Every parent has had to listen to talk of Fortnite. Even if they don’t want to. Even if their kid isn’t obsessed with the game parents have had to watch, heard-of or try the floss dance. Talk of ‘1 v 1’, chug jugs and those darn dances, are driving parents crazy everywhere. For any parents lucky enough to not know what the floss is you can learn here.
With an estimated 40 million people playing the game, kids are playing the game at an obsessive level. If your kids are like mine when they aren’t playing fortnite they are online watching others play.
So when my sons birthday rolled around he REALLY wanted a Fortnite party. I really hoped that I would be able to find a place where he could go have a party and play the game, but sadly there weren’t any. I did find places where he could do a nerf war but he really wanted an actual Fortnite party.
So like any other crazy momma I started to go about finding a way to throw him a Fortnite party that would make his 11th birthday his best yet!
Where to start? What is Fortnite?
The first thing I had to do was find out what Fortnite actually was. My son insisted I sit down and play with him to get a true understanding. After explaining I’m not good with video games we had long… VERY LONG … chats about fortnite. The biggest thing he kept mentioning is that it’s not really violent because there’s no blood, unlike more violent Call of Duty or Grand Theft Auto that his friends play. Fortnite is a third-person shooter game which uses cartoon-ish visuals such as people in silly animal costumes.
The gist of the game is that the player is dropped in an area and must scavenge for guns, ammunition, medical kits and energy/revival or ‘chug jugs’. The objective is to be the last player left and you can only do that by being the last survivor. You survive by killing the other 100 players in the game or camping out (hiding).
Today’s Parent did a review on the game here.
How do you turn Fortnite into a party game ‘IRL’ (In Real Life)?
Here was where I had to get creative. First question was where to hold the party. I wanted somewhere the kids would be able to run free and not worry about being too loud or breaking things. Our house and our backyard would be too small for 10-15 11 year-old boys running around. Community centers were available, but then there was no place to eat, have cake and open gifts. We decided the best was to do a mix. There was a big community park a few minutes walk from our house, so they would play the game there and then return to our house for food and presents.
Once it was decided we would do this next came the prep. First thing I found out after checking out Pinterest was that there was almost no Fortnite party swag. No printables. No lootbag items. Nothing! So I made my husband make us everything we needed! He created posters, signs and more that made the party look top notch!
What did we create?
- Invitation. I strongly believe the invitation for any event sets the mood. It determines expectations for anyone attending and my son wanted it to look ‘official’.
- Download a blank invitation here: fortnite-birthday-invititation
- Party Rules. Since we were playing with energetic boys we thought we should clearly point out head shots were not allowed! Also, once you were hit 3 times you were ‘dead’ and had to sit on the guidelines.
- Download the Battle Rules here: fortnite-birthday-battle-rules
- We labelled everything. It is funny. Take a small bottle of blue gatorade and put a ‘chug jug’ label on it and boys were fighting over them!
- Check out the signage: fortnite-birthday-signage_
- Our own version. We realized some things just weren’t going to be possible. As much as my son wanted us to drop care parcels down from the sky we just couldn’t. Once such thing was that in the game you use v-bucks to buy dances that your character in the game can do. This was not going to be possible, if for no other fact that I’m not a good dancer and possibly because 11 year-olds didn’t want to sit and learn how to dance. So this instead we turned into ‘boogie bombs’. Instead of buying dance moves the players could take a water balloon and if they hit another player they had to stop and do a Fortnite dance for 10 seconds… which would make them an open target. (during play it turned into 5).
What did we buy?
- Nerf Bullets… lots and lots of nerf bullets! My son was very worried about running out of ammo during the game. That and the fact that I am constantly picking up bullets around the house means we never have a supply in one place.
- Safety glasses. We saw some cool ‘nerf’ branded ones. But I wasn’t going to pay $20 a pair. Instead I got regular safety glasses for $2.50 a pair. Considering 3 pairs got broken during the party I am glad I didn’t pay more. (Note: it was not the quality of the glasses, the kids landed on them!)
- Small bottles and blue gatorade for ‘Chug Jugs’. These were hidden throughout the course and kids could find them to come back to life/rejoin the game.
- Chocolates (from Costco) were med kids and allowed kids to take back one life. They were also hidden throughout the course
- Small nerf guns. My son informed me he was ‘too old’ for loot bags. So every kid went home with a nerf gun and a pack of bullets as their ‘loot bag’. They also got some chocolates we called’fuel for another battle’.
- Because it was a hot day we also had orange gatorade ‘revive shots’ that could bring back lives.
- Water ballons were our ‘Boogie Bombs’. Unlike the game where v-bucks allows you to buy dance moves. For our game if you got hit with a boogie bomb you had to dance for 10 seconds… easy target!
Next: How do we actually play Fortnite in a park?
The one thing I knew is that boys this age love fortnite… and they also love nerf guns. So we combined them. The kids would play 15 v. 15. meanign all 15 would play against each other and no teams. Each kid arrived at the party with their own nerf guns and no bullets (this avoided anyone not getting their own bullets back at the end. We had metal army-looking cases hid throughout the course with med kits, bullets, chug jugs and revive shots.
My husband collected free pallets from companies who throw them away and created an amazing course. He threw the pallets in the trailer that morning and brought them over to the course and put it together in around an hour. Because it’s a public park, I made him wait there until I came over with the kids.
All the kids put their guns in a pile in the center of the course and started outside the perimeter. We had marked off the outer perimiter too. This was important because if kids needed a break they could go outside this perimeter. But if they were outside they could not play or shoot anyone either.
What we learned
- 11 year-old boys can play this ALL DAY if you let them. Have a time limit set in your mind. There is also so many varieties you can play with single players or teams, have an idea of how many times you want to play.
- Set clear rules and make sure they know them. At first kids weren’t paying attention to the boundaries and they were going so far they weren’t really part of the game anymore.
- As in life, not everyone plays by the rules. Be prepared for how you will handle the children who openly cheat.
- Even if you think you have enough med kits and boogie bombs… make more! We ‘re-set’ the course between each game and we could have used 3x the supplies we had.
