Tag Archives: games

Ninja

Nationality: Caucasian
Age: 52
Occupation: Band Director
Residence: Arkansas
Performance Date: 4/27/13
Primary Language: English

J: Can you tell me about Ninja?

T: Hahaha, Ninja, well that’s a game the students learned from you wasn’t it?

J: Well yeah, but you incorporated it into rehearsal.

T: Well, if I understand it correctly, and help me if I mess up, Ninja is a very active game where the players get into a circle and while pivoting on one foot, try to tag both hands of all the other players. But…what was the other part of it?

J: They can only move once per turn.

T: Yep, that’s it! After I saw you playing it with a few other students, I thought that it would be a fantastic way to warm up the body before rehearsal, so I started adding in time every rehearsal to ensure that everyone could play for about ten minutes.

J: I’d say it definitely helped us stay hyper and alert.

T: Exactly. That’s one of the reasons why I didn’t have any qualms about spending the time doing it.

J: Does the band still do it now?

T: Of course! I wasn’t going to let that little gem go to waste. Thank you for teaching it to them.

J: Happy to help, and thank you for helping me out with my project.

T: No problem, well, it’s getting late, so I’ll talk you later. Night.

J: Night!

 

While Ninja has become a widespread game across the world, I picked it up while attending drum major camp. The other drum majors were playing it, and I thought that it would be an amazing fun game to bring back and use in the band just for fun. I was pleasantly surprised when the band director wanted to incorporate it into our warm up routine. I was even more surprised to hear that the band is still playing Ninja as a warmup now that I’ve graduated. I’m happy to say that I added a little piece of tradition to the band that everyone will carry on, hopefully, for years to come!

Wallball variant – Ledgeball

Nationality: American
Age: 83
Occupation: Businessman - retired
Residence: Glencoe, Illinois
Performance Date: 4/10/2013
Primary Language: English

My informant played a game similar to what is now known today as Wallball.  His version of the game was called Ledgeball due to the ledge against which it was played.  Ledgeball does not have the same free-for-all nature that Wallball does, and is played for points instead of for staying power.  However, it still involves throwing a ball against a flat surface and catching it.

According to my informant, the game was played by a group of throwers and one or two defenders.  Throwers would take turns throwing the ball against the ledge and trying to get it to land inside a marked area.  The defenders would attempt to catch the ball before it hit the ground.  If it hit the ground the throwers got a point.  If the defenders caught it or if it landed outside the marked area, then the defenders got a point.  One of the strategies that throwers could use was aiming very low on the ledge, so that the ball would only go a little bit before hitting the ground.  Another strategy was to throw it so that it would bounce over the heads of the defenders.   People who frequently defended would get really fast and develop good reflexes.  Ledgeball was played with either a tennis ball or a rubber playground ball, with tennis balls being preferred.

While this is markedly different from the Wallball that I played in my youth, this has many of the same traits.  Players throw a ball against a wall, other players attempt to catch it.  And most importantly it is played with either a tennis ball or a playground ball, both of which are still used in Wallball today.  Granted, this version of Wallball was played back in the 30’s so it will understandably be very different from what we know today, although it could be an ancestor or cousin of modern Wallball.

Magic the Gathering – Pile Shuffling 2

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: USC
Performance Date: 4/30/13
Primary Language: English

My informant spoke to me about rituals and practices of Magic the Gathering.  Of the most ritual acts of Magic is the shuffling ritual.  Since shuffling must always take place before a game, and since it involves the player’s deck, often something very personal to them, shuffling is very ritualistic.  While each player does it slightly differently, they almost always do it the same way and sometimes doing it differently gives you a bad feeling about the game.

The way my informant prefers to shuffle is with two runs of the 5-Pile shuffle, followed by riffle shuffling.  5-Pile shuffling is where you take the deck in one hand, or half the deck if it’s too big to hold, and you place cards from the top into five piles as though you were dealing out hands of poker.  You continue to place the cards into these piles until you have placed all the cards, then you pick them up and put them back into one big pile.  According to my informant, one of his friends told him this was the optimal way to shuffle the deck for good randomization.

I am also a Magic the Gathering player and I also employ the 7-pile shuffle method.  After each pile has been dealt, I will stack the 7 piles into two piles, then riffle shuffle those together before starting more riffle shuffle.  I learned the 7-pile shuffle method from a friend who simply said it was a good way to shuffle.  It’s also a good way to make sure you have the right number of cards in the deck, since you know which pile the last card should end up in if you did it right.  I also like the 7-pile shuffle method because when you start a game of Magic, each player draws 7 cards, so 7 piles for 7 cards lines up nicely.

Attached to the submission are two photos.  One photo is a demonstration of 5-pile shuffling and the other is a demonstration of 7-pile shuffling.

Wallball variant – Handball

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: USC
Performance Date: 5/1/2013
Primary Language: English

According to my informant, he and his classmates would play a game they called Handball during recess.  The ‘court’ was a specific area in the school between a set of stairs one one side and a railing on the other.  Games were played with a rubber playground ball.  If a player hit the ball at either of these points, that player was out.  Also there was a small hole in the court, and hitting the ball there also merited an out.  Additionally, there was a grey line partway up the wall, and if a player hit the ball above this line, that player would be out.

In a way, this game seems to be similar to regular handball,  where the player must hit the ball against a wall in between a lower and upper line.  However, my informant’s version of the game involved a large number of players, usually 15 to 20 at the start, and had more specific boundaries that can be attributed to the nature of the court they used.  Overall, this appears to be a mix of regular handball and playground wallball.

“Last one there is a rotten egg!”

Nationality: Vietnamese-American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Performance Date: Apr 2007
Primary Language: English
Language: Vietnamese

The informant first heard this when he was in elementary school, about age six or seven, while attending the after school day care with twenty or so other students.  After school the students would be walking when one of them would spot the babysitter’s car and would yell, “Last one there is a rotten egg!”  All of the students then sprint to the car and upon reaching it, touch a doorknob or any part of the car.  The last student to touch the car is the “rotten egg” and is labeled the “rotten egg” for that round.  Nothing in particular happens to the rotten egg, but the student is singled out as the slowest one.  This is similar to the game “Duck, duck, goose” where there is a mushpot where the students who are too slow to catch their goose have to sit until someone can replace them.  The informant no longer plays this game, but believes it to be a good form of entertainment for kids.

Though it is a game played among children, it is often the parents or guardians who first introduce the game to their kids.  However, it is very rare that you can find a parent playing this game with their child, since the advantages of being an adult are obvious and the game would be unfair.  The informant is good with children and often uses this game to bring children together to play, and to keep them attracted to a focal point so that they will stay together in one group and not cause too much trouble by becoming out of hand.  This is also a useful tactic for babysitters and day care personnel as well.  The idea of a rotten egg probably came from the idea that nobody wants to be something smelly like a rotten egg, so they want to win the game.