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Calvinball

1168 statements
224 feature instances
193 referencing feature instances

Calvinball	type	FeatureClass
Calvinball	label	Calvinball
Calvinball	page	Calvinball
Calvinball	comment	Calvinball is a game which we see characters play but whose rules we don't know. In some instances the rules may even be unclear to the players or even get changed while the game is being played. This allows authors to create games that are absurdly silly, complicated, or arcane. Such games typically fall into these categories: Games which don't have a codified ruleset In-Universe; the players aren't playing to win, but just to have fun, and they'll happily change the rules to make it more fun. Games which don't exist In-Universe either, but are rather pretext or have an ulterior motive; the players are making it up as they go along, without other characters' knowledge. "Nomic-style" games, which do have rules, but also have built-in mechanics for changing the rules during play; they're well-defined, but they're never played the same way twice, and they look baffling to onlookers. Games which aren't described in full because it's just funnier that way. The key to Calvinball is that it allows the work to depict the game without having to take time out to describe it to the audience. It's particularly useful to show crazy or destructive characters wreaking mayhem in what looks to the audience like organized chaos. If any partial description is given, it's usually a list of Noodle Implements, and is often filled with Perfectly Cromulent Words. If the basic rules are described to the audience in any way (or if the game already exists in Real Life) then it's not Calvinball. You may instead be dealing with The Points Mean Nothing (where the game is explained but the scoring is arbitrary); Moving the Goalposts (where the game is explained but characters try to change the rules to their own advantage); Gretzky Has the Ball (where the sport is real but the characters play it like Calvinball); Artistic License â€“ Sports (where the sport is real but just inaccurately portrayed); New Rules as the Plot Demands (where the fictional game is technically defined but inconsistently portrayed); Gameplay Roulette (where the rules are defined, but the game itself unpredictably changes them on the players); or Sudden Contest Format Change (where the entire format of the game is changed by its organizers mid-play). When a sport doesn't exist in real life, but has defined rules that could be followed, it's a Fictional Sport instead. Likewise with a Fictional Board Game. The Trope Namer is Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes, who has no patience for games with rules.
Calvinball	fetched	2024-03-17T09:16:58Z
Calvinball	parsed	2024-03-17T09:16:58Z
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Calvinball	processingComment	Dropped link to ThereAreNoRules: Not an Item - FEATURE
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Calvinball	processingUnknown	StarControlII
Calvinball	isPartOf	DBTropes
Calvinball / int_102a22a7	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_102a22a7	comment	Ansem Retort used this nicely in one strip. Namine challenges Larxene to a card game where the rules are entirely made up, any card ever can be played, and there is apparently no real way to beat her. However:
Calvinball / int_102a22a7	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_102a22a7	featureConfidence	1.0
Ansem Retort (Webcomic)	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_102a22a7
Calvinball / int_10b060ee	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_10b060ee	comment	In Dork Tower, Igor insists on inventing "house rules" for almost every game played, including rules for landmines in Candyland and a variation of License Plate Bingo that was so arcane, the road trip was over by the time he'd finished explaining it.
Calvinball / int_10b060ee	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_10b060ee	featureConfidence	1.0
Dork Tower (Webcomic)	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_10b060ee
Calvinball / int_114e569f	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_114e569f	comment	Rihannsu: The Empty Chair takes fizzbin from Star Trek: The Original Series and runs with it to create "Tournament Fizzbin", a game where you make up the rules as you go along. The Enterprise crew creates it after their Romulan friend Ael t'Rllaillieu and one of her officers have trouble grasping poker and telling card suits apart. The goal seems not to win so much as to get drunk and have fun.
Calvinball / int_114e569f	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_114e569f	featureConfidence	1.0
Rihannsu	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_114e569f
Calvinball / int_12440199	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_12440199	comment	Rhett & Link sketch Risky Settlers, Knights and Allies of the Lords of Dominion of Earth: Pandemic Edition, the most complicated board game ever, which includes DNA swabbing another player and waiting 5 to 10 business days for the results, one player retrieving a blooming elderberry from the north-facing slope of a mountain... in real life, a Harlem Shake, and a player having a finger cut off after losing a game of musical chairs. And we only get to see the process of deciding who goes first.
Calvinball / int_12440199	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_12440199	featureConfidence	1.0
Rhett & Link (Web Video)	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_12440199
Calvinball / int_16b97fcd	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_16b97fcd	comment	An episode of The Bob Newhart Show features Bob and his poker buddies playing ever more outlandish card games such as Snee-Ho (where a player wins if he draws the "King of Snee") and Klopsky (which calls for four packs of cards and a banana).
Calvinball / int_16b97fcd	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_16b97fcd	featureConfidence	1.0
The Bob Newhart Show	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_16b97fcd
Calvinball / int_1a8d488a	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_1a8d488a	comment	Steve Jackson's Munchkin series states in the rules themselves that players are not required to follow the rules, and indeed, that players can even make their own rules up as they go along, with the stipulation that whoever owns the game gets the final say in the matter. The fact that there are numerous different versions of Munchkin (Munchkin Cthulhu, Munchkin Bites, Star Munchkin, etc.) and the fact that each of these versions have their own expansion packs, plus the fact that you are encouraged to combine decks, can result in very Calvinball-like games indeed. Then there's bookmarks and other swag (including a rare coin token) that go with the games, which have even more ridiculous rules than some of the cards themselves. Perhaps the most ridiculous mechanic, though, is the "Cheat" card, which allows you to play any card regardless of whether you would normally be able to, which could be construed to apply to any card from any game whatsoever.
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Calvinball / int_1a8d488a	featureConfidence	1.0
Munchkin (Tabletop Game)	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_1a8d488a
Calvinball / int_1adee40d	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_1adee40d	comment	Subverted in The World Ends with You. It looks like Tin Pin Slammer is going to be something that just parodies Yu-Gi-Oh, but then you actually play it.
Calvinball / int_1adee40d	featureApplicability	-0.3
Calvinball / int_1adee40d	featureConfidence	1.0
The World Ends with You (Video Game)	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_1adee40d
Calvinball / int_1b94c69	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_1b94c69	comment	Death Race 2000: The Trans-Continental Death Race seems to have only two rules: make it to the finish line first (if at all) and get additional points by running over people. And which is the actual thing that makes you the winner seems to change as necessary. And so does the rules of what makes you ineligible for winning (such as running over the Deacon of the Bi-Partisan Church). When the "Calvin" of the tale is the government, all you can do is shut up and keep playing.
Calvinball / int_1b94c69	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_1b94c69	featureConfidence	1.0
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Calvinball / int_1bdeba5a	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_1bdeba5a	comment	X-Men crossover X of Swords is this. The contest of swords between Krakoa and Arakko was originally presumed by the Champions and the readers alike to be a series of sword duels to the death. But the person in charge of the contest has their own interests in mind and so only a few of the contests even involve swords at all, with the others being racing, armwrestling, dancing, eating, drinking and even a jigsaw puzzle. Even then, the rules remain unpredictable: "a fight to the death" turns out to be "the first one to die wins" while a drinking game between two people on the same side means that they get a point no matter what but still feel the effect of the drinks during the next match.
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Calvinball / int_1beda93b	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_1beda93b	comment	Sluggy Freelance has "Quisatz Haderach", an exaggerated parody of Harry Potter's Quidditch with random Dune references that makes the nonsensical rules worse. And in the end, it's all a moot point because nothing but the Golden Snitch matters anyway.
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Calvinball / int_1beda93b	featureConfidence	1.0
Sluggy Freelance (Webcomic)	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_1beda93b
Calvinball / int_1cc09117	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_1cc09117	comment	Bleach: Apparently any time the shinigami try to do something for the New Year during filler, this happens. In Episode 303, the shinigami play a New Year's karuta card game. It's originally supposed to be based on a real game, but Yachiru doesn't bother explaining the rules. Players get ejected on the basis of made-up rules, and things quickly degenerate into chaos. In Episode 335, Kira Got Volunteered by Hisagi to host a New Year's divisional kite-flying bonding exercise, but Hisagi sabotages it to spice things up. Things escalate from gentle bonding to all-out war, until Kira's attempt to end it accidentally destroys Yamamoto's barracks. Yamamoto's Unstoppable Rage ends the chaos with the effectiveness of a Fantastic Nuke.
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Calvinball / int_1cea7598	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_1cea7598	comment	In Return of the Lawndale Militia, when Daria's classmates are being held hostage, Mack distracts the guards with a card game called "Flopputs", which auther Peter Guerin admits is a Homage to Fizzbin (see below).
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Calvinball / int_1ec294c7	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_1ec294c7	comment	The Ghost and Molly McGee: In "Let's Play Turnipball!", the eponymous game of Turnipball uses a raw turnip as the ball, a random assortment of sports equipment including golf clubs, croquet mallets and cricket bats, and puts some players on unicycles. Scoring seems to be completely random and arbitrary, and Ollie Chen (who's new to the game) is hopelessly confused throughout the entire episode.
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Calvinball / int_1fcfc25	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_1fcfc25	comment	Azad in The Player of Games by Iain M. Banks is a non-comedic example of an absurdly complex game that is said to accurately model the actual running of an interstellar civilization. It involves at least three large boards and several smaller boards, as well as multiple side games involving cards, and pieces that are essentially capable of biological growth and adaptation. The entire empire is based around it; important government and military positions are determined by ranking in the Azad tournament and the winner becomes the next Emperor.
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The Player of Games	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_1fcfc25
Calvinball / int_22058212	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_22058212	comment	Bottom has Eddie's card game "One Card Slam", in which Eddie flips out a random card from the pack, slams it on the table, and demands twelve quid from Richie, and "Birthday Charades", about which all we know is that it requires the women present to undress.
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Bottom	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_22058212
Calvinball / int_23633967	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_23633967	comment	Top Gun: Maverick features Maverick inventing "dogfight football" as a team-building exercise. The full rules are not explained other than it having two balls, requiring both teams to play offense and defense at the same time. A Redditor attempted to create a full list of rules.
Calvinball / int_23633967	featureApplicability	1.0
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Top Gun: Maverick	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_23633967
Calvinball / int_23a1e19d	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_23a1e19d	comment	Robotomy: "Field of Screams": The aptly named sport of "Mutilation Ball" is very vaguely similar to American football, except if it was made to be as nonsensically violent as possible, as, aside from the opposing team, everything from your own teammates, the coaches, the field, the ball, and random monsters will try and kill you. Not even being a benchwarmer, a fan in the bleachers, or the announcer keeps you from getting mutilated. It's not clear how one "wins" the game outside of causing as much destruction as possible; despite having over seventy-three thousand rules, it's completely allowed and even actively encouraged for players to cheat. There's also "Professional Mutilation Ball", which is explicitly a pointless Forever War masquerading as a "game".
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Calvinball / int_24ffd341	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_24ffd341	comment	It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia One episode features the game of Chardee Macdennis. The rule book is bigger than most phone books, and asking questions about the rules is penalized. Cheating is encouraged, but violators are made to eat a cake — in its original ingredients (i.e. a bag full of flour, eggs, salt, etc). Challenges ranged from getting darts thrown at your hand to having insults hurled at you for extended periods of time. The winner gets to smash his opponents' game pieces. A Running Gag is "Nightcrawlers", a game played by Charlie and Frank. Its actual rules have never been elaborated upon, though it apparently involves crawling around with the lights off.
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It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_24ffd341
Calvinball / int_261c8d3f	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_261c8d3f	comment	The Simpsons: "Ice Cream of Margie (with the Light Blue Hair)" shows Homer, Lenny, and Carl playing a chair-hockey game. They disagree not only on the rules, but also on what game they're even playing. Homer claims it's called "Cincinnati Time-Waste", and Carl pulls out an official Cincinnati Time-Waste rulebook. In "The Old Man and the Key", Bart and Homer are playing a game of their own creation. It's a combination of Scrabble and Battleship, which also uses extra boards, one of which is for Monopoly.
