Alan Down - Montegue Blister’s Strange Games - and other odd things to do with your time

Bloody Knuckles 2: Here, players sit at a table across from each other. One player then makes their hand into a fist and places it on the table. The other player takes a heavy coin (a £2 coin, for example), puts it flat on the table, then flicks it with as much force as possible at their opponent’s knuckles. Play then reverses and it becomes the first player’s turn to form a fist. The game continues until blood is drawn or one player submits, or until both realise they are wasting their lives and decide to go and do something more productive instead.

Bloody Knuckles even has its own governing body—the World Bloody Knuckles Association—which promotes the game and organises regular events.

Extreme games and sports are played by fit, highly trained participants and usually involve some degree of danger.

Extreme Rock, Paper, Scissorsis just a violent variation on the standard game—basically it’s an excuse for a physical attack on your opponent.

As in the normal version, each player decides and forms the hand position to represent rock, paper or scissors; however, if paper wins it is translated as a slap and the player who wins with this throw may slap his opponent’s hands. If you win with ‘Rock’ this becomes a punch; while scissors are turned into a poke. This changes the dynamics of the game somewhat, in that players will favour one type of assault over another and hence try and win with that throw, so a player wary of being slapped again may try to overplay their opponent with scissors.

There are many variants of Extreme Rock, Paper, Scissors (ERPS) and each is referred to by different names in different countries. One of the most interesting is Dancing RPS, which can be played whilst dancing to music. Here, the three throws are Drum and Bass, Techno and, finally, Waltz. Techno (thrown by waving your arms in the air) beats Drum and Bass (hands make drumming motions), which in turn beats Waltz (arms are formed as if holding an imaginary partner for a waltz). To make the game fair, Waltz then beats Techno.

The French call RPS Rochambeaux. Presumably this inspired the television programme South Park to feature the game Roshambo, which involves male players taking it in turns to kick each other in the groin until one player falls down or gives up.

The well-known game of Rock, Paper, Scissors is hardly strange—although, strangely, it does have a World Championship (Bob ‘the Rock’ Cooper from the UK was the 2006 champion). However, if you consider yourself better than RPS, as its aficionados call it, you need to learn to play Rock, Paper, Scissors 101—the degree-level version.

This version of the game is played exactly like the game you know, except there are a phenomenal 101 possible hand positions. To make the game as random and fair as the standard game, each of the selected shapes beats fifty others, and can, in turn, be beaten by fifty itself. (Simple mathematics reveals that this will cause there to be a less than one percent chance of a tie and a total of 5 050 outcomes.)

The hand positions represent objects ranging from ‘Alien’ to ‘UFO’, ‘Medusa’ to ‘Satan’. These are fully illustrated on the RPS 101 website (see Internet Resources) and range from the obvious hand movements to ones requiring some skill. (The shape for ‘Vampire’ is particularly brilliant.)

As an example of how the game plays, if you choose to go with ‘Gun’ this will shoot ‘Princess’, blast apart ‘Turnip’, but will be resisted by ‘Dragon’. If you choose ‘Baby’, this will spill ‘Beer’, ruin ‘Guitar’ and be unaware of ‘Satan’, but is obviously carried off by ‘Robot’.

Once you have mastered the 101 hand positions and memorised which other positions they beat, then comes the even harder part—finding someone to play against.

Finger Jousting, or Finger Fencing as it is sometimes known, is a possibly ancient game that combines jousting and sword fighting yet requires neither horse nor blade.

In its simplest form, two players stand facing each other and clasp their right hands together as if about to arm wrestle. Then, on a given command, each player extends his index finger (their ‘lance’) and battle commences. The objective is to jab your opponent before they jab you. At no point may the players’ hands lose contact with each other. This means that jabbing the other player is often a lot less straightforward than you might initially think; with feints, sideways moves and full body twists all yielding results.

For a basic game, the first to score wins, or you can apportion different points for striking different body areas: legs and other arm gets one point, chest and back gets two points, the head gets three points. The jousting arm itself must never be hit, and the unused arm may play no part in the bout.

The game’s governing body, the World Finger Jousting Federation (which is run by the self-styled Lord of the Joust, Julian Gluck) has built up a glossary of finger fighting terms and rules (see Internet Resources for website) which includes such gems as:

Bobbo Lance: A straight jousting move wherein a player cocks their right elbow back towards their chest, pulling their opponent closer.

Gesture of Good Disposition: A physical motion executed before and after every match as a sign of gratitude towards the opponent. Approved tournament gestures are handshakes, bows, head nods and man hugs.

Taking care of your fingernails is a sign of respect for your opponent and shows an interest in maintaining a healthy body.

The length of a competitor’s finger shall not be longer than 15cm.

Illegal fingernail length is an automatic disqualification unless an approved glove is worn or the fingernail is trimmed immediately.

American-Indian Wrestling is based on pitting different parts of the body against your opponent’s, one part at a time. There are many different forms, such as Back Wrestling: standing back to back and trying to push each other a set distance; One-legged Wrestling: standing on one leg and trying to push your opponent over; Thumb Wrestling, and, of course, Leg Wrestling.

In Leg Wrestling two players lie flat on their backs, side by side. They should be next to each other and touching, but pointing in different directions so that the feet of one player are next to the head of the other and the players’ hips are touching. They then simultaneously raise their adjacent legs straight up three times. On the third raise players should hook ankles and try to pull their opponent over. No other part of the body is used, and the non-playing leg should remain flat on the floor and not be used for leverage. Games usually last a much shorter time than in Arm Wrestling, and successful play depends not just on muscular strength but also on stealth and speed.

Morais an ancient guessing game that involves using your hands.

If there are two players, each faces the other and on a count of three must show a number of fingers on one hand. The number chosen can be anything from zero (keep your fist closed) to five (extend your thumb and all of your fingers). At the same time as both players show their hand they also shout out what they think the total number of fingers will be. If a player guesses correctly they gain two points; whoever is nearest to the correct answer gets one point.

A successful strategy involves noticing whether your opponent has a tendency to favour small or large numbers, then using this information appropriately.