Comboboball

You’re playing some type of ball/racket sport. This game idea only has two required parts for the map/field.

There is a field, with a net, and two clear sides.

There are walls around the field.

The rules are simple: when the ball touches your floor twice in a row, the other team wins the point.

It’s perfectly allowed to …

Hit the ball back towards yourself, without the opponent intercepting it
Hit the ball before it touches your floor
Let it bounce once on your side.

However, the more you touch the ball, the more it bounces on your side, the more this ball becomes worth. When the point is eventually scored, the winner gets as many points as have been collected. In this way, the game encourages making “combos” instead of just brainlessly hitting the ball back-and-forth.

Of course, there’s a maximum to this, and some way to prevent the game just being an endless loop of someone playing the ball to themselves.

More formally:

Whenever the ball hits a wall or switches fields, it “resets”.
The ball gets +1 value if you hit it after a reset, but you were already the last person to hit it. ( = the opponent did not hit it in the mean time.)
The ball gets +1 value if you hit it after a reset, before it touches the floor. ( = you do a volley)
If a team hits the ball more than 3 times with no reset in-between, they immediately lose the point.

To make this easier to program and play:

Players are simply blobs that can run and jump around => the “bobos”
Hitting the ball with your body will result in a minor (realistic) collision
They hold a racket sideways. Hitting the ball with your racket will steer it more and add a lot of power.

Alternative: leave out the whole racket. Only use blob body. And jumping+aiming will just dash in that direction. (Or add big hands at the sides of the blob body or something that take over the racket function, without making the collision shape ugly. Or use big ears for that :p)

Would also need a rule for resetting the dash. Or is it chaotic enough/hard to control that infinite dashing isn’t that much of a problem?

There might be more mechanical variety here:

Double pressing jump.
Long-holding jump => simply determines jump height
Aiming in a certain direction when jumping => will do a spin/roll/swing
A general bar of stamina used during a point/match.
You can use the net and the walls to bounce yourself hard in the other direction. (Of course, can also use team mates for that.)
Hitting the ball with your body provides a certain knockback. (Using the racket does not?)

Allow different player counts:

Scale field size for 2v2, 3v3, etc.
Modify field size individually, or perhaps modify some rules, for unequal teams (2v1, 3v2, etc.)

You're playing *some* type of ball/racket sport. This game idea only has two required parts for the map/field. > **There is a field, with a net, and two clear sides.** > **There are walls around the field.** The rules are simple: when the ball **touches your floor twice in a row**, the other team wins the point. It's perfectly allowed to ... - Hit the ball back towards yourself, without the opponent intercepting it - Hit the ball before it touches your floor - Let it bounce once on your side. However, the more you touch the ball, the more it bounces on your side, the **more this ball becomes worth**. When the point is eventually scored, the winner gets *as many points as have been collected.* In this way, the game encourages making "combos" instead of just brainlessly hitting the ball back-and-forth. > Of course, there's a maximum to this, and some way to prevent the game just being an endless loop of someone playing the ball to themselves. More formally: - Whenever the ball hits a wall or switches fields, it "*resets"*. - The ball gets `+1` value if you hit it after a reset, but you were already the last person to hit it. ( = the opponent did *not* hit it in the mean time.) - The ball gets `+1` value if you hit it after a reset, before it touches the floor. ( = you do a volley) - If a *team* hits the ball *more than 3 times* with *no reset in-between*, they immediately lose the point. **To make this easier to program and play:** - Players are simply blobs that can run and jump around => the "bobos" - Hitting the ball with your body will result in a minor (realistic) collision - They hold a racket sideways. Hitting the ball with your racket will steer it more and add a lot of power. **Alternative:** leave out the whole racket. Only use blob body. And jumping+aiming will just *dash* in that direction. (Or add big *hands* at the sides of the blob body or something that take over the racket function, without making the collision shape ugly. Or use big *ears* for that :p) > Would also need a rule for *resetting* the dash. Or is it chaotic enough/hard to control that infinite dashing isn't that much of a problem? There might be more mechanical variety here: - Double pressing jump. - Long-holding jump => simply determines jump height - Aiming in a certain direction when jumping => will do a spin/roll/swing - A general bar of *stamina* used during a point/match. - You can use the *net* and the *walls* to bounce yourself hard in the other direction. (Of course, can also use team mates for that.) - Hitting the ball with your *body* provides a certain knockback. (Using the racket does not?) **Allow different player counts:** - Scale field size for 2v2, 3v3, etc. - Modify field size *individually*, or perhaps modify some rules, for unequal teams (2v1, 3v2, etc.)