Calvinball / int_261c8d3f	featureApplicability	1.0
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The Simpsons	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_261c8d3f
Calvinball / int_2654a385	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_2654a385	comment	Wizard's Sudoku in Problem Sleuth combines sudoku, live chess, jousting, Q*bert, Tetris, cube-building, and teapot cars. In addition, the video game elements of Problem Sleuth itself are needlessly complicated and completely nonsensical.
Calvinball / int_2654a385	featureApplicability	1.0
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Problem Sleuth (Webcomic)	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_2654a385
Calvinball / int_27831967	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_27831967	comment	In Parks and Recreation, Ben creates "Cones of Dunshire", a game which involves cones, characters with various abilities, rolling huge numbers of dice, trading resources, territory control, and requires eight to twelve players. One person is designated the "ledgerman", whose entire role is to wear a special hat and keep track of what everyone else is doing. Tellingly, it first catches on in a firm of accountants, though it later gains wider appeal.
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Calvinball / int_29ddca3e	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_29ddca3e	comment	Lumberjanes: In issue #49, Molly, Barney, Hes, Diane and Jo are invited to play a game of Emily's making called Panterra, a "multi-tiered, world-building and conquest strategy game". It's definitely the complicated rules variation (it took twenty five minutes to explain), and it can only be described as Settlers Of Catan taken up to eleven....thousand, out of a possible three. And it is awesome.
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Calvinball / int_2afd4546	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_2afd4546	comment	Berk Dragon Racing seems to have shades of this in The Dragon and the Butterfly, which makes sense since the sport is fairly new. Despite the fact that they only show up at the end of a week's worth of racing, Hiccup and the Madrigal riders are allowed to participate in the ending race because Stoick lets them. At the end of the race, the Black Sheep is launched and after the various riders try and fail to win with it, it ends up in Antonio's lap in the bleachers. Despite not being a racer himself, Antonio wins the championship because he managed to run the black sheep to the goal.
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The Dragon and the Butterfly (Fanfic)	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_2afd4546
Calvinball / int_2bb7d2f3	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_2bb7d2f3	comment	Nichijou brings us "Igo Soccer", a combination of soccer and Go. Daiku, the club's president, started an Igo Soccer club without even realizing that it was a real game. He can't make head or tail of the game itself when he sees it, other than that it involves bouncing a soccer ball and go pieces at the same time and striking very odd poses. Even his Emotionless Girl partner Sekiguchi is left in open-mouthed shock and confusion.
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Calvinball / int_2f9d69f3	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_2f9d69f3	comment	In The Real Inspector Hound, the characters in the Play Within a Play play a card game called "Pontoon Bridge". They play it twice, and the rules aren't remotely similar between the two games. One line implies that they're spinning a roulette wheel.
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Calvinball / int_310607c9	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_310607c9	comment	Wolf 359 has Funzo, a board game so complicated and bizarre, there's a warning about it in the survival manual:
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Wolf 359 (Podcast)	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_310607c9
Calvinball / int_327d36bf	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_327d36bf	comment	Fallout Is Dragons gives us Faceball, which is played with a decapitated head, two teams of three, has unexplained rules for scoring based on how the head lands, and the losers are only executed in professional leagues.
Calvinball / int_327d36bf	featureApplicability	1.0
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Calvinball / int_3286ac85	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_3286ac85	comment	Hoyle's Rules of Dragon Poker has 241 possible rule changes, some of which are vague specifically to cause arguments, and all of which stack. Good luck trying to play without a notepad by your side.
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Calvinball / int_34fd3cf6	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_34fd3cf6	comment	Aqua Teen Hunger Force: One episode sees Shake challenging Meatwad to a game of Rock Paper Scissors. After several rounds, it appears to be going fine, then suddenly we jump cut to Shake using a condominium while Meatwad uses a hurricane (which apparently beats all housing). The Bizarre and Improbable Golf Game in one of the show's spinoff videogames turns golf into a cross between Calvinball and Fallout. Complete with chainsaw fights against time-travelling robot turkeys, and that's before it gets ridiculous. There are courses on the moon and in Hell. All of this is apparently legal. Carl teaches several Meatwads how to play Texas Hold'em Poker in "Multiple Meats"... with flash cards. One of Carl's winning hands is a full house AND a pair.
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Calvinball / int_3558eaa2	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_3558eaa2	comment	In Community episode "VCR Maintenance and Educational Publishing", Abed and Annie play "Pile of Bullets", a baffling VCR game that includes multiple tokens, various cards that interact with each other, frequent need to shout "Bang!" at the screen, and impressive amounts of multitasking. There are technically two other players, but they give up on trying to make sense of it almost immediately.
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Community	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_3558eaa2
Calvinball / int_359ea6a1	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_359ea6a1	comment	Muppets Now: The segment "Pepe's Unbelievable Game Show" has rules set out by Scooter, but Pepe prefers to have the contestants do whatever his whim decides instead.
Calvinball / int_359ea6a1	featureApplicability	1.0
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Muppets Now	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_359ea6a1
Calvinball / int_362d7cc3	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_362d7cc3	comment	"Ultrahyperball" from the Penn Zero: Part-Time Hero episode of the same name is so complicated, it can take thousands of years to play a single game, and trying to load the rules caused Sashi's computerized glasses to explode. The actual rulebook is extremely large and takes so long to read, players' eyes will fall out of their sockets long before finding out how to actually win (by popping the ball). On top of it all, the losing team has their planet destroyed while the winners have a pizza party.
Calvinball / int_362d7cc3	featureApplicability	1.0
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Calvinball / int_3683873b	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_3683873b	comment	The Muppet Show Comic Book: Not-Statler-and-Waldorf are playing a strange board game in the "Family Reunion" arc. It looks like chess, and the goal is apparently to create chaos by introducing new pieces, but beyond that, who knows.
Calvinball / int_3683873b	featureApplicability	1.0
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The Muppet Show Comic Book (Comic Book)	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_3683873b
Calvinball / int_36ee2abe	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_36ee2abe	comment	Paranoia fits the bill, depending on how you see it. Only the GM is allowed to see any of the rules beyond the setting description and character creation guide; for the most part, they can make up whatever rules they want beyond that if it keeps the game interesting, especially as it anticipates many players will "cheat" and read the published rules anyway. In keeping with the spirit of the game, questioning the rules or demonstrating knowledge of them will result in painful death for the players.
Calvinball / int_36ee2abe	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_36ee2abe	featureConfidence	1.0
Paranoia (Tabletop Game)	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_36ee2abe
Calvinball / int_37e3d2d	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_37e3d2d	comment	In Welkin Weasels, the most popular game among mustelidae is called "hollyhockers". The game appears to be a bizarre mixture of poker and the I Ching, in which bets are placed on patterns that a thrown cupful of hollyhock seeds will fall into.
Calvinball / int_37e3d2d	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_37e3d2d	featureConfidence	1.0
Welkin Weasels	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_37e3d2d
Calvinball / int_39d64f55	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_39d64f55	comment	The Adventures of Joe the Circle gives us Zorgellian Mega-Poker. In addition to the traditional cards and chips, it requires each player to have a compass, a tide chart, an anvil, and a working knowledge of the laws of thermodynamics.
Calvinball / int_39d64f55	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_39d64f55	featureConfidence	1.0
The Adventures of Joe the Circle (Webcomic)	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_39d64f55
Calvinball / int_3b34143f	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_3b34143f	comment	Quidditch from the Harry Potter novels has fairly straightforward rules, except when it comes to violations of those rules. It is mentioned that there are over 700 different fouls — and at the first Quidditch World Cup, every single foul at that time (plus some that were not yet declared fouls at that time) was committed. One of the rules of Quidditch is that players are not allowed to learn about the fouls. It might give them ideas. In Quidditch Through the Ages, the book's author was apparently given access to the complete foul list, and agrees that "no good could come of its release to the general public." And many of the fouls don't even require a wand (although they might require much Hammerspace and more than a few Noodle Implements).
Calvinball / int_3b34143f	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_3b34143f	featureConfidence	1.0
Harry Potter	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_3b34143f
Calvinball / int_3b878256	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_3b878256	comment	Legion of Super-Heroes: One issue of Legionnaires features Triad and Bouncing Boy watching a game that looks almost exactly like Baseball, until you notice the Cricket wickets.
Calvinball / int_3b878256	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_3b878256	featureConfidence	1.0
Legion of Super-Heroes (Comic Book)	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_3b878256
Calvinball / int_3cc61f13	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_3cc61f13	comment	We Bare Bears: At the start of "Beehive", the Bears play football with Ranger Tabes. Much to her bafflement and frustration, their version of American football incorporates all sorts of other sports including golf, basketball, and even pro-gaming (with Grizzly waving around a video game controller while shouting about fighting game moves).
Calvinball / int_3cc61f13	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_3cc61f13	featureConfidence	1.0
We Bare Bears	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_3cc61f13
Calvinball / int_3e5de40b	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_3e5de40b	comment	The Scrubs episode "My Jiggly Ball" gave us "jigglyball", which was actually a hoax designed by the Janitor to maneuver J.D. into a position where the entire hospital got to throw tennis balls at him.
Calvinball / int_3e5de40b	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_3e5de40b	featureConfidence	1.0
Scrubs	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_3e5de40b
Calvinball / int_3ec0e37	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_3ec0e37	comment	The gaming group in Full Frontal Nerdity once attempted to play a science fiction board game called Warp-2-Fast: Tycho Drift. The basic concept is a race around a board to be the first spaceship to deliver its cargo. But then there's the complications, which include teleporter accidents, temporal anomalies, asteroids etc., each of which has an entirely different mechanic. Lewis gets it the worst; he has to roll on the "paradox table" and ends up with seven temporal duplicates (the result of rolling "Ctrl-C"), and also under a permanent paradox effect that affects all future games (the result of rolling "infinity"). He eventually has to code a spreadsheet for his turns, which Nelson runs through the official paradox table app (Shawn: "They couldn't fix the game but they wrote an app for when it breaks so it can continue to metastasize?") When they get a card (which they're pretty sure wasn't in the deck before) that announces a space demon has decreed the race will never end, they decide enough is enough and the rules say they can take a break, which they spend burying the game under concrete.
Calvinball / int_3ec0e37	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_3ec0e37	featureConfidence	1.0
Full Frontal Nerdity (Webcomic)	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_3ec0e37
Calvinball / int_3f047e59	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_3f047e59	comment	Our Miss Brooks: In the episode "Parlor Game", Miss Brooks invents a convoluted parlor game in order to annoy Mr. Conklin and, in so doing, convinces him to allow his family to go out for the evening.
Calvinball / int_3f047e59	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_3f047e59	featureConfidence	1.0
Our Miss Brooks	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_3f047e59
Calvinball / int_400469e	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_400469e	comment	Calvin and Hobbes: Calvinball's Trope Namer is the anti-game invented the duo. There are only two consistent rules: you can't play the same way twice, and you can't question the masks. Calvin just doesn't have the patience for games with rigid rules, hierarchies, and scorekeeping; the rules are made up as the players go along, and the main point seemed to just be to have the most fun (or annoy your opponent as much as possible). Although Calvin invented it, Hobbes is very good at it too, and Rosalyn picks it up quickly as well. Calvin also notes that virtually every real game he tries to play eventually turns into Calvinball (like his variant of baseball with over two dozen bases spread out around the whole neighborhood):
Calvinball / int_400469e	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_400469e	featureConfidence	1.0
Calvin and Hobbes (Comic Strip)	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_400469e
Calvinball / int_404622d6	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_404622d6	comment	In the Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends episode "Bloo Tube", the gang plays "Farat Trap of Life", which is played on four boards similar to Monopoly, The Game Of Life, Mousetrap, and Pop-O-Matic Trouble.
