Vice finds creator of The Circle Game

I'm a little skeptical that this guy started it in 1982 and that it migrated all the way to South Jersey by 1986-87, which is when I picked it up.
We were at some house party in another town - cinnaminson or cherry hill. I don't recall.
Drinking, drugs, the usual.
Party winding down and we were leaving. some kid says he wants to tag along with us to keep partying.
We say we're heading about 20 minutes down the road but he's welcome to come as long as he doesn't expect a ride back.
He says no, he ran away from home the week before. We say cool, come on.

He lived in my parents basement for about a week and then moved on.
Name was Ryan. He just called it the game rather than the circle game.
Never saw him again, and we were all playing it when he left.

Went to college in Western Pa in 1987, and people already knew it.

 

What kind of bastardized version of the game did you play!?!

 

We played the game the right way!

 

Never heard of this game.

Isn't that a White Power symbol now? Can you still play, and not be a neo-Nazi?

 

We don't know what happened to Ryan after this??

Maybe he was from Ohio.

 

I think he was just from cherry hill

 

He was the Circle Game's version of Johnny Appleseed.
FWIW, I also remember playing this game in New Jersey around the same time. I would have been in elementary or middle school. Since I was the scrawny kid in every class I was in, I hated it with a passion. If I lost, it felt like somebody hit my arm with a sledgehammer. If I won, I'd lay into somebody with everything I had and they'd shrug it off. I'd usually try to bank my wins for the next time I got caught, so I'd be able to lift my arms at the end of the day.

 

Completely off topic, but we were conducting a series of focus groups around the state last week, and I jokingly referred to one of the participants as Johnny Appleseed.