I was at a picnic where people played a game--a game in which they attempted to flay each other using hand-held metal hooks, stripping skin away from their ribs and spines.
People played a game at the picnic.
The British extended their control over the peninsula by putting together the whole panoply of colonial administration civil service, public works, judiciary force, police force, post office, education, and land regulation with teams of British administrators, teachers, engineers, and doctors to go with it.