Calvinball / int_404622d6	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_404622d6	featureConfidence	1.0
Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_404622d6
Calvinball / int_41788df9	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_41788df9	comment	The Gods Are Bastards has an unnamed card game between the gods Eserion and Vesk, "whose object appeared to be making up increasingly ridiculous rules and bullying or tricking each other into abiding by them." Among these rules are ones which involve "go fish" and "checkmate", converting an opponent's hand to "wave-function cards", the Seven Deadly Sins, and accusations of cheating which can lead to a "Penitent Jihad".
Calvinball / int_41788df9	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_41788df9	featureConfidence	1.0
The Gods Are Bastards	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_41788df9
Calvinball / int_42804a6	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_42804a6	comment	The My Little Pony: Make Your Mark episode "The Jinxie Games" focuses on Bridlewood Forest Critter Field Day, in which pony/critter teams compete in a variety of bizarre events whose rules are never explained. Ponies can win events they're not even participating in, and a tree and a burst football somehow end up with trophies.
Calvinball / int_42804a6	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_42804a6	featureConfidence	1.0
My Little Pony: Make Your Mark	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_42804a6
Calvinball / int_42ffb88e	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_42ffb88e	comment	Would you believe that one of these could be an SCP Foundation entry? Behold SCP-2206, "Maximum League Baseball," a phenomenally bizarre series of radio broadcasts that are apparently the results of baseball games in an alternate universe. The rules have little to no bearing on baseball rules from our reality, and permitted participants include a team of Aztec warriors who perform blood sacrifices before every game, actual ghosts, a collection of autonomous vehicles, clones, and a bunch of literal Red Shirts who die in droves every game. The rules include mentions of invocation of weather gods, mandatory steroid use, assassination attempts, Catholic clergy used as mascots, and Atlantis.
Calvinball / int_42ffb88e	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_42ffb88e	featureConfidence	1.0
SCP Foundation (Website)	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_42ffb88e
Calvinball / int_432101ef	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_432101ef	comment	Precocious: They call it "Suicide Kings," and it's complicated, so don't ask them to explain it. You wouldn't get it anyway. There's also this strip, the alt-text of which mentions the Trope Namer.
Calvinball / int_432101ef	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_432101ef	featureConfidence	1.0
Precocious / Web Comic	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_432101ef
Calvinball / int_43351802	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_43351802	comment	The Mr. Peabody & Sherman Show has the eponymous duo go back in time to watch what is supposed to be the first game of baseball, but the inventor Alexander Cartwright is such a poor sport, he keeps changing the rules on the fly to make sure he wins. Eventually, it gets so bad that the game bears no resemblance to baseball, and even Alexander agrees it's become a mess.
Calvinball / int_43351802	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_43351802	featureConfidence	1.0
The Mr. Peabody & Sherman Show	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_43351802
Calvinball / int_437c83b7	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_437c83b7	comment	My Little Pony: FIENDship Is Magic: In issue #1 Young Sombra and Radiant Hope play a version of an imagination game that Radiant seems to make up rules for on the fly.
Calvinball / int_437c83b7	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_437c83b7	featureConfidence	1.0
My Little Pony: FIENDship Is Magic (Comic Book)	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_437c83b7
Calvinball / int_4522fd1	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_4522fd1	comment	In the Whateley Universe, there's Dis-chess, which is something like 3-D chess where the rules change every few minutes.
Calvinball / int_4522fd1	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_4522fd1	featureConfidence	1.0
Whateley Universe	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_4522fd1
Calvinball / int_455e3038	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_455e3038	comment	An episode of King of the Hill had a B-plot revolving around Peggy's attempt to develop a mock game show based on all the things people like most about TV game shows. The result is an incomprehensible game called "Spin the Choice".
Calvinball / int_455e3038	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_455e3038	featureConfidence	1.0
King of the Hill	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_455e3038
Calvinball / int_45799562	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_45799562	comment	Talislanta has "Trivarian", a game so complex that it can only be played by people with two brains.
Calvinball / int_45799562	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_45799562	featureConfidence	1.0
Talislanta (Tabletop Game)	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_45799562
Calvinball / int_4617a9f2	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_4617a9f2	comment	On Married... with Children, Al and Griff are shown playing chess with elements of checkers, Simon Says, and dice thrown in. According to Griff, the game would be better if they knew how to actually play chess.
Calvinball / int_4617a9f2	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_4617a9f2	featureConfidence	1.0
Married... with Children	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_4617a9f2
Calvinball / int_468bebb0	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_468bebb0	comment	Discworld: The card game Cripple Mr. Onion is described as being incomprehensible, in spite of it being the most famous card game on the Disc. People have derived a playable game from it (although it requires eight suits like some European decks), but it's funnier when left to the reader's imagination. The Patrician plays a puzzle game called â€œJikan no Mudaâ€�, presumably a Shout-Out to Sudoku, which supposedly translates as â€œcomplete waste of timeâ€� â€œThudâ€� may, or may not qualify. Itâ€™s apparently somewhere between chess and mah-jong, and like chess in particular, a lot of people are familiar with parts of the game but few can actually play it correctly, much less win. There was a licensed game with fairly simple rules, but complex strategy. Discworld's gods have been known to play games to which no one knows the rules, sometimes even the gods themselves. We do know, though, that they consider games like Bridge and Chess to be so complicated as to be Calvinballs (Death is pretty good at chess, naturally, but even he's not quite sure how the horseys move). The game they play with the lives of men appears to be a form of Dungeons & Dragons, complete with encounter tables, although their favorite pieces have fought back against them before. Snuff introduces two: "Crockett", a cross between cricket and croquet which takes all day to explain the rules; and "Pork Saddle", a combination of spillikins, halma, and brandy — its rules are entirely forgotten, and there is some doubt that there ever really were any.
Calvinball / int_468bebb0	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_468bebb0	featureConfidence	1.0
Discworld	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_468bebb0
Calvinball / int_47dfc6f	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_47dfc6f	comment	At one point in Total Drama Action, Heather, frustrated at one of Chris' last second rule changes seeming to screw her team out of a victory, accuses him of making the rules up as he goes along. Chris simply replies, "I love my job."
Calvinball / int_47dfc6f	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_47dfc6f	featureConfidence	1.0
Total Drama	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_47dfc6f
Calvinball / int_4c44acb7	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_4c44acb7	comment	British radio show I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue gives us Mornington Crescent, a game centered around The London Underground; supposedly, you move around between stations, and the first to reach Mornington Crescent wins. The problem is that the rules are far from intuitive, it has many arcane stratagems and many more variants, and in fact much of what takes place consists of wordplay between the participants, or satirical Shout Outs to OTHER game shows such as Just a Minute. It is in some respects a Shout-Out to a Game Theory problem called Finchley Central (also involving following a route to a tube station) which DOES have the purpose of analysing how to manipulate other players into creating the opportunity to win. Many of the other rounds on Clue, such as "Boardo", a parody of every Board Game ever, or "The Game of Games" which does a similar thing with Game Shows, and has moments like this:
Calvinball / int_4c44acb7	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_4c44acb7	featureConfidence	1.0
I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue (Radio)	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_4c44acb7
Calvinball / int_4e45b093	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_4e45b093	comment	The Big Bang Theory: "Counterfactuals" could easily be a Calvinball; it involves extrapolating an Alternate Universe from a single concept and answering a bizarre question about it (for example, "In a world where mankind is ruled by beaver overlords, what food does not exist?" has the answer cheese danishes). If you freestyled it, it could easily be a Calvinball because the possibilities are endless. In-Universe, though, it's usually played by Sheldon, who has a very rigid way of thinking. Sheldon invented a bizarre chess variant by trying to invent a three-way chess gamenote which has been around in some form or another since 1722. and ending up inventing a number of new pieces with interesting effects (such as Prince Joey, the King's well-meaning but klutzy brother, who has a one-in-five chance of accidentally killing himself every time he moves). The end result includes a catapult, transporter pad, golf cart, and time machine. Sheldon being Sheldon, he may just have been trying to invent something so complex only he would understand it (and win at it). The guys can occasionally be seen playing the card game Mystical Warlords of Ka'a. The main mechanic appears to be to lay down a card on the pile and say its name.
Calvinball / int_4e45b093	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_4e45b093	featureConfidence	1.0
The Big Bang Theory	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_4e45b093
Calvinball / int_50d11fd0	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_50d11fd0	comment	The Savage Eye gives us a number of weird sports, like "Eel Wranglin" and "Potato Whispering". Perhaps the most violent, though, is a precursor of Gaelic football called "Whackadabollockin", where the object appears to be to hit someone's testicles with a hurdle.
Calvinball / int_50d11fd0	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_50d11fd0	featureConfidence	1.0
The Savage Eye	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_50d11fd0
Calvinball / int_5163b4d8	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_5163b4d8	comment	According to The Tim Tebow CFL Chronicles Canadian Football is this. Scoring a touchdown triggers bound-for-street play, where everything is inbounds and there's no end zone, and the only goal is to drive forward as far as possible (or for the defense to get the ball back into the stadium). Other teams can intervene in bound-for-street games. The football itself has a telescoping tail, and in "jav-out" configuration it can be used as a weapon, even during normal stadium play. (It doesn't help that the viewpoint character has zero prep time, and is learning the rules of Canadian football as he plays.)
Calvinball / int_5163b4d8	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_5163b4d8	featureConfidence	1.0
The Tim Tebow CFL Chronicles	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_5163b4d8
Calvinball / int_530d006f	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_530d006f	comment	My Cardboard Life features Colin and his nieces and nephews playing a board game using all the games in their closet mixed together.
Calvinball / int_530d006f	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_530d006f	featureConfidence	1.0
MyCardboardLife	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_530d006f
Calvinball / int_546876cb	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_546876cb	comment	Orbot and Cubot in Sonic Boom have their own version of "Rock, Paper, Scissors" called "Rock, Donut, Thursday". Not even they can agree what beats what, and the rules are so much of a Logic Bomb that they defeat Nominatus. As he puts it:
Calvinball / int_546876cb	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_546876cb	featureConfidence	1.0
Sonic Boom	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_546876cb
Calvinball / int_55b211b5	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_55b211b5	comment	"Charms" is a mini-game in the Epic NPC Man series. Two players take turns naming cards while making overly-dramatic hand gestures at each other, and the named cards fly around the screen.
Calvinball / int_55b211b5	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_55b211b5	featureConfidence	1.0
Epic NPC Man (Web Video)	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_55b211b5
Calvinball / int_55c5a085	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_55c5a085	comment	Mazinger Z's "Brockenball" vaguely resembles soccer, but the only established rule is that everyone wins — except the ball, which is Count Brocken's head. And Brocken happens to be a Cyborg whose head and body can operate independently.
Calvinball / int_55c5a085	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_55c5a085	featureConfidence	1.0
Mazinger Z	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_55c5a085
Calvinball / int_565f7bd0	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_565f7bd0	comment	In Sheldon, Sheldon and Dante's games usually devolve into something like this, always involving a salmon of invincibility.
Calvinball / int_565f7bd0	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_565f7bd0	featureConfidence	1.0
Sheldon (Webcomic)	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_565f7bd0
Calvinball / int_569093cc	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_569093cc	comment	In DuckTales (2017), during the episode, "Double-O-Duck in You Only Crash Twice!", Launchpad and Steelbeak play a game of Baccarat. But since they obviously have no idea just how the game is played, they pretty much make it up as they go along.
