold the paper on the corner to the half from each side. 

STEP 3: Bring the four corners to the centre of the paper and crease it. 

STEP 4: Flip it over and fold the four corners inwards to the centre.

STEP 6: Put numbers in ascending order on the triangles. 

STEP 7: Write the fortunes underneath the flaps. 

STEP 8: Insert your index fingers under the flaps on the other side of the paper.

STEP 9: Pinch your thumb and index finger together.

STEP 10: Then gently move them out to the side, which will open the centre.

• Know your future 
  
  
  
  
  

            The most interesting game of childhood. This is a way of fortune to know which of those fortunes we are going to experience. Like, which house you're going to stay in someday, what kind of car you'll drive, In what field would be working, who are you going to marry, your financial status and how many kids you'll have.
            This game can be played with paper, a pen, a friend and your palm. Trace your palm on a piece of paper then draw three sections. Jot down the wishes according to the category. To determine the fortune, draw a spiral and ask your friend to say stop whenever he/she wants. Draw a line, across the spiral and count the dots. The number you obtained is to count the sections according to the category. You need to eliminate two wishes for each category. The last word is what fortune tells about the future.

8. Hand clapping games

" SEP SEP SEP
TOM TOM TOM 
MILO AIS, BUTTERFLY
BIRD BIRD, KANGKUNG"

            The rhyme of happiness and teamwork. You can literally play this everywhere, playing during "rehat" time at the canteen hits different. Hand clapping games were everyone's favourite and easy to play. The basic handclapping game involves, sitting across from your partner, rhymes and clap partner's hands together thats it. 

" PEN MERAH
PEN BIRU 
YOU MARAH
I LOVE YOU"

            The loser can be determined in this phrase. If your partner hits your forehead with their hand, they win. The game can be continued with one hand. Basically, this was an apparent way to propose your crush back in school. The risk of accepting rejection is low. Just take it easy. 

9. Love meter

             Every 90s kids would have done this at least once. Having a crush and checking the compatibility with their names and ours excites us. Basically in the "FLAMES" test, which are Friends, Love, Attraction, Marriage, Enemy and Siblings. To play this test, all you need is a piece of paper, a writing instrument and the name of your crush.
                Write down your name and your crush's name. Now, strikeout all the matching letters in both names and note down the remaining letters. Count the remaining letters, then use the number you obtained to count the letters from the word "FLAMES" and refer to it with the meanings for each letter. 

• Love Percentage

                Another way to know the compatibility is with the same way but with a different rule. This time, write down your name and your crush's name. Now, strikeout all the same letter and count them. If your name and partner's name has 6 Letter "A"s write it out. Do it for all the letters, if there's only one letter, write to them too.
                Next, you need to count the numbers till it gets 2 digits. Just like in maths. The last two digits are the percentage of how much you're in love. To know yours, put your name at the top and vice versa. Happy trying, congratulations in advance!

10. Tiang game

Picture credit: New Straights Times

            School's break period wouldn't be complete without this game. You required a bunch of friends and poles that's it. This game doesn't have any complexed rules or time period to complete. The players need to stand at the centre of any of the poles and any of them should say start. Once it has announced, the players need to hold the pole and make sure any of their body parts touch it. The person who misses holding the pole is called "Monkey". 
            The monkey needs to wait for the correct time to get it from current players. The players also need to change their poles to each other in order to confuse the monkey and they need to be careful too as the monkey can hold any pole which is free. The game goes on and on if the monkey is able to hold the pole. This game will be ended if everyone agrees.