This will work by a bit of bickering over whether it’s called “tag” or “it” or whatever followed by a poll to firmly establish the correct answer.
First up, that game where you link hands with an opponent and then try and twist their hands and arms and fingers around to the point where they nearly break and your foe can’t handle the pain and yells the name of the game out to get you to stop. It’s called Peanuts right?
Dobby is the Nottingham word for what most people call tag or tig or whatever (maybe @Songs_about_ducking can back me up on this one unless it’s called something else in Ilkeston)
That game which is basically It but when you get tagged you have to stand with your arms and legs outstretched until someone frees you by crawling through your legs.
This is exactly the point “mate”, it needs to be a safe-word that wouldn’t come up organically in the situation to ensure a victory, the word ‘Mercy’ might be something that some nerd actually says as an expression of pain even though they aren’t giving up.
“1, 2, 3, 4, I declare a thumb war”
Battle commences, you get the other persons thumb down
“1, 2, 3, 4 I win the thumb war”
Victory is established if the thumb remains down for the entirety of the sentence