Professor Kit's Patented All New FLIK-A-BALL (for four players)

 

FLIK-A-BALL

or

Top of The Box

(a game complete in its own right for the greater and more glorious game of DOWN & OUT)

 

 

A Brief Description

For two, three or four players

or two teams of two

(so balls are in two, or four, different colours, accordingly

Players simultaneously flick ping pong balls up a hill, through gates, into pockets

 

DESIGN OF THE BOARD

In the case of a square board –

The outside square of the game board is 50 cm x 50 cm

The POCKET BOARD area inside the gates at the top of the hill is 25cm x 25cm

The pocket board is flat and has pockets with different values (a single 3 point pocket in the middle will be smallest and hardest to get, other pockets may be worth one or two points)

The pocket board is netted to keep the balls in

The FLIK-a-board is a gentle slope up to the pocketboard

The outside wall of the flik-a-board is 8cm high, to keep the balls in the game

Each player has a FLIKing area (break in the wall) in front of them (15 – 20cm), from which to flick their balls

The height and slope of the hill will be determined in part by the need to accommodate the pockets under – somewhere between five and ten pockets need to be able to accommodate 20 ping pong balls totally

 

In the case of a round board, everything applies as above, except that board and walls etc are circular

One could have a circular outer board with a square inside

Alternatively one could have a square outer board with a round board inside

 

(of course it would be useful to see all permutations in prototype in case they play differently)

 

The four gates onto the pocketboard (one for each player) need to be worked out to get the skill/luck balance right

(and to not be too easy or too hard)

Likewise the pocketboard pockets will need refining through play with prototypes…

 

SO the pocket board and the gates to it are the two parts of the game that will need refining through practice. Keeping them modular through the design process is thus indicated. The rest of the board (whether square or round) should work with these variations without much refinement

 

                                         

 

RULES OF PLAY

Each player has five ping pong balls

Each player or team has balls of a different colour

If playing a team game, team members may sit in any agreed positions (i.e. opposite or side by side)

Play commences simultaneously on a given signal

Players flick their balls from the flicking area, one at a time, up the flik-a-board through the gates towards the pockets on the pocket board

A player cannot flick a next ball until the last ball that player flicked is through the gate, onto the pocket board (in other words each player has only one ball in play on the flik-a-board at any given time)

Pockets have different values (1 and 3 for instance [though maybe a 2 pocket will be possible too?)

The game is over when all balls are in pockets (or remain unpocketed on the pocket board)

Balls that come back down the hill to another player are kept by that player (and so are out of contention)

There is a three point bonus for finishing first

The winner is the player / or team with the highest score