User:OPOSSUM/How To Play Blockhoppers

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[[WORK IN PROGRESS]]

DISCLAIMER: This is not a joke article, just something that I didn't think I'd be able to post somewhere else! Enjoy this dogshit game.

Blockhoppers is a game that my sisters and I invented when we were about 8 years old. We had no name for it at the time, so I have retroactively given it this name, "Blockhoppers". I remember this being really fun and "intense", but I don't remember all the rules. This was the best thing we ever did with baby blocks after you're too old to learn the alphabet and shit.

You will need:

Yeah, that's it.

36 baby blocks, the kind with only two sides painted. Arrange these in a 6x6 grid, with a colored side facing up. (Use different numbers of blocks to make some cool custom maps, possibly with tall towers, islands, arches, etc. A 4x4 grid will make for a quick game, and an 8x8 grid is better if you have more than 4 players.)

A few Legos. Get four 2x2 bricks, a sandy-beige one and three of some other color. Now you can make your own block ninja to use as a game piece. Lincoln Logs and chess rooks work well too. Make one of these for every player. We called the different colors "coats" based on whatever material the piece's color reminded us of. So brown was the "Coat of Wood", red was "Coat of Fire" (epic and badass), yellow was "Coat of Gold", gray was "Coat of Steel", orange was "Coat of Rusty Iron", and light green was "Coat of Leaves". I specifically remember that nobody wanted to be the Coat of Leaves.

Setup

The fully set-up board.

After making your 6x6 grid of blocks (or other kind of board), place your Lego ninja pawns in the corners. (Or not in the corners, if you want.)

Uhh... that's basically it.

How to actually play the game!

Ok, I don't remember all the rules all that well. Pick some random fucker to go first.

ON YOUR TURN:

• You can move your little guy to a horiontally adjacent block, as long as it isn't higher (unless you are on a "trampoline block".)
• If you are not standing on a block at the end of your turn you die, obviously. You also can't be on the same block as another player.

• If you wish, you may bring the block you just walked off of with you. Put that block on your little guy's "head". You may also stay still and pick up a block (if you do this and there is not another block underneath you, you fall to your death and you are now out of the game.)

• If you started your turn with a block on your guy's head, you can "throw" the block: put it wherever you want on the board, as long as it is adjacent to at least one other block on at least one side (horizontally or vertically.) You can also throw a block to another player, and play a shitty game of catch.
• Alternatively, you can put a block onto an unpainted side to make a "trampoline block." This will cost you your whole turn, so you can't move. You can even do this if you're holding something.
• You cannot carry more than one baby block on your "head" at a time.

• You cannot do absolutely nothing on your turn, sorry.

• Play passes to the left, or the right, or whichever way you want, I don't give a shit. We just take turns.

HOW TO DIE

• If at any point, even if it isn't your turn, you have no possible moves (throwing blocks or picking them up doesn't count), you are trapped and out of the game. Now you can only watch everyone else play. Last one standing wins.

Strategies

Boats/snakes/trains: Make a line of three blocks (preferably trampolines), and repeatedly throw the hindmost block onto the front of your line. This technique used to be virtually unstoppable but it eventually got boring to those who did it.

Selfless team strategy: Throw large amounts of blocks to another player, allowing that player to make a tower out of trampolines. This blessed fellow will basically be ensured to win the game. Now this player must simply waste turns by repeatedly dropping and replacing the top block of the tower. However, this is rare since few players ever want to team up in this shit.

Variants

We had no singular rule set for this game back in the day.

Classic version

This was the original version of the game, before I realized how overpowered some strategies, such as boats, were.

• You can "throw" a block absolutely ANYWHERE, as long as it lines up with your grid of blocks. Put it on the other side of the fucking world, for all I care.*

*Except for trampoline blocks, you can't throw blocks on top of them for some reason.

• Death only applies if you cannot move at the start of your turn.

Bouncy garbage

• Same as above, but you can immediately throw the blocks you just picked up, allowing two players to trap a third player in the corner before that third player's first turn has even started.
• This means that you can move to an adjacent square, take the block you were just on with you, and then put the block you just picked up underneath you.
• The entire above process can be simplified but replicated by simply moving your little guy with the block still under him. Thus this strategy is often thought of as "riding bouncy blocks", which is how this variant got its name.

Balanced and boring

• You can't put a block underneath you, and making boats/snakes/trains is completely banned. Ick.