For Family Literacy Day we thought to develop games related to signs and signals. We began by talking about specialized languages of symbols (signs or images that have meaning by convention) such as hobo signs. We started discussing possible procedures in which a set of signs could change meaning. However, wanting to privilege active prototyping over debate, we decided that we would use the field-marking equipment and each lay out a simple design on the field, for which we would then attempt to invent procedures.

Hex

One of the designs was a pattern of hexagons, a layout often used in board and strategy games which allows equal movement in six directions from any tile.

Megan and Ian considered this pattern and emerged with a couple of games that were not only strategic, but also worked agility, accuracy and balance, turning a patten associated with puzzles into a physical exercise.

One involved a player and a ball, with the player moving across the field, with the basic rules that he and the ball could not be in the same hex at the same time, and that both player and ball had to be airborne while switching hexes. Therefore, it required simultaneously tossing the ball and hopping between hexes — an exercise requiring both agility and planning. A variant had two people in the field at the same time.

Another required tossing the ball and catching it in a designated tile, with more reward for greater distance.

Flip

Another design was a random array of dots. We approached these as spots to be claimed, and thought of ways of gradually spreading across the field, with the possibility of the spots changing hands.

We landed upon using cones that could be tossed to land upon a dot to claim it. The cone would be placed up or down to indicate ownership. Each player tossed from the starting point or any spot she owned, onto an unclaimed spot to claim it, or onto her opponent’s to make it change hands. We added the possibility of rewarding higher-risk moves by allowing an extra toss for each spot one had to toss over, and having all the spots change hands over which one had successfully tossed. In this way, one could come from behind by making high risk moves.

Related to the board game Othello, this is a game that could easily scale up and into different settings using different materials.

Long gone jump

A final game we had time to demo was based on a design of concentric octagons. It used the octagons as a sort of target for a long jump game that required taking off from behind a mark and landing exactly in the narrow bands between lines.

All the adults with torn ACLs admitted to having attempted this one only half-heartedly.

Going in circles

The end of the year seemed to beg for a cyclical theme. We tried out three different games.

Cyclada

Sketch of ideas for the game that would become Cyclada

Germaine had been thinking about a game (1) in which the playing field would change shape, and (2) that would make use of the two huge maple trees that stand outside the field house. She had vague ideas about a field in which the two trees would be the foci of an oval, and conceived of a game that used the trees as bases and a rope around the trees, which could be pulled by players in order to deform the field. “Sort of a cross between cricket and tug-of-war” was the shorthand description.

Development

Starting with a 100-foot rope that gave a good amount of slack around the trees, this game developed a lot through play. The initial concept was to use a ball, either kicked or thrown by the runner, to start the play. The scoring would continue until the runner either was put out by the ball, or couldn’t run around the bases (trees) because the defense had used the rope to cut off the running path. First we switched to a ring frisbee, to echo the shape of the field, and attempted to put the runner out by hitting one of the trees with the ring. That proved incompatible with the equipment, so we considered outlining a smaller area that would be used as a target for the ring, and tried an additional post onto which the ring could be dropped to put the runner out. However, those solutions were too fussy. It made more sense to use less equipment, so we finally settled on having a frisbee thrown by the runner, with the runner being thrown out by the defense hitting one of the trees with the frisbee thrown from the other tree.

In terms of actions allowed and disallowed, it quickly became clear that we’d have to set some limits on how players could use the rope, so the first rule — don’t hurt the runner — was soon joined by restrictions on blocking: not grabbing other players, not crossing the rope, not grabbing the rope in two locations.

The name of the game evolved from word play: cricket became cicada became Cyclada, in honour of its cyclical character.

Basic rules

We finished the session with the following provisional rules:

• The field is delimited by a loose rope around two trees. Both teams are on the field at the same time, and take turns at running.
• The runner starts the action by throwing the frisbee towards the open field. Everyone must be touching the rope at the time the runner plays the frisbee. The runner scores points by running around the two trees, alternately. Each tree is worth one point.
• Offense and defense move and pull on the rope to change the shape of the field in order to allow or prevent the runner from rounding the trees.
• The runner can be put out in one of three ways: (1) the defense changes the rope field in such a way that the runner can’t advance; (2) the defense retrieves the frisbee and throws it from one tree to hit the other; or (3) the defense catches the frisbee before it lands on the ground.
• Fielders cannot grab each other or the runner. They can’t grab the rope in two different locations. They also can’t cross or twist the rope (but can lean on it so that different areas of the rope touch).

Emergent strategy and possible developments

Cousins Derik and Ryan quickly invented the multi-player block, which was so effective it had to be disallowed. We also soon realized that twisting the rope would make it impossible, so that was also nixed. We did, however, allow the rope to be pulled to one extremity and then wrapped around one of the trees to make passage impossible; that was judged to be a failure of offense, not of the game’s mechanics.

It could be interesting to play this again without the frisbee element, only using the rope as the means of controlling the number of points scored on each turn.

New Frisbee

New Frisbee scoring

Pro mountain biker Ryan Leech brought a couple games from The Ultimate Athlete by George Leonard, a book dating from the participatory New Games movement of the 1970s. The interesting character of this game became clear even as Ryan was reading out the rules. Yes, it was based on scoring, and yes, it assumed everyone was capable of playing, but what was interesting is that the players have to judge their own ability to play, a maximum effort up to that ability limit is required, and “perfection is expected and thus not extrinsically rewarded.” It set up an interesting situation in which one’s honour was on the line not only in terms of effort, but also in honesty when assessing and admitting one’s abilities.

The rules

The game is played between two players to 11 points, with throwing and catching roles changing when the active thrower reaches 6 points. The thrower and catcher each have to declare which hand they’ll use to throw and to catch the frisbee. As long as the thrower throws the frisbee in a way that is catchable by the catcher, and the catcher succeeds in catching with the hand he declared, there are no points scored. Points are scored by the catcher when the thrower fails to throw the frisbee in a way that is catchable by the maximum effort of that catcher, or throws it at a greater than 45 degree angle. Points are given to the thrower if the catcher “fails to make an all-out effort”,  uses the wrong hand, or drops or bobbles the frisbee.

Observations

This game effectively gave purpose to may sometimes seem like an aimless pastime. The sportsmanship aspects were really interesting, as individuals had to adjust to different abilities and acknowledge their own abilities. Strategically, the game well played would seem to favour the thrower.

Circle Football

The second game from Leonard’s Ultimate Athlete was Circle Football. Instead of a sport moving back and forth between goal lines, this variation on American football has a small inner circle inside a much larger circle. The goal zone is outside the large circle, and an additional corridor leads outward from the inner circle to the goal zone. The passer stands in the inner circle and has 15 seconds to pass to a teammate or begin to run the corridor to the goal zone. Unlimited passing is allowed once the ball has been passed. The offensive team has three tries to score before turning the ball over.

We didn’t spend enough time to develop a good sense of this game, but George Leonard’s description of it as “tricky and particularly exciting” and requiring “360 degrees, all-around alertness” seems apt.

Circle Football rules from George Leonard, The Ultimate Athlete