Bat a rat is a simple and cheaply constructed party game

Party game

Party games are games that some people play as forms of entertainment at social gatherings. Party games usually involve more than one player. There are a large number and styles of party games available and the one selected will depend on the atmosphere that is sought to be generated...

 or stall at a fête

Fête

Fête is a French word meaning festival, celebration or party, which has passed into English as a label that may be given to certain events.-Description:It is widely used in England and Australia in the context of a village fête,...

 or similar community event. The game is centred around a large wooden board stood up on end, upon which an open-ended metal

Metal

A metal , is an element, compound, or alloy that is a good conductor of both electricity and heat. Metals are usually malleable and shiny, that is they reflect most of incident light...

 or plastic

Plastic

A plastic material is any of a wide range of synthetic or semi-synthetic organic solids used in the manufacture of industrial products. Plastics are typically polymers of high molecular mass, and may contain other substances to improve performance and/or reduce production costs...

 tube or section of drainpipe has been mounted vertically. The stallholder introduces a small rat

Rat

Rats are various medium-sized, long-tailed rodents of the superfamily Muroidea. "True rats" are members of the genus Rattus, the most important of which to humans are the black rat, Rattus rattus, and the brown rat, Rattus norvegicus...

-shaped object into the upper end of the tube, holding it by its "tail"; this "rat" is released in a way to surprise the player of the game, whose objective is to strike the emerging "rat" as it falls to the floor, usually using a stick or other kind of bat

Bat

Bats are mammals of the order Chiroptera "hand" and pteron "wing") whose forelimbs form webbed wings, making them the only mammals naturally capable of true and sustained flight. By contrast, other mammals said to fly, such as flying squirrels, gliding possums, and colugos, glide rather than fly,...

. Prizes may be awarded to successful batters.