Calvinball / int_569093cc	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_569093cc	featureConfidence	1.0
DuckTales (2017)	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_569093cc
Calvinball / int_56afadff	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_56afadff	comment	In Bedknobs and Broomsticks, the animated animals play a game that's nominally supposed to be soccer. Paul admits that the king makes up the rules as he goes along, and Hilarity Ensues. One thing the king insists on is that the game can't be played without a referee â€“ for which David Tomlinson's character volunteers, and quickly regrets.
Calvinball / int_56afadff	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_56afadff	featureConfidence	1.0
Bedknobs and Broomsticks	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_56afadff
Calvinball / int_59593dcd	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_59593dcd	comment	Snuff introduces two: "Crockett", a cross between cricket and croquet which takes all day to explain the rules; and "Pork Saddle", a combination of spillikins, halma, and brandy — its rules are entirely forgotten, and there is some doubt that there ever really were any.
Calvinball / int_59593dcd	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_59593dcd	featureConfidence	1.0
Snuff	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_59593dcd
Calvinball / int_5c897f4a	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_5c897f4a	comment	From Schlock Mercenary, we bring you Munchkin-clix of Cataan:
Calvinball / int_5c897f4a	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_5c897f4a	featureConfidence	1.0
Schlock Mercenary (Webcomic)	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_5c897f4a
Calvinball / int_5ce51054	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_5ce51054	comment	Frazz had a week dedicated to Bedlamball, which has no discernible rules. It's not surprising, especially considering the Epileptic Tree that Frazz is, in fact, an adult Calvin.
Calvinball / int_5ce51054	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_5ce51054	featureConfidence	1.0
Frazz (Comic Strip)	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_5ce51054
Calvinball / int_5d79c5f6	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_5d79c5f6	comment	Mao is a card game defined by the phrase, "The only rule I can tell you is this one." The point of the game is to guess the rules; they will never be explained to players, so players have to learn the rules by unwittingly breaking them (and being penalized for them). The easier variant is called "Bureaucratic Mao", where you can discuss the rules outside the game (there are just too many to keep track of). The harder variant is called "Dictatorial Mao", where a single player has full control of the rules and enforcement and changes them at his whim. Another common House Rule is to allow the winner to add a rule for the next game.
Calvinball / int_5d79c5f6	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_5d79c5f6	featureConfidence	1.0
Mao (Tabletop Game)	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_5d79c5f6
Calvinball / int_5ee2a942	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_5ee2a942	comment	In Black Jewels books, Jaenelle and her coven invent a game called "cradle", played with cards and a board. It has twenty-six variations, which the players may switch between in the middle of the game. Their respective husbands and consorts suspect that they purposely made it up to frustrate the male mind, until Daemon, Jaenelle's consort, invents a twenty-seventh variation that allows him to beat Jaenelle.
Calvinball / int_5ee2a942	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_5ee2a942	featureConfidence	1.0
Black Jewels	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_5ee2a942
Calvinball / int_6059ad6b	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_6059ad6b	comment	xkcd has Metaball, which appears to be a blend of every different major sport whose individual rules apply randomly depending on which "zone" you're in. The referee is seen consulting either a large map or a long list of rules.
Calvinball / int_6059ad6b	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_6059ad6b	featureConfidence	1.0
xkcd (Webcomic)	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_6059ad6b
Calvinball / int_60e46926	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_60e46926	comment	MAD has described several games like this: In the late 50s, they had a bizarre parody board game called Gringo. In The '60s, they invented a college game called 43-Man Squamish. Details are sketchy, but official gear includes a shepherd's crook, a helmet with a beanie-propeller on top, and flippers. This didn't stop some actual teams from briefly being formed. An excerpt from the rules: In 1983, they gave us the board game "Three-Cornered Pitney", which had similarly ridiculous rules, as it was designed by one of the creators of 43-Man Squamish.
Calvinball / int_60e46926	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_60e46926	featureConfidence	1.0
MAD (Magazine)	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_60e46926
Calvinball / int_61e3c258	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_61e3c258	comment	My Family and Other Equestrians: Interlude 10 has Celestia, Luna, Discord and the protagonist's father play a game of Mornington Crescent (from I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, described in Radio below). Discord is apparently very good at it.
Calvinball / int_61e3c258	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_61e3c258	featureConfidence	1.0
My Family and Other Equestrians / Fan Fic	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_61e3c258
Calvinball / int_6374dcbb	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_6374dcbb	comment	The Middle Man gives us Shibumi, an exceedingly complex card game played by high-class villainous types. Each player is given a full deck of cards, over 300 verbal and physical challenges are involved, and the price for losing or cheating is death. And live bunnies are involved somehow.
Calvinball / int_6374dcbb	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_6374dcbb	featureConfidence	1.0
The Middleman	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_6374dcbb
Calvinball / int_645d2bd1	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_645d2bd1	comment	Warbreaker features the game of tarachin, an exceedingly complex game that involves throwing balls of various colors onto a field, and scoring points based on a variety of factors, including distance and position relative to other balls. The main character doesn't know the rules and picks and throws balls at random. This causes him to win every single game.
Calvinball / int_645d2bd1	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_645d2bd1	featureConfidence	1.0
Warbreaker	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_645d2bd1
Calvinball / int_6505f7f3	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_6505f7f3	comment	Molly of Denali: In "Mollyball", Molly invents a game called Mollyball, where the players make up rules as they go.
Calvinball / int_6505f7f3	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_6505f7f3	featureConfidence	1.0
Molly of Denali	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_6505f7f3
Calvinball / int_65cd917f	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_65cd917f	comment	The Gillies Report has a Running Gag involving a reporter describing the results of the fictitious sport of farnarkeling. He would describe the game using bizarre terminology but acting as if it was commonly understood ("And he was soon arkeling the grommet from all points of the gonad").
Calvinball / int_65cd917f	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_65cd917f	featureConfidence	1.0
The Gillies Report	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_65cd917f
Calvinball / int_66dec4e3	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_66dec4e3	comment	Liv in the Future has the game of Z-ball, which is primarily based on baseball as it shares elements such as the scoreboard layout and positions like pitcher and batter. It also has an obstacle course that wouldn't be out of place on Ninja Warrior and according to Liv, has aspects similar to dodgeball.
Calvinball / int_66dec4e3	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_66dec4e3	featureConfidence	1.0
Liv in the Future	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_66dec4e3
Calvinball / int_68d7b51d	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_68d7b51d	comment	Whenever 4chan's /tg/ tries to play a game (usually Connect Four, chess, or Tic-Tac-Toe), it inevitably turns into this. Usually, the first few moves are okay. Then someone calls in reinforcements. Then someone else deepstrikes a team of Space Marines. Then someone else nukes the gameboard. Then someone else breaks out the trading cards. A picture◊ near the end of one thread shows just how insane they can get. note E2-E4, F7-F5, E4-F5, black King turns out to be three white Kings, Stalfos appears on the board, the Moon threatens to crush the board, the game switches into the third dimension, red Connect Four piece gets placed, game divides into two alternate timelines with one involving a star wizard battling a DMPC kobold with hypercubes and the other involving Vorse Raider battling a defense-position rook with the ability to make forcefields.
Calvinball / int_68d7b51d	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_68d7b51d	featureConfidence	1.0
4chan (Website)	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_68d7b51d
Calvinball / int_6d5b62f	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_6d5b62f	comment	"Wolfball" in Battle Realms apparently involves a solid iron ball, a walled-in arena, and a pack of rabid wolves, and it's fatal to play for those not of the Wolf Clan. No rules are forthcoming, but it speaks volumes that one of the playing positions (the "hurler", who has a gigantic two-handed Atlatl) does double duty as a military unit in-game.
Calvinball / int_6d5b62f	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_6d5b62f	featureConfidence	1.0
Battle Realms (Video Game)	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_6d5b62f
Calvinball / int_6f1dfbf0	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_6f1dfbf0	comment	The Myth series by Robert Asprin features Dragon Poker, which includes a massive list of arcane rules. The protagonist has given up on understanding them; he resorted to going all-in on the first hand of a high-stakes game to turn it into pure luck. That still wasn't enough to keep The Magic Poker Equation from kicking in. It turns out the dealer was fixing the game.
Calvinball / int_6f1dfbf0	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_6f1dfbf0	featureConfidence	1.0
Myth Adventures	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_6f1dfbf0
Calvinball / int_70da6e51	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_70da6e51	comment	The Goosebumps book The Beast from the East can be best explained as a book-long description of a game of Calvinball.
Calvinball / int_70da6e51	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_70da6e51	featureConfidence	1.0
Goosebumps	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_70da6e51
Calvinball / int_71169c78	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_71169c78	comment	Chowder has a couple: "Sniffleball" is baseball played with giant gloves on one's head, a ball of slow-moving green snot, and twelve bases that are located underwater, in the sky, and in Bowser's castle. "Big Ball" is often referred to by its full Overly Long Name,note Field Tournament Style Up and Down On the Ground Manja Flanja Blanja Banja Ishka Bibble Babble Flabble Doma Roma Floma Boma Jingle Jangle Every Angle Bricka Bracka Flacka Stacka Two Ton Rerun Free for All Big Ball. if only because it's bad luck not to say the whole name. The goal appears not to actually win; doing so would cause Bowser to show up and trash the entire game.
Calvinball / int_71169c78	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_71169c78	featureConfidence	1.0
Chowder	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_71169c78
Calvinball / int_72b5eb35	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_72b5eb35	comment	The sport of Sideball from Qwerpline, which (so far) seems to be equal parts cricket, baseball, lacrosse and American football, contains such positions as punter and first and second turnstile, and allows up to six positions to be manned by non-humans (except for raccoons, which are specifically banned).
Calvinball / int_72b5eb35	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_72b5eb35	featureConfidence	1.0
Qwerpline (Podcast)	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_72b5eb35
Calvinball / int_73d7930f	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_73d7930f	comment	The Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "Move Along Home" has Quark forced to play a weird and unnamed board game, with members of the station's senior staff as unwitting pawns, and progress through the game dictated seemingly at random.
Calvinball / int_73d7930f	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_73d7930f	featureConfidence	1.0
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_73d7930f
Calvinball / int_74d2d7ae	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_74d2d7ae	comment	Baseketball starts this way — the protagonists invent rules on the fly to make it impossible for their competitors to win (all while pretending they were perfectly obvious). But eventually, the game gets codified rules and becomes a national phenomenon.
Calvinball / int_74d2d7ae	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_74d2d7ae	featureConfidence	1.0
BASEketball	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_74d2d7ae
Calvinball / int_74fb542e	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_74fb542e	comment	That Mitchell and Webb Look (and its radio predecessor) has the game show Numberwang, "the maths quiz that simply everyone is talking about!" It's portrayed as being so ubiquitous that its rules no longer need explaining, and seems to involve two contestants calling out random numbers until the host declares "That's Numberwang!", and they score somehow. The only discernible patterns are that Julie (played by Olivia Colman) nearly always loses and suffers some sort of humiliation, and that "Shinty-Six" and "Brazil" are supposedly numbers. In addition, the sudden death round is literal. What constitutes a "Numberwang" is never fully elaborated: the official Home Game includes two 400-sided dice and a 37-volume rulebook (each about the size of a dictionary), and a documentary about the history of Numberwang suggests that even the hosts cannot determine Numberwang without the help of Colosson, a supercomputer which has extreme views as to what should be done to things that aren't Numberwang.
