Puppy Board

Have you ever been bored out of your skull with only a cheap, back-flipping wind-up toy for entertainment? Neither have I, but Parkland's Monday Game Design class is now prepared for such a scenario, for we have invented a game and have dubbed it Puppy Board!

Now how do you play Puppy Board? The setup and rules are simple. Find a piece of paper and pencil (standard notebook size) and draw a target that fills the width of the page that looks like so:

The number 1 is always placed in the center, and the number 10 is always outside the target. The placement of 2 through 9 is up for interpretation as long as all numbers are represented in the spaces without repeating.

After drawing the board, find a second piece of paper to keep score on. Find some friends to play with (2-4 players recommended), then wind up the back-flipping wind-up toy, place it in the center, and let it go. When it finally runs out of boing, take note of which space the tail of the critter has landed in (assuming it has a tail), and that is the number of points you get.

If the wind-up's tail lands on a line, the score on the outer part of the line (farthest from center) is given. If the wind-up falls over mid-flip, no points are earned. This happens quite frequently, so don't feel bad if it occurs.

Take turns winding up the toy and add up total scores after each round. If someone has 20 pts after a round is completed, they are the winner. If two people are tied for the 20 pts. They take one last turn for a tie-breaker.

This game was our first group assignment in Game Design, and is named Puppy Board because the original wind-up was... well... a yellow puppy dog.