Step Ball
So Swetha, Ticha, and I got to play step ball. This was essentially a football game where you could not take more than a step. Each team needed to get the ball to the opposite end of the field for a goal. However, people could only take one step when the referee yelled “STEP”. Then whoever had the ball had to through to someone. So these were about the only instructions we were given – which was actually quite nice since we all got to improvise a bit because of the lack of strict, detailed rules. During the gameplay, we found out that if a team is able to intercept the throw of a ball, they could keep the ball. Even if they could not catch it themselves, as long as they made sure it did not go to any person on an opposite team, their team was allowed to have the ball. However, due to this rule that came up during gameplay and the fact that someone had to be there to yell “step,” it seems the game is almost totally reliant on having a judge. Also, because the actual rules were sparse, there needed to be a judge to tell us what to do in a situation not covered by the two rules (ex. “can you pivot in your position? can you jump to catch the ball? etc). I’m not sure it is good game style to have the play so reliant on a judge. Another big flaw in the game was that tall players had a HUGE advantage. If you were taller, you were able to intercept more tosses and bring more points to your team. Especially since shorter players weren’t sure if they were allowed to jump (or at least I wasn’t) it was very easy for tall players to intercept balls.
Mont Trottoir
So this was a game where there NEEDED to be a judge/interpreter and someone to enforce the rules and keep a record of who is winning. This game was basically a horizontal mountain climbing game. Each group of two had to be attached by a rope at the start of their turn and could only take two steps and play a card each turn. Each teem could also “karate chop” the rope of another team which will send the player not in a ‘safe’ zone back to their home base. Each team got a set of card that let you do different things. For example, one of them was a ‘yeti’ card which let you ask someone not in the game to impersonate a yeti and whoever is closer to them would fall back to home base. The game had so much cards and rules and it was hard to tell who’s turn it was. Honestly, if we did not have the judge, we wouldn’t have known what we were doing at all. Even at the end of the game, I couldn’t make out how each turn worked… I would suggest the game should be a computer game simply because of how many elements we had to keep track (it would be easier to display and store the data on a computer) if not for the amount of fun I had actually physically performing the game. The physical aspect of the game was really fun for me. I had no idea what I was doing but I had a ton of fun simply because we were moving and playing a game different from anything I had played for awhile. I also liked how partner-based yet confrontational the game was. Overall, the game was fun and I really enjoyed it. However, the sheer number of rules and things to remember while playing this game could be a turn-off.