Calvinball / int_74fb542e	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_74fb542e	featureConfidence	1.0
That Mitchell and Webb Look	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_74fb542e
Calvinball / int_755b343f	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_755b343f	comment	Halo's Forge Mode (included in virtually all the games since Halo 3) has a propensity to devolve into Calvinball unless a single person or dedicated group is trying to create something specific (thus keeping everyone on task). Without it, people start pointing gravity lifts everywhere and coming up with arcane, arbitrary, and ridiculous challenges. Such maps end up filled with whatever caught their occupants' fancy in their item spawn frenzy, and they're almost always deleted afterwards.
Calvinball / int_755b343f	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_755b343f	featureConfidence	1.0
Halo (Franchise)	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_755b343f
Calvinball / int_757cf125	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_757cf125	comment	Rocket Power: One episode has the kids trying to invent their own sport, "Rocketball". Although it starts out very simple ("hit the ball into the trash can"), more people gradually join in, and, to make it "fairer", so many rules are added that it degrades into Calvinball.
Calvinball / int_757cf125	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_757cf125	featureConfidence	1.0
Rocket Power	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_757cf125
Calvinball / int_77023391	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_77023391	comment	The Wheel: Some of the mechanics aren't exactly brought up until they're needed (such as the bonuses), making the format of the show feel like this sometimes. The American version does have more of a Rules Spiel.
Calvinball / int_77023391	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_77023391	featureConfidence	1.0
The Wheel	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_77023391
Calvinball / int_7832b74c	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_7832b74c	comment	Steven Universe: The episode "The Test" opens with Steven and the Gems playing "Citchen Calamity" (sic), a board game with rules so nonsensical none of the Crystal Gems understand it, with the possible exception of Garnet.
Calvinball / int_7832b74c	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_7832b74c	featureConfidence	1.0
Steven Universe	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_7832b74c
Calvinball / int_7b2ce128	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_7b2ce128	comment	Centaurworld: The eponymous game from "Bunch O' Scrunch" follows a complicated set of rules that seemingly requires every player do a completely unrelated task, resulting in a gameplay thatâ€™s incomprehensible for the audience. At one point, Ched is wearing a peacock headdress and Glendale is skating with clothespins pinched to her arms, all while Gebbrey is holding a glass container filled with mulch.note To be fair, Meghan McCarthy posted the rules for this game on Twitter. They don't explain how to Splurf-Dorrff the SflÃ¼, though.
Calvinball / int_7b2ce128	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_7b2ce128	featureConfidence	1.0
Centaurworld	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_7b2ce128
Calvinball / int_7b5f914a	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_7b5f914a	comment	Dumb and Dumber has Harry and Lloyd playing "tag", or some bizarre version of it that includes quitsies, startsies, anti-quitsies, and erasies. An early draft of the script features this bizarre "game" in only one scene with an anti-climactic outcome, but it became even better in the final revision.
Calvinball / int_7b5f914a	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_7b5f914a	featureConfidence	1.0
Dumb and Dumber	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_7b5f914a
Calvinball / int_7c038c18	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_7c038c18	comment	Phineas and Ferb: This description of the "F Games" is a good indication of what you're in for: "Let's Take a Quiz" is a game-show Calvinball whose only rule seems to be "answer quickly and answer often." Candace is quite baffled at first. The show's board game variant of this trope is called "Skiddley Whiffers", and Candace is an expert at that. In "Tales from the Resistance: Back to the 2nd Dimension", Phineas and Ferb's dad gives them his sports equipment for them to play with after Doofenshmirtz is defeated and freedom and fun are restored to the Tri-State Area. They and the other kids are confused about how to use them and end up creating a game of Calvinball. The sports-playing montage ends with Ferb hitting a soccer ball with a golf club into a flaming hula hoop to score a touchdown.
Calvinball / int_7c038c18	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_7c038c18	featureConfidence	1.0
Phineas and Ferb	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_7c038c18
Calvinball / int_7d5e43b0	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_7d5e43b0	comment	The Goodies had the game of "Spat", whose sole purpose was to assure that Bill always lost and suffered Amusing Injuries.
Calvinball / int_7d5e43b0	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_7d5e43b0	featureConfidence	1.0
The Goodies	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_7d5e43b0
Calvinball / int_7e61820b	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_7e61820b	comment	A magical version pops up in Furmentation. It tends to last much shorter than a game of Quidditch.
Calvinball / int_7e61820b	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_7e61820b	featureConfidence	1.0
Furmentation	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_7e61820b
Calvinball / int_7ff3216c	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_7ff3216c	comment	On Garfield and Friends: A U.S. Acres short involves Orson convincing the others to play a game of "pigball". We don't see how actual pigball is played, as Roy plays a joke by switching the actual rules with a set of increasingly absurd ones (like flipping a baked potato not only to see who plays first, but if the game is actually played at all), which instruct the players to score points by doing embarrassing and ridiculous stunts (like dressing in silly outfits or finding a live hippopotamus). They get back at Roy with a "game" called "roosterball", whose rules are to take the person with the most feathers and throw him in a mud hole. In another short, Garfield finds himself trapped in a Western show, playing poker. The stakes get ridiculously high ("I'll see your horse and raise you..."), and then Garfield ends the game by declaring, "You had the old maid! I win."
Calvinball / int_7ff3216c	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_7ff3216c	featureConfidence	1.0
Garfield and Friends	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_7ff3216c
Calvinball / int_81692f99	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_81692f99	comment	At the start of the "Squidward the Unfriendly Ghost", SpongeBob and Patrick are playing a game that involves bubble-blowing, moving pieces on a chess board with your breath, carrying rocks around, climbing a tree, and other craziness. At one point, Patrick triumphantly shouts "I lose!", until SpongeBob reminds him, "But it's not Tuesday, Patrick."*It could be a reference to one of the few known rules of Fizzbin. When an annoyed Squidward asks them what they're doing, they sheepishly admit, "We don't know."
Calvinball / int_81692f99	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_81692f99	featureConfidence	1.0
Star Trek (Franchise)	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_81692f99
Calvinball / int_8258e260	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_8258e260	comment	"Sniffleball" is baseball played with giant gloves on one's head, a ball of slow-moving green snot, and twelve bases that are located underwater, in the sky, and in Bowser's castle.
Calvinball / int_8258e260	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_8258e260	featureConfidence	1.0
Super Mario Bros. (Franchise)	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_8258e260
Calvinball / int_82b754a	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_82b754a	comment	The British show Noel's House Party featured a game in the 1992-93 series called "Open the Cupboards", which had a very complicated ruleset.
Calvinball / int_82b754a	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_82b754a	featureConfidence	1.0
Noel's House Party	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_82b754a
Calvinball / int_82eba61d	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_82eba61d	comment	In Urban Underbrush, they play Magic the Gathering with a mixed up deck including a standard deck of cards and cards from Old Maid. Another character observes it's a form of Calvinball.
Calvinball / int_82eba61d	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_82eba61d	featureConfidence	1.0
Urban Underbrush (Webcomic)	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_82eba61d
Calvinball / int_84782a62	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_84782a62	comment	One sketch from A Bit of Fry and Laurie shows 2 sportsman playing a bizarre game called "Bushwallyta", with commentary by Stephen Fry. Only one of the rules is clearly explained; when the referee declares "Boyayinha!", the players must create a functioning picnic chair out of whatever materials are currently available (the losing player is disqualified because he creates a flat-iron instead).
Calvinball / int_84782a62	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_84782a62	featureConfidence	1.0
A Bit of Fry and Laurie	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_84782a62
Calvinball / int_86814cd2	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_86814cd2	comment	Tetra Master from Final Fantasy IX is a strange example. It's a card game that looks totally incomprehensible, even to those who play it, and you have to pick up the rules from watching the gameplay. The cards appear to play themselves somehow, and it's telling that even In-Universe, various characters try to figure out the rules of it with Trial-and-Error Gameplay. Square Enix apparently designed it with hexadecimal strength and weakness values, but this explanation was part of their online strategy guide that completely disappeared from the Internet circa 2003.
Calvinball / int_86814cd2	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_86814cd2	featureConfidence	1.0
Final Fantasy IX (Video Game)	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_86814cd2
Calvinball / int_8838aff8	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_8838aff8	comment	Not for Broadcast: The sports segment in The Tempest level appears to have some very complicated rules, and feels like a sketch on Monty Python's Flying Circus. This includes everyone in the area, even people who weren't playing, winning.
Calvinball / int_8838aff8	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_8838aff8	featureConfidence	1.0
Not for Broadcast (Video Game)	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_8838aff8
Calvinball / int_887acd55	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_887acd55	comment	New Girl has "True American", a Drinking Game with Candyland elements, in which the floor is lava. The rules involve crazy zones, yelling out the names of presidents, and alcohol (with cans of beer as "Soldiers of the Secret Order", and a bottle of bourbon as "King of the Castle"). If you take a break to have sex with a beautiful woman, everyone else wins. And everything you hear in True American is a lie. Fans were excited enough to adapt this into a real game, which can be seen here.
Calvinball / int_887acd55	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_887acd55	featureConfidence	1.0
New Girl	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_887acd55
Calvinball / int_890f6a72	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_890f6a72	comment	In Space Jam: A New Legacy, the climatic basketball game "Dom Ball" functions as this. It's videogame-styled basketball with jump pads, power-ups, and "style points".
Calvinball / int_890f6a72	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_890f6a72	featureConfidence	1.0
Space Jam: A New Legacy	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_890f6a72
Calvinball / int_8ab885d6	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_8ab885d6	comment	Sally Forth (Howard): A Running Gag has Ted getting the Monopoly board out and describing increasingly bizarre and arcane House Rules, to the point that it barely resembles Monopoly anymore. Sally and Hil have usually given up by then.
Calvinball / int_8ab885d6	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_8ab885d6	featureConfidence	1.0
Sally Forth (Howard) (Comic Strip)	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_8ab885d6
Calvinball / int_8b157bc2	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_8b157bc2	comment	The Stella comedy group performs a sketch in which one of them suggests they play a "logic game" in which the players take turns saying one of two nonsense words in a unspecified pattern. The second member quickly grasps the pattern and is able to play along, but the third member always guesses wrong. It becomes increasingly obvious that the "pattern" is completely random, and the third member will be deemed wrong no matter what he says.
Calvinball / int_8b157bc2	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_8b157bc2	featureConfidence	1.0
Stella (US)	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_8b157bc2
Calvinball / int_8bf08bcd	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_8bf08bcd	comment	Ultima Underworld II has a game called White Rock Black Rock, with fairly simple rules: if you pick the white rock (by choice, not by chance) then you win, and if you pick the black rock you lose. However, the game's rules become very bizarre when you play it in the Ethereal Void later on: fish, limbo, and peas are somehow involved, among other things.
Calvinball / int_8bf08bcd	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_8bf08bcd	featureConfidence	1.0
Ultima Underworld (Video Game)	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_8bf08bcd
Calvinball / int_8c2f925c	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_8c2f925c	comment	In Weregeek, Joel and Wayne mash together a poker deck with Munchkin, Chez Geek, and Fluxx cards. When Abbie realizes this means they're playing Card Game Calvinball, she dubs them "Megadork Prime" and "Sir Nerdsalot".
Calvinball / int_8c2f925c	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_8c2f925c	featureConfidence	1.0
Weregeek (Webcomic)	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_8c2f925c
Calvinball / int_8c87467	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_8c87467	comment	The British show Green Wing gives us Guyball, which features all the quirks of jai alai, basketball, and Eton College's Wall Game, plus a really funny hat. The only rule actually explained was "curbing the Matterhorn", which entails insulting your opponent as much as possible.
