The 10 Most Inexplicable Fictional Games

I was sure I was going to see Dragon Poker from the Myth Adventures series on the list. Double Fanucci would be a runner up too. Oh well.

What about Shirling, from Kids In The Hall? NEW SNAKE!!!

Needs more blernsball!

We decided that Blernsball was much too explicable compared to the other games on the list.

You forgot Fizz-binn

From the HitchHikers Guide to the Galaxy: Brockian Ultra-Cricket
A curious game which involves suddenly hitting people for no readily apparent reason and then running away. “Let’s be blunt, it’s a nasty game,” says The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

The rules are as follows:

Rule One: Grow at least three extra legs. You won’t need them, but it keeps the crowds amused.
Rule Two: Find one extremely good Brockian Ultra Cricket player. Clone him off a few times. This saves an enormous amount of tedious selection and training.
Rule Three: Put your team and the opposing team in a large field and build a high wall around them. The reason for this is that, though the game is a major spectator sport, the frustration experienced by the audience at not actually being able to see what’s going on leads them to imagine that it’s a lot more exciting than it really is. A crowd that has just watched a rather humdrum game experiences far less life affirmation than a crowd that believes it has just missed the most dramatic event in sporting history.
Rule Four: Throw lots of assorted items of sporting equipment over the wall for the players. Anything will do – cricket bats, basecube bats, tennis racquets, skis, anything you can get a good swing with.
Rule Five: The players should now lay about themselves for all they are worth with whatever they find to hand. Whenever a player scored a “hit” on another player, he should immediately run away as fast as he can and apologize from a safe distance. Apologies should be concise, sincere, and, for maximum clarity and points, delivered through a megaphone.
Rule Six: The winning team shall be the first team that wins.

Somebody has to have invented a Sabacc program by know. You want to know how to make a few grand? Port it to iPad, give me a cut for the idea (or at least a free copy of the game).

A lack of Parisi Squares! Apparently very deadly, yet never explained why.

Gambling? On an Apple product?! Steve would never allow that! It’s immoral.

*cough*

He’d make a freaking mint though…

Sabacc seemed more like Black Jack/21 when I read The Han Solo trilogy. Bah, Cloud City? Han won a whole planet in a Sabacc game! Granted… a planet in a system held by enemies of the New Republic and ruled by force witches… but whatever.

Man… I need to read that book again. It’s epic.

And what about “Charades: Marian Style” from Phil Foglio’s “Buck Godot” series? All we know about it is that people always refer to with with single fore-fingers pointing up on either side of their head (like devil’s horns). Aliens seem to love it. Humans, on the other hand … :-)

I think I met the end of my likings of Calvin and Hobbes. Just like that.

Come on! Any list of inexplicable fictional games has to include 43-man squamish!!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/43-Man_Squamish

They invented a Sabacc program a long time ago. I remember playing it in the mid-90s. Yep — it’s still up at the old Blue Harvest site.

http://www.blueharvest.net/download/

No Tonk??? Glen Cook’s “Black Company” series, they played tonk every single chance they could. I was hoping to see at least some mention.

NO WHACKBAT???

Pff. Women.

I don’t know about you but I could not figure out how to play Caravan in Fallout New Vegas — not that I tried too hard. I hate card games in video games! If I wanted to play cards, I’d bust out a deck not an Xbox.

wasn’t one of the mini games in Knights of the Old Republic Sabacc?

How could you not include the game of stones from Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time series?

Arcomage, anyone?

Calvinball was always one of my favorite parts of Calvin & Hobbes, especially one of the cries emitted when a flag was captured:

“Olly wolly, pollywoggy, ump bump FIZZ!”

That was Pazaak. Which someone DID make an online version.

http://purepazaak.freehosting.net/

I don’t know about an online Sabacc game, but there’s a Pazaak one:

http://purepazaak.freehosting.net/

I think there’s one more beside PurePazaak. Not 100% sure.

There was a pretty interesting poker-esque card game in the book A Game of Universe. A while back I heard the author was planning to expand on the rules from the few details that are given in the book, but I don’t think there’s been any progress.

i couldn’t figure it out either-though with all the lovely things to do/kill in the new vegas area i didn’t really have the time or the inclination to learn caravan. and speaking of stupid card games within video games, that ridiculous card game from final fantasy 9 was impossible to learn!

Dragon Poker from Robert Asprin’s Myth Adventures series!

Perceval ‘s welsh games from the Kaamelott series are missing, but I guess this show isn’t as popular abroad as it is in France :) I don’t know if it’s been translated…
“Le sirop” is supposed to be the easiest one to learn, but I find “chante sloubi” more entertaining :)

I played that a lot when I first got a computer. Stupidly fun for a Star Wars fan.

Anbo-Jitsu from The Next Generation. Riker and Dad work out their issues by facing off in what appears to be blind kendo, but with double-ended staffs.

What, no Daboo from Deep Space Nine?

Aw, I was hoping for Kosho, from The Prisoner.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTqAfJYWe58

Okay, I give up.  Where is the list?  I’ve looked this page up and down and don’t see it, or a link to it, anywhere.

A physical deck was included in the Cloud City adventure for the old d6 Star Wars Roleplaying Game.