Socetball and Water Baseball - more lessons in the art of Junkyard Sports

I googled across an old Atari forum where people were having a discussion about "made up" games. Here's one example:

"We made one called socetball where you take a soccer ball and a lowered basketball hoop. You kick get one minute to kick the ball, and hit the backboard for one point and make it in for two. You do this with two people and play for two rounds. In the first one will kick and another will get the ball. And in the next round the person who kicked will get the ball and vice versa. Whoever has the most points at the end of the two rounds wins. It was a very fun game but we don't play it a lot anymore."

I liked especially the last line: "It was a very fun game but we don't play it alot anymore" - because it reveals yet one more characteristic of Junkyard Sports. You invent. You play it a few times until the game gets very fun. And then you let it go and invent the next one. That's part of the freedom and the message. The obligation is not to the game, but to the fun of making it fun.

And then there's Water Handball:

"i made up 1 wih a friend at a swimming pool its called water handball...l u use a nerf sort of ball that is round and as small as a baseball or softball and u play as if u wer playing baseball but wen u pitch u must skip the ball acroos the water... there is no bat u must use ur hand to hit the ball...then u must swim base to base..u play 2 outs and u can either peg the runner (throw the ball at the runner and if u hit them off the base they're out) or u can tag the runner...u play 2 outs and first 1 to 21 wins....u can also make an imaginary home run fence...it is also a great 1 vs 1 game.."

"...skip the ball across the water." You can't be having a conversation about how to play baseball in a swimming pool and wind-up with something like ball-skipping. That's one of the fundamental truths of Junkyard Sports-making. The gameworthy delights of things like pitching-by-ball-skipping are not derived by speculation or explored by theorizing. Only by playing.


from Bernie DeKoven, funsmith