Calvinball / int_8c87467	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_8c87467	featureConfidence	1.0
Green Wing	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_8c87467
Calvinball / int_8d109a8a	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_8d109a8a	comment	The Sandman (1989)'s A Game of You — and, perhaps, this trope in general — may be summarized by the quotation prefacing the book:
Calvinball / int_8d109a8a	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_8d109a8a	featureConfidence	1.0
The Sandman (1989) (Comic Book)	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_8d109a8a
Calvinball / int_8d814070	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_8d814070	comment	MAS*H: One episode had Hawkeye and Trapper playing a weird game with many tabletop game items, but as a Drinking Game. Double Cranko is played with a poker deck, a chess board, checkers, dice, and no rules whatsoever. Hawkeye almost always wins; when Colonel Potter finally turns the tables on Hawkeye, he proceeds to invent Triple Cranko.
Calvinball / int_8d814070	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_8d814070	featureConfidence	1.0
MAS*H	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_8d814070
Calvinball / int_8e0df74a	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_8e0df74a	comment	The Simpsons: Tapped Out includes a mini-game event called "Tap Ball", in which two characters square off and do a unique maneuver (e.g. Lisa kicks a soccer ball, Apu throws a bowling ball, the Comic Book Guy swings his nunchucks), to no real end. Not surprisingly, the sport was invented by Homer Simpson, and the rules make sense only to him.
Calvinball / int_8e0df74a	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_8e0df74a	featureConfidence	1.0
The Simpsons: Tapped Out (Video Game)	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_8e0df74a
Calvinball / int_8fc090bc	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_8fc090bc	comment	Skippy's List has examples that suggest that someone has tried this in the real-life military:
Calvinball / int_8fc090bc	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_8fc090bc	featureConfidence	1.0
Skippy's List	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_8fc090bc
Calvinball / int_8fd3db0b	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_8fd3db0b	comment	Star Trek: Lower Decks: In "Veritas", Q puts Humanity on Trial — again — by kidnapping the bridge crew of the Cerritos, putting them in chess outfits, and pitting them against playing cards with hockey sticks. Between football goalposts on a chessboard. With a dancing and singing soccer ball who spouts riddles.
Calvinball / int_8fd3db0b	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_8fd3db0b	featureConfidence	1.0
Star Trek: Lower Decks	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_8fd3db0b
Calvinball / int_9068877a	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_9068877a	comment	Grifball from Red vs. Blue started out this way; it was basically an excuse to whale on Grif. Then it became an actual game type, developed a concrete ruleset, and even has a series of special maps within Halo 3 for you to play it on yourself, but the goal is still to torture Grif.
Calvinball / int_9068877a	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_9068877a	featureConfidence	1.0
Red vs. Blue (Web Animation)	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_9068877a
Calvinball / int_90ab7fe1	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_90ab7fe1	comment	Recess: The students of Third Street School play a couple of games like this. One is called "Battle Tag"; we don't see it played, but we do see all the kids on the playground sprawled on the ground afterwards with their clothes all ripped and covered with dirt. In another episode, the kids become hooked on a PokÃ©mon-esque card game called "Ajimbo"; most of its rules are nonsensical and inconsistent, so much so that when Child Prodigy Gretchen works out a system to winning, it falls apart seconds after working perfectly to her confusion and aggravation.
Calvinball / int_90ab7fe1	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_90ab7fe1	featureConfidence	1.0
Recess	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_90ab7fe1
Calvinball / int_90b9ae74	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_90b9ae74	comment	The Death Scene Competition in Farce of the Three Kingdoms. The judges do at one point outline a scoring system, but they don't seem to stick to it very closely. It mostly boils down to points for style, with elaborate forms of suicide generally scoring high. There is, however, such a thing as trying too hard.
Calvinball / int_90b9ae74	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_90b9ae74	featureConfidence	1.0
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Calvinball / int_923dd091	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_923dd091	comment	CollegeHumor: Game Changer is a game show where the rules and format changes in every episode, and the players must go in blind.
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CollegeHumor	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_923dd091
Calvinball / int_93e8b35e	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_93e8b35e	comment	Alice in Wonderland has the Caucus Race, in which everyone runs around at random for half an hour, after which it is announced that "everybody has won, and all must have prizes."
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AliceInWonderland	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_93e8b35e
Calvinball / int_959dd815	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_959dd815	comment	This kind of thing happens every now and then in Professional Wrestling, usually when a heel tries to trick his opponent into accepting a set of rules he doesn't understand — which the heel just makes up as an excuse to beat the tar out of his opponent. At WWE Backlash in 2001, William Regal challenged Chris Jericho to fight under "Duchess of Queensbury rules" under this guise, and any time Jericho had the drop on Regal, Regal would arbitrarily declare his last move invalid for whatever reason.
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Professional Wrestling	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_959dd815
Calvinball / int_95fcf890	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_95fcf890	comment	Pokkaball, the primary sport of The Spellcasting Series. You can read about it in the school paper and watch a few matches, but it appears to be completely random and absurdly dangerous.
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The Spellcasting Series (Video Game)	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_95fcf890
Calvinball / int_960b4737	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_960b4737	comment	Chiaroscuro: Somehow ninja chess ends up involving playing cards and kunai. It's never explained how, we just get snippets of characters holding cards over a chess board pinned by kunais.
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Calvinball / int_96fc8aa6	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_96fc8aa6	comment	Bludgeoning Angel Dokuro-chan: Dokuro's various board games appear to be parodies of other board games. For instance, the first episode shows a game called Gothello, which appears to be a version of Othello that's played with five colors instead of two. Dokuro being Dokuro, she picks more than one color instead of a single one.
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Calvinball / int_97218fa4	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_97218fa4	comment	Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal opens up with the titular pair playing a game that vaguely resembles chess:
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Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal (Video Game)	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_97218fa4
Calvinball / int_976efc02	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_976efc02	comment	In Mystery Science Theater 3000, this is what Australian Rules Football boiled down to. It is a real sport, but as it's only really played in Australia, the series treated it like a Calvinball (and a catch-all term for whatever wacky sport was being shown on screen).
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Mystery Science Theater 3000	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_976efc02
Calvinball / int_985ad25d	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_985ad25d	comment	In Dragon Ball Super, the exhibition matches before the actual Tournament of Power run on this trope as the only rule is that the match ends when either an opponent cannot move any more or Present and Future Zen-Oh are suitably thrilled at the fight. That means things like outside interference and ring outs, actions that would lead to disqualifications, are out. The Tournament itself has shades of this. While it does have codified rules,note No flying unless it's a normal biological function (IE you're a bird-person), no weapons or outside objects, no killing, victory by ring-out the Zen-Ohs have final say and have been known to bend or override the rules on a whim. For example, Quitela protests Master Roshi's use of a jar as part of the Mafuba/Evil Containment Wave because it's an outside object, but the Zen-Ohs overrule him because they think it's cool.
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Dragon Ball Super	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_985ad25d
Calvinball / int_99d3665a	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_99d3665a	comment	PG: Psycho Goreman: The film begins with two kids, Luke and Mimi, playing Crazy Ball, an inexplicable game that only makes sense to them. It involves throwing balls at and punching each other.
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PG: Psycho Goreman	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_99d3665a
Calvinball / int_9a7088bc	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_9a7088bc	comment	"Fizzbin" from the Star Trek: The Original Series episode "A Piece of the Action", which Kirk invented to distract the guards and allow the crew to escape capture; it's basically poker with whichever rules Kirk feels like adding. Strangely, though, it may have picked up a codified ruleset, as Quark is shown playing a hand in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
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Star Trek: The Original Series	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_9a7088bc
Calvinball / int_9b2df4bd	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_9b2df4bd	comment	In You Are Dead (Sign Here Please), the city of Dead Donkey, Nevada is famous for its traditional sport, Muleball. Muleball involves neither balls, nor mules and has no stated rules. It consists primarily of "players" beating the crap out of other players (who needn't realize they are playing beforehand) and taking their valuables. It is distinguishable from simply mugging someone, although in what way is never established.
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Calvinball / int_9ce851a3	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_9ce851a3	comment	Malcolm in the Middle: The episode "Old Mrs. Old" begins with a Reese explaining the rather nonsensical rules involving hitting fire hydrants or cars while the other team tries to catch the ball and hit them back. And if they miss, it's a "Google", which he'll explain when they get there. According to Malcolm, Reese has made up at least 50 different games like these, all of which are fun.
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Malcolm in the Middle	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_9ce851a3
Calvinball / int_9e2dbb4d	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_9e2dbb4d	comment	Regular Show: "But I Have A Receipt": Mordecai and Rigby have to face off against a dungeon master in a D&D style fight where they have to use their imaginations. Needless to say, the game eventually turns into Calvinball, with rule changes occurring every half second, with it only ending when Mordecai summons an "Immunity Sword" which is immune to all rule changes. What makes the whole thing even more absurd is that Mordecai, Rigby, and the DM are fighting over a $7 refund for a game.
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Regular Show	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_9e2dbb4d
Calvinball / int_9fe6f698	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_9fe6f698	comment	Ozy and Millie occasionally partake in House Rules Parcheesi. We never see much of the game itself, but we do see its aftermath: the room tends to look like a tornado hit it. Shout-out and Suspiciously Specific Denial.
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Calvinball / int_a0500a06	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_a0500a06	comment	Rugrats: One episode has a B-plot with the adults all trying out a board game called "Neurosis" that follows a long list of byzantine rules depending on the current state of the game, such as "Player One can only move counter-clockwise when all the other players are in the Penalty Zone." By the second or third time it cuts back to them, they're all bored and confused out of their minds, but for some reason, they still keep playing.
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Rugrats	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_a0500a06
Calvinball / int_a12cd9cf	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_a12cd9cf	comment	Big City Greens: The kids enjoy a game called â€œCritterball.â€� It seems to be like baseball, except using dodgeballs. Apparently, anything goes in critterball.
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Big City Greens	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_a12cd9cf
Calvinball / int_a183d57f	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_a183d57f	comment	Futurama has Blernsball, which is like baseball, but with so many new rules and gimmicks added — including the ball being attached to a bungee cord, a "multi-ball" mode, and a giant spider that runs the bases — that we can't tell what's going on at all. It's quite obviously a spectator sport, because it at least looks really cool. However the second time we see it in "A Leela of Her Own" it's a fully functional Fictional Sport that's basically just baseball with a bungee cord.
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Futurama	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_a183d57f
Calvinball / int_a3b8b50	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_a3b8b50	comment	On Wishfart, Dez and Akiko's favorite card game is Flip-Flop Dungeon, but its absurd and confusing rules confound Puffin, who loathes it. It has a card that requires the opponent to do a silly dance, another card that expels stinky gas when drawn, and the "Hissy Fit Cadaver" card that instantly wins the game. Oh, and it has an expansion pack, which the King of the Underworld loves playing.
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Calvinball / int_a4c2cee2	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_a4c2cee2	comment	Oversaturated World: Criffleball, which has utterly nonsensical terminology and rules. People who watch it are incredibly confused. Oddly, though, the group forum hashed out a perfectly comprehensible ruleset in Real Life.
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Calvinball / int_a5356ac1	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_a5356ac1	comment	Two More Eggs gives us QblePon, a collectable card game whose cards feature bizarre, vaguely-PokÃ©mon-esque characters and (due perhaps to the simplistic art style of the cartoon itself) no text and no stats besides a single rating of one to five filled-in boxes. According to Hector, it's "the best game."
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Two More Eggs (Web Animation)	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_a5356ac1
Calvinball / int_a5a0dd85	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_a5a0dd85	comment	In Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, this is actually encouraged; because the world economy emphasizes constant consumption and production, the Controllers will only approve new sports or games if their creators can prove that playing it requires the consumption of more resources than currently-existing ones. Hence people enjoying elaborate and complex games such as "centrifugal bumble-puppy" and sports such as Escalator-Squash Racket, Obstacle- and Electro-magnetic Golf, and Riemann Surface Tennis.
