The game idea had to include:
- Very few rules, 4 or less.
- Very simple mechanics.
- Very little additional equipment.
In the lecture we wondered outside to the park and each person showed off their simple game idea, things like your typical 'British Bulldog' game were put into practise by my fellow games designers as well as some other school playground classics.
Initally I didn't want a game that involved physical contact or the ability to physically out play an oppenent. Instead I went for the idea based around teamwork and co-operation. I had some confidence in my own idea in that it seemed to be different from everyone else. The idea kind of came from an unusual thing my friends would do back in the early days of High School.
Here it is:
Task:
- In two (or more) teams of four you must have each player in your team balancing their feet ontop of each other in a stacking motion.
How to win:
- Teams who have managed to balance themselfs in position either at all or for the longest amount of time is the winner.
Timekeeping:
- The timer starts when everyone in the team is stacked up.
- The timer stops when anyone in that team touches the floor or dramatically becomes unbalanced.
Rules:
- You cannot have any player leaning on any objects to hold your team up.
When putting this into practice I think it went down very well. One thing I noticed one team doing which was clever is that straight away the player with the largest feet was nominated to be the first foot in the middle as a main support for everyone elses' balance.
People seemed to have fun with this simple game idea and a lot of hugging was involved in the aid for maintaining the balance. I felt happy that I achieved something that was arguably different.
