Hey, it's time to learn a new game. This is a game I invented a couple weeks ago. It may or may not be good. It's a simple dice game, along the lines of Farkle or Yahtzee. It probably sounds a little confusing at first, but if you play a few rounds you will catch on:
Volleyball Dice
SETUP AND CONCEPT
This is a quick game for 2 players. Each player gets 6 dice, representing their 6 team members. A round is played until one player is out of dice. Then everybody gets their 6 dice back and the scoring player serves for the next round.
SERVE
One player serves by rolling their dice and lining them up in a row in front of them (keep your row nicely aligned - both players need to know which die is in which spot!)
FOOTWORK
The other player does footwork by rolling their dice. They put their dice into a line as well, and they decide which of their dice to match with which of the opponent's. The rules are:
- If the dice are equal, both stay.
- If one is higher than the other, the lower die is removed from play.
BUMPS
If the receiving player now has less than 6 dice, they can do up to 2 bumps before returning the ball. To bump, you roll one of your dice that are out of play. Put it back in your line anywhere that is unoccupied *provided* that it is equal to or higher than the opponent's die in that spot. If there is no spot it can go, that bump is a failure and the die remains out. You don't knock out the opponent's dice when bumping even if your new die is higher than theirs.
RETURN
Now this player returns the ball. They don't do anything - the dice they have in front of them is their return. The first player has to roll their remaining dice and do Footwork now, followed by Bumps, and then they Return it back, all following the rules above.
SCORE
When somebody runs out of dice, that means the ball has touched the ground on their side of the court, so the other team scores a point. The scoring team now serves, starting a new round with everybody back up to 6 dice.
Play to whatever number of points is appropriate!
OPTIONAL RULE
This is probably a good thing to add: If you roll 3 of a kind on a serve or footwork, it's an Ace or Spike respectively, and you win the round on the spot.
NASTY OPTIONAL RULE
Games going too long? Try this: if you fail a bump, just like in real volleyball, you've dropped the ball and thus the other team scores immediately. Now you're not going to bump unless you have a really good chance to place it!
EXAMPLE ROUND
P1 rolls to serve. They get 5, 3, 1, 6, 4, 2.
P2 rolls for footwork. They get 2, 1, 4, 3, 1, 1. (sad!)
P2 decides to line their dice up as follows:
P1: 5 3 1 6 4 2
P2: 2 4 1 3 1 1
This was actually a bad play (P2's 3 should've been played against the 2 or 1, where it would win, but that would make this example really long!). As a result, some dice have been knocked out:
P1: 5 x 1 6 4 2
P2: x 4 1 x x x
So now P2 tries to bump to get those dice back. The first bump is a 1. That can't be placed in any open spot (it'd have to beat a 2, 4, 5 or 6), so it's no good. P2 bumps again and gets a 4. Hooray! They can put it up against either the 2 or 4. It doesn't matter which because bumps don't knock out the other player's dice.
P1: 5 x 1 6 4 2
P2: 4 4 1 x x x
P2 is now returning the ball (they don't roll, their return is just their existing dice), so P1 rolls their 5 remaining dice for their Footwork, getting 3, 1, 5, 5, 1. They place them like this:
P1: 5 5 3 1 1 x
P2: 4 4 1 x x x
This is a knockout blow! All 3 of P2's dice are gone, and P1 has won this round. Looks like P2 must have hit it into the net. P1 will serve next round and everybody has 6 dice again.
So that's Volleyball Dice. Give it a try with your friends!
So what is the big idea here? We got more items this month than we would get in a typical month - on average there'd be 2 updates in a month, which would be an expected amount of 20 new items. But it was also easier for me to do. By doing a single big theme (Steampunk this month) instead of two smaller ones, it's much easier to make a variety of items. Previously I'd have to stop myself - "Oh, that's enough Adventure items for a pack, I have to move on to the next theme". And oh mama were there so many themes!! But now I can go crazy and put in all the things I'm thinking of. Or maybe not - there are actually a lot more potential items for the steam system, and I think I'll be adding them every so often, making it more and more functional. Maybe one day you'll be able to program your own games inside Growtopia, on a steam computer. Anyway, this new system of 1 big update per month allows each update to be fully fleshed out instead of just dipping your toe into a theme.
The other big benefit is that each update can be very meaningful. You're not going to see a month of "assorted random items". This month we introduce the powerful new steam technology, next month it's... well, you'll see. But it's an entirely new gameplay element again. I know what I'm adding in July and that's fun and different, and I have one other big idea definitely to come this year. I can't promise I have (or will come up with) 12 big game-changers like steam machines, but I do have a lot of big ideas, and if there isn't something game-changing in a month, at least there will be a big meaty update!
But then I took another step - I spent an hour or more going through my Steam list and breaking it down into categories! Oh how I love organizing data. So here it is. "Favorites" are games I'm currently actively playing (Clicker Heroes isn't exactly a game, but I do load it up every day, which I should stop doing because it's stupid....), "Active Fiddling" are ones I'm not really playing, but I'm theoretically coming back to every so often to peck at a little more.