Jokerball
Jokerball is a dice driven soccer game for 2 players. It's played on a size 6 hexagonal board with 91 cells. Red men fill the first two rows on the red side and blue men fill the first two rows on the blue side. There's a green ball in the center. Mark Steere designed Jokerball in December, 2024.
Players take turns rolling the dice and moving their men and the ball. The purple die indicates the distance a man must move. The green die indicates the direction the ball must move. Move restrictions are described in the rule sheet.
The goal is to move the ball off the board through your opponents side. The men engage in battle, killing each other off, thereby opening access to the goals so the ball can pass through.
Number of players: 2
Game duration: 9 mn
Complexity: 2 / 5
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Play Jokerball and 1194 other games online.
No download necessary - play directly from your web browser.
With your friends and thousands of players from the whole world.
Free.
Rules summary
Jokerball is a violent soccer game. It involves strategy and luck.
The hexagonal board is walled off on the two left sides and the two right sides, and open on the two remaining, opposite sides. The open sides are the goals. Men start out lined up in front of their own goals, and the ball is in in the center.
The men gradually move out and kill each other off, thereby opening holes in their defenses and making it possible for the ball to exit the board through a goal. The purple die determines the distance a man must travel, but the player chooses his direction. The green die determines the direction the ball must travel, but the player chooses its distance.
More specifically, a man makes a non-capturing move in one of the two forward directions in a straight line, along a path of contiguous, unoccupied cells. It travels exactly the distance indicated by the purple die, unless blocked by a wall or the ball, in which case it stops short, adjacent to the block.
A man makes a capturing move in any direction, in a straight line, along a path of contiguous, unoccupied cells, terminated by a friendly or enemy man, within the range indicated by the purple die. The terminus man is captured by replacement.
After moving one of your men, you must move the ball, in the direction indicated by the green die, as described below, along a path of contiguous, unoccupied cells, any distance.
Green Die Indicated Ball Directions: 1 - backward left. 2 - left. 3 - forward left. 4 - forward right. 5 - right. 6 - backward right. The directions are from the perspective of the player moving the ball. The players' directions are opposite from each other. So for example, Red's 2 is the opposite direction of Blue's 2. Red's 2 is the same direction as Blue's 5.
You win when the ball exits the board through the goal opposite of where you're sitting. It doesn't matter who moves the ball off the board. It's remotely possible that you would have to move the ball through your own goal and lose the game.
You can undo man selection by clicking any unhighlighted cell.
Jokerball is played in matches of from 1 to 21 games. You choose how many at the outset.
A doubling cube can be employed in the match, as an option. You can search online for Backgammon doubling cube for information about that. But basically, if I offer you a double, and if you accept it, the game is now worth double the points. If you don't accept it, you lose the game.
Jokerball uses the Crawford rule. There's information about this online as well. If a player is 1 point away from winning the match, the next game is a Crawford game, in which the doubling cube can't be offered. There can be only one Crawford game per match.
The "dead cube" rule (as defined by USBGF and WBGF): If the player owning the doubling cube could win the match by winning the current game, then she has no reason to offer a double, and is not allowed to offer a double.
Nessuno, a professional and highly skilled developer, has been invaluable in bringing you Jokerball. Advice and suggestions are helpful, but only get me so far. Sometimes you need a pro to get in there, find the problem, and fix it. Nessuno did that - a few times. Thanks, Nessuno 🙂🙏