...dodgeball?
I'm working at a summer day camp and people are starting to get bored of both team and FFA dodgeball. Need a new variation to keep things fresh, but I'm stumped on ideas. Can anyone help?
How about you can't use the limb that gets hit? Head and torso are insta-kills, and if you lose both legs you have to play sitting down. But you can roll.
Crap now I want to play fallout 3.
Add an objective of some kind.
One variation I had in my middle school days involved a set of bowling pins arranged exactly as you would in a lane. One set for each side. First one to have all the pins knocked down loses.
Or you could play a VIP style, VIP wouldn't be able to throw the ball at all, but would be able to shield him/herself unless he/she was the last one.
Possibly add in a separately colored or marked ball that has a bonus effect of bringing a teammate back in if it hits or something.
Another idea is to move it more towards a challenge. Get all the campers lined up along a trail, path or some straightaway and have them all try to hit one 'challenger' as they hightail it to another end. There'd be some fine tuning naturally but the general idea is there.
Not sure exactly what rules you're playing with, so I'll go ahead and list all of the ones we used at a summer camp where I worked last summer, in case any of our base rules would be considered innovations to you.
The basic game:
If this ever got boring (it never did, but we did this variation anyway), we could play capture the flag dodgeball. This is exactly what it sounds like: keep all the same rules as above, but add the following additional rules:
Usually the game is won capture-the-flag style, since it's really hard to get everyone out and much easier to sneak the flag out amidst the chaos of dodgeball. This combination allows for some really interesting strategies, though.
Make a tournament or something. I'm assuming this is for children and they like to be competitive. Let them be competitive and they won't be bored as easily.
Throw some gymnast mats up and have them be able to use walls. If the walls fall, so be it they can't be put up. Simple techniques. Maybe make a rule on how long a ball can be held, and enforce it. Handicap the boys by making them throw left-handed. Anything to keep it interesting.
Dodgeball: URF mode.
In all seriousness, though, you can always turn to FPS games for inspiration. You can try some CTF or control points-style thing, where you have to get a certain number of balls to a point to win. This splits their goals between getting the other team out to get more balls, or saving balls to put on the point. RiotShadowStorm mentioned an Infection style game: another version is a FFA type where the zombies can only tag people, where others can use dodgeballs.
Alternatively, you can try some other games, kickball for instance. I used to play a variation called Alaskan Kickball (or maybe it was Australian, I forget), where you play on a basketball court and instead of tagging someone with the ball to get them out, you had to score a basket.
We also played a game of CTF tag, where the field was split into halves, and if you got tagged (two hands) on your opponent's side, you were out and had to go sit in their 'jail' way in the back of their base. You could free your teammates by running all the way through the enemy base and tagging a person in jail. Also the area immediately around the flag and jail were safe zones once you made it there, allowing you to prep a sprint back to your own team.