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Brave New World	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_a5a0dd85
Calvinball / int_a8729c90	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_a8729c90	comment	The Fairly OddParents! shows Timmy and friends playing "Timmyball" (and later "Wandaball", which is the same but with a cinderblock):
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The Fairly OddParents!	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_a8729c90
Calvinball / int_ac67074d	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_ac67074d	comment	In Teen Titans, Cyborg and Beast Boy play Stankball, which apparently involves pegging the other player with a wadded-up ball of dirty laundry. By the end of the episode, the game has been upgraded to Extreme Stankball.
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Teen Titans	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_ac67074d
Calvinball / int_aca7b22d	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_aca7b22d	comment	The Amazing World of Gumball features "Dodj or Daar", a board game that Gumball and Darwin created, which involves rolling dice, then taking a card and doing whatever is says on it. The concept of the game is (very loosely) structured with a set of "rules", and the "rules" themselves are only there to ensure that sheer chaos results from playing it. At least one game led to the house being set on fire (and that's with the kids' dad joining in). The rules were fleshed out for real, though, in "The Game", but since the cards apparently literally create whatever hazards they claim to (like "the floor is lava"), it still results in total chaos.
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The Amazing World of Gumball	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_aca7b22d
Calvinball / int_ad622d64	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_ad622d64	comment	In the Malazan Book of the Fallen, Fiddler and the Bridgeburners will occasionally play a game akin to poker with the tarot-like Deck of Dragons, except they make up the rules as they go along. Because they are playing with a deck of cards used to represent their world's pantheon, the games end up being more than a little prophetic — as well as disconcerting to onlookers, as the Deck is actually dangerous to use, and playing with it is paramount to blaspheming against the pantheon.
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Malazan Book of the Fallen	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_ad622d64
Calvinball / int_ad7edd1f	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_ad7edd1f	comment	In Kaamelott, Perceval knows lots of unplayable games that he alone can understand and play. Some of them involve 14 dice and artichokes. King Arthur seems to know the twisted rules of the card game "countersyrup" as well: We see one of those games, "Robobrol", in The Movie, Kaamelott: Premier Volet. It's just as ridiculous to see in action as it is to hear the rules, Arthur is forced to play it and is absolutely clueless as Perceval tells him nothing comprehensible about it... and then he wins when GueniÃ¨vre simply knees an opposing player in the groin, which apparently is worth a lot of points.
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Kaamelott	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_ad7edd1f
Calvinball / int_ae54c340	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_ae54c340	comment	Reign of the Seven Spellblades: In volume 6, Nanao proposes a game of "demons", what we would call zombie tag, to address Oliver feeling uncomfortable in his own skin due to the growth spurt he suddenly had as a result of having Cast from Lifespan during the Assassination Attempt against Enrico Forghieri. So the Sword Roses spend literally hours chasing each other around their laboratory and making up new rules as they go along by collective agreement. They decide to keep the "rule" about "free hugs on request" permanently even after the game is over.
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Reign of the Seven Spellblades	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_ae54c340
Calvinball / int_b0f886e7	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_b0f886e7	comment	Dungeons & Dragons: "Kholiast" is an elven game played with "a deck of more than 1000 cards, a variable hand determined by a throw of dice, and a point-counting system that would drive even the most dedicated Candlekeep scholar completely mad." Dragons have the Great Game, xorvintaal, the objective of which is to steal the other dragon players' treasure with the help of mortal chess pieces called exarchs. The game is a "tortured mess of contradictory rules and exceptions that only a dragon with centuries to study could understand," far beyond the comprehension of younger races. Narratively speaking, xorvintaal exists to fuel Excuse Plots, so if the DM needs dragons or the PCs to do something, all they have to do is call it a xorvintaal maneuver. To get a sense of how complex it is, the entirety of World War I would be an intermediate xorvintaal maneuver, with World War II being a good countermove.
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Dungeons & Dragons (Tabletop Game)	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_b0f886e7
Calvinball / int_b618b457	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_b618b457	comment	The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has Brockian Ultra-Cricket, which primarily involves smacking people with random sports equipment, then running away and apologizing from a distance. The only known attempt to collect all the rules resulted in a volume so massive it produced a black hole. There have been fewer games of Ultra-Cricket than wars fought over rule differences in Ultra-Cricket (which is good, because said wars tend to be less destructive than the game itself). The winning team is defined in the rules as "the first team that wins", and spectators aren't even allowed to watch it — because in their minds, they'll think any game they missed could have been the best game they'd ever see.
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The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_b618b457
Calvinball / int_b962c879	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_b962c879	comment	In an animÃ© filler arc of Fairy Tail, Cana is challenged to a competitive card game called Guild Wars by the Eclipse Version of Scorpio. While the game has a set basic structure and win condition as established by Scorpio, the cards and their effects drawn from each player's deck are completely made up by each player as they go, resulting in the cards becoming more and more powerful as they play. The last few cards have such ridiculously overpowered abilities that they'd certainly be banned from any real life version of the game.
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Calvinball / int_bab8af4a	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_bab8af4a	comment	On The Monkees' TV show, Micky Dolenz invents the game of "Creebage" for much the same reason as Kirk invented Fizzbin: to distract a captor and allow for a quick escape.
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The Monkees	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_bab8af4a
Calvinball / int_bb303f45	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_bb303f45	comment	Season 9 of Shaun Micallef's Mad as Hell has a regular feature where he throws to Stephen Hall and asks what's happening with this week's contestants. Stephen proceeds to describe a scenario involving a mishmash of various Reality TV formats before interviewing a pair of contestants in bizarre costumes. At no point is the actual game seen (or even explained).
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Calvinball / int_bb3b1afb	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_bb3b1afb	comment	In The Mighty B! Bessie enjoys playing a game of Pineapple with her friends. While the rules aren't stated, all we know is that they're fairly inconsistent and involve someone dressing up as a pineapple.
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The Mighty B!	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_bb3b1afb
Calvinball / int_bc5c6d99	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_bc5c6d99	comment	The sport shown in the music video for "New Lands" by Justice starts off as a baseball game, then adds lacrosse, football, and roller derby. By the end, it's utterly incomprehensible.
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Jusâ€ ice (Music)	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_bc5c6d99
Calvinball / int_bc848d30	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_bc848d30	comment	SpongeBob SquarePants: At the start of the "Squidward the Unfriendly Ghost", SpongeBob and Patrick are playing a game that involves bubble-blowing, moving pieces on a chess board with your breath, carrying rocks around, climbing a tree, and other craziness. At one point, Patrick triumphantly shouts "I lose!", until SpongeBob reminds him, "But it's not Tuesday, Patrick."*It could be a reference to one of the few known rules of Fizzbin. When an annoyed Squidward asks them what they're doing, they sheepishly admit, "We don't know." In "Patrick: The Game", Patrick decides to make his own board game after Squidward tells him games don't grow on trees, but are thought up and made by people. Spongebob, Sandy, and Squidward go to Patrick's house and play, with Spongebob getting a driver's license for a slot-car racetrack, Patrick landing on a "Snacks" space that dispenses snacks, and Squidward goes to jail, only to be caught in a Catch-22 Dilemma when he can't roll a 6 to get out of jail because players in jail can't roll the dice, and can only be released when someone says his name, which happens when he threatens to walk away and they say his name. Lampshaded when Squidward gets frustrated by the apparent absurdity of it all:
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SpongeBob SquarePants	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_bc848d30
Calvinball / int_bcc0e2d3	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_bcc0e2d3	comment	In Play Misty for Me, Clint Eastwood's character plays a game of "Crybastion" with his barkeeper to get a woman to strike up a conversation with them.
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Play Misty for Me	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_bcc0e2d3
Calvinball / int_bd15aa4d	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_bd15aa4d	comment	Little Lunch: In "The Oval", Rory gets all of his friends to invent games to keep him out of trouble. When everyone gets bored and starts drifting away, he desperately attempts to combine all of the games into one game, which becomes a gigantic Calvinball.
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Little Lunch	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_bd15aa4d
Calvinball / int_c06c3e0d	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_c06c3e0d	comment	Viking Secret Wildcard Poker in LoadingReadyRun's "Poker Before Dusk" appears at first to be an unusual variety of Texas Hold-Em. It gets a great deal sillier, incorporating cards from Magic: The Gathering and Clue.
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LoadingReadyRun (Web Video)	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_c06c3e0d
Calvinball / int_c4a22754	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_c4a22754	comment	Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series often portrays the eponymous "children's card game" this way, mostly as a way of making fun of how complicated the game actually is, and how the original show clearly doesn't even use the same rules.
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Calvinball / int_c7912cea	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_c7912cea	comment	One episode of Jimmy Two-Shoes opens Jimmy and Beezy playing a game where they hurl themselves at a giant dartboard via catapult. Points are awarded based on where they land and the day of the week.
Calvinball / int_c7912cea	featureApplicability	1.0
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Jimmy Two-Shoes	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_c7912cea
Calvinball / int_c9f912e	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_c9f912e	comment	NationStates has the Trope Namer be an international sport a la FIFA.
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NationStates (Website)	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_c9f912e
Calvinball / int_ca5d97f1	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_ca5d97f1	comment	Monty Python's Flying Circus features the quiz show It's a Living, the rules of which are so insanely convoluted and complex that by the time the presenter finishes explaining them, the show has finished. Part of it seems to revolve around how much the BBC has received in fees lately. Similarly done on the album Monty Python's Previous Record on the cut "Radio Quiz Game." (The show was called "What Do You (sound of cuckoo clock)?" with rules so lengthy and complex that there was no time for the contest.
Calvinball / int_ca5d97f1	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_ca5d97f1	featureConfidence	1.0
Monty Python's Flying Circus	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_ca5d97f1
Calvinball / int_cb6abea3	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_cb6abea3	comment	Yu-Gi-Oh! centers around the game of Duel Monsters, which wasn't always clearly defined, especially in early story arcs before a more concrete set of rules was established. Even then, new cards are constantly introduced that change the existing rules, usually to help the protagonists win.
Calvinball / int_cb6abea3	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_cb6abea3	featureConfidence	1.0
Yu-Gi-Oh!	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_cb6abea3
Calvinball / int_cc2a7289	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_cc2a7289	comment	The League of Gentlemen has "Go, Johnny, Go, Go, Go, Go", a sketch in which a novice player makes increasingly trivial mistakes and violations of the rules to the eponymous game.
Calvinball / int_cc2a7289	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_cc2a7289	featureConfidence	1.0
The League of Gentlemen	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_cc2a7289
Calvinball / int_cc950577	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_cc950577	comment	In John Knowles' A Separate Peace, Finny creates Blitzball, a game to which only he understands the rules.
Calvinball / int_cc950577	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_cc950577	featureConfidence	1.0
A Separate Peace	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_cc950577
Calvinball / int_cca8c3f6	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_cca8c3f6	comment	Talisman: the Magic Quest Game, by Games Workshop, an expandable board game loosely based on the Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 role-playing games. Much of the gameplay occurs through card wars like Magic: The Gathering, but with dice and boards. This led to a network of overlapping and shifting rules, and nobody's sure which rules take precedence, which leads to a Calvinball-like experience.
Calvinball / int_cca8c3f6	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_cca8c3f6	featureConfidence	1.0
Talisman (Tabletop Game)	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_cca8c3f6
Calvinball / int_ccf06dfc	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_ccf06dfc	comment	The game of Bucket-Stick-Fruitball from Spliced is a Running Gag throughout the series. Peri and Entree are the only characters who can play the game without getting confused and injured. The game begins by launching a fruit into the air using a stick, at which point one of the players tries to catch it using a bucket. What happens after this is never made clear, but it involves a tricycle, a wig, and being covered in butter, among other things.
Calvinball / int_ccf06dfc	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_ccf06dfc	featureConfidence	1.0
Spliced	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_ccf06dfc
Calvinball / int_ccf2f4fc	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_ccf2f4fc	comment	The Legend of Total Drama Island: The first canon season's iconic dodgeball match takes on shades of Calvinball. When Chris briefs the teams before the match, he warns them that the rules might not remain constant throughout. When he decides that a game is going too quickly, he springs a new rule on the players and tells them he can restore the teams to full strength whenever he wants. He later changes the number of balls on the court, without bothering to call time out, to counter hoarding. The match is largely described in the style of a battle scene from The Iliad, and Chris' fluid rules parallel The Iliad's divine interventions.
Calvinball / int_ccf2f4fc	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_ccf2f4fc	featureConfidence	1.0
The Legend of Total Drama Island (Fanfic)	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_ccf2f4fc
Calvinball / int_ccfef5a0	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_ccfef5a0	comment	FETCH! with Ruff Ruffman: In the fourth season episode "Blossom Bawls While Ruff Has a Ball of Balls", Ruff is trying to market "Ruffball," a brand new game that's supposed to sweep the nation! Unfortunately, Ruffball is interesting for only about six seconds. Sterling went to stadium to learn how to broadcast a baseball game on the radio while Talia and Liza went to meet with a physics teacher to learn how to make Ruffball a little more exciting. To make it even more fun, Ruff sends Brian, Bethany, and Isaac after a "Half-Time Quiz Show" to join the others into playing a great game!
Calvinball / int_ccfef5a0	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_ccfef5a0	featureConfidence	1.0
FETCH! with Ruff Ruffman	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_ccfef5a0
Calvinball / int_cd3484f7	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_cd3484f7	comment	Shooting Stars, a UK panel show presented by Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer, was a game like this. Despite having a scoring system, the answers are entirely the whim of the hosts. Sample question: "True or False: Richard Attenborough".
Calvinball / int_cd3484f7	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_cd3484f7	featureConfidence	1.0
Shooting Stars	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_cd3484f7
Calvinball / int_cdb93f1	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_cdb93f1	comment	Mac Hall has Australian Indoor-Rules Quiddich. The entire point of the game is to smack a ball with an LED light at people while playing in a blacked-out hallway. No score, no other rules. Just carnage.
Calvinball / int_cdb93f1	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_cdb93f1	featureConfidence	1.0
Mac Hall (Webcomic)	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_cdb93f1
Calvinball / int_ce9065f0	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_ce9065f0	comment	The Gamercat: An argument over what the young Glitch should play leads Gamercat to argue he should make his own decision, rather than having Sweet make him play fighting games or Pixel making him play puzzle games devoid of violence. He decides they should try Monopoly, but discover that in the set they have most of its important pieces are missing. The cats make do with PokÃ©mon cards and Skylanders figures, and come up with such creative loopholes as drawing a Diglett who can then dig your token's way out of Jail, or refusing to pay for an expensive hotel stay by having Charizard burn it down.
Calvinball / int_ce9065f0	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_ce9065f0	featureConfidence	1.0
The GaMERCaT (Webcomic)	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_ce9065f0
Calvinball / int_d022e3b3	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_d022e3b3	comment	Total Drama Do Over: In "Celebrity Manhunt Returns," Mel, Geoff, and B play a version of "Go Fish" where they make up a ridiculous new rule every turn. In Geoff's words, "It only gets funner as you play because if you forget a rule, youâ€™re doomed, dude."
Calvinball / int_d022e3b3	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_d022e3b3	featureConfidence	1.0
Total Drama Do Over / Fan Fic	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_d022e3b3
Calvinball / int_d1664149	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_d1664149	comment	Blank White Cards is the closest we'll get to "Nomic with cards". The only rules are that the game ends when someone cannot play or draw a card, and the person with the highest score wins. Beyond that, the individual players can write or draw on the cards and have them do pretty much whatever.
Calvinball / int_d1664149	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_d1664149	featureConfidence	1.0
Blank White Cards (Tabletop Game)	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_d1664149
Calvinball / int_d1d1b9f8	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_d1d1b9f8	comment	Second Apocalypse has the strategy board game of Benjuka, in which the rules are changed by the moves players make. Players frequently reference how the changing rules of Benjuka mirrors the complexity of real life.
Calvinball / int_d1d1b9f8	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_d1d1b9f8	featureConfidence	1.0
Second Apocalypse	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_d1d1b9f8
Calvinball / int_d3e3e38a	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_d3e3e38a	comment	She-Ra and the Princesses of Power: In the episode "Protocol", the three recurring Horde soldiers - Lonnie, Kyle and Rogelio - get A Day in the Limelight when their transport is disabled by an acid storm, and they end up trying to figure out who should go out to fix it by playing various games. When the first one, a Horde version of rock-paper-scissors, ends in stalemate after stalemate, Kyle proposes a game that he is clearly making up as he goes along, deducting points from the other players for specious reasons, meaning that he's basically playing Calvinball for his life...and this being Kyle, he somehow manages to lose even though he's the one making up the rules.
Calvinball / int_d3e3e38a	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_d3e3e38a	featureConfidence	1.0
She-Ra and the Princesses of Power	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_d3e3e38a
Calvinball / int_d422bd61	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_d422bd61	comment	The Leary family in Anne Tyler's The Accidental Tourist invented a card game called "Vaccination", which after decades of refinements has become so convoluted that no outsider could possibly learn how to play it. Except for Julian, who marries into the family; when he learns the rules, lead character Macon Leary is so impressed he withdraws his objection to Julian marrying his sister.
Calvinball / int_d422bd61	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_d422bd61	featureConfidence	1.0
The Accidental Tourist	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_d422bd61
Calvinball / int_d434979d	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_d434979d	comment	In David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest, the students at the Enfield Tennis Academy play Eschaton, a game of nuclear geopolitics, which has become something of an Academy tradition. One of the tennis courts is intricately painted with a map of the Earth and all its nations for this purpose. True to the trope, all that is made explicitly clear is that nuclear strikes are represented by serving tennis balls onto the map; the rest of the rules are stated to be so complex that they can only be understood through total memorization.
Calvinball / int_d434979d	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_d434979d	featureConfidence	1.0
Infinite Jest	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_d434979d
Calvinball / int_d461f757	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_d461f757	comment	In Battlestar Galactica (2003), the pilots are often seen playing a card game known on the original show as "Pyramid", referred to on the reboot as "Triad" (conversely the ball game, which was "Triad" in the original show, is now "Pyramid"). The cards are six-sided with a variety of symbols and colors to designate suit and rank. The rules are not shown consistently and the actors more or less improvised them; fans have tried to put together a consistent ruleset, but it's been tough going.
Calvinball / int_d461f757	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_d461f757	featureConfidence	1.0
Battlestar Galactica (2003)	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_d461f757
Calvinball / int_d4623ebb	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_d4623ebb	comment	3 Slytherin Marauders: Harry, his cousin, some friends, and a couple adults play water polo with a Frisbee instead of a ball and rules that were made up on the spot.
Calvinball / int_d4623ebb	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_d4623ebb	featureConfidence	1.0
3 Slytherin Marauders / Fan Fic	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_d4623ebb
Calvinball / int_d46cc708	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_d46cc708	comment	The Ed, Edd n Eddy episode "Urban Ed" opens with what intially seems to be the Eds getting Johnny to participate in one of these, rushing him to play a game consisting of seemingly random stunts without any time for explanation such as shooting peas through a straw to pop balloons, or throwing marshmallows into a tuba bell, but it soon becomes apparent that the whole "game" is a Bavarian Fire Drill to scam Johnny out of his cash when the last step turns out to be "put a quarter in the jar!" Unfortunately for the Eds, Johnny sees through the charade and walks off, saying "Nice try, Eddy."
Calvinball / int_d46cc708	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_d46cc708	featureConfidence	1.0
Ed, Edd n Eddy	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_d46cc708
Calvinball / int_d69208d2	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_d69208d2	comment	In the Codename: Kids Next Door episode "Operation: D.O.G.H.O.U.S.E.", the KND play a game of "cinder-ball", which involves launching a cinder-block with a BFG, hitting it with a giant tennis racket, bouncing off a launched trampoline, and running around bases and spinning.
Calvinball / int_d69208d2	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_d69208d2	featureConfidence	1.0
Codename: Kids Next Door	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_d69208d2
Calvinball / int_d6c54e00	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_d6c54e00	comment	Quantum Gravity: It looks like literally every game played by the fey is a form of Calvinball. Specifically, Malachi is annoyed by human sports because they're so boring and "the rules never change."
Calvinball / int_d6c54e00	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_d6c54e00	featureConfidence	1.0
Quantum Gravity	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_d6c54e00
Calvinball / int_d6e4ecca	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_d6e4ecca	comment	New School Kids has Trevopoly, which appears to be a mixture of Battleship and Sorry, played on a Monopoly board, with made-up rules.
Calvinball / int_d6e4ecca	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_d6e4ecca	featureConfidence	1.0
New School Kids (Webcomic)	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_d6e4ecca
Calvinball / int_d7ae372a	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_d7ae372a	comment	D-Frag! brings us the girls of the Game Development Club (temp), who specialize in creating board games that change layouts or rules depending on their whim.
Calvinball / int_d7ae372a	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_d7ae372a	featureConfidence	1.0
D-Frag! (Manga)	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_d7ae372a
Calvinball / int_d861bfb	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_d861bfb	comment	The Infinite Loops gives us Chaos, a game invented by a reformed Discord. It appears to be some kind of card game, and like its creator, it doesn't seem to make any sense. It also apparently has "expansions", including a sci-fi themed one seen being played by Captain Picard.
Calvinball / int_d861bfb	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_d861bfb	featureConfidence	1.0
The Infinite Loops / Fan Fic	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_d861bfb
Calvinball / int_d874a7b9	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_d874a7b9	comment	The "rules" associated with defenses of Larry Sweeney's ICW/ICWA Tex-Arkana Television Championship could change at any time.
Calvinball / int_d874a7b9	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_d874a7b9	featureConfidence	1.0
Larry Sweeney (Wrestling)	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_d874a7b9
Calvinball / int_d9c602eb	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_d9c602eb	comment	"Sarcastaball" from South Park was created as a response to growing football safety regulations. It's an ever-evolving inversion of the sport where players wear bras and tinfoil hats and toss a balloon across the field while hugging and congratulating nearby opponents.
Calvinball / int_d9c602eb	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_d9c602eb	featureConfidence	1.0
South Park	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_d9c602eb
Calvinball / int_da92c130	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_da92c130	comment	Lady Dove in Erfworld uses a card game like this to demonstrate the rudiments of Carnymancy. The basic rules are simple, but after the cards are dealt, everyone gets to make a new rule. The twist is that no player can use a rule he made himself to win a trick.
Calvinball / int_da92c130	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_da92c130	featureConfidence	1.0
Erfworld (Webcomic)	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_da92c130
Calvinball / int_dbf18509	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_dbf18509	comment	French comedians Kad & Olivier invented a game called "Kamoulox", a Jeopardy!-like game show with a number of arcane and stupidly-named rules. Two players basically give nonsensical answers to nonsensical questions ("I'm picking the reluctant Machiavellian houseplant"); a referee, always named "John-Bob" regardless of gender, oversees the game and can penalize them for infractions of the arcane rules, and the winner is the first to say "Kamoulox" when the other player takes too long to come up with a reply. For added insanity, John-Bob can also add special rules or invalidate a Kamoulox whenever they feel like it.
Calvinball / int_dbf18509	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_dbf18509	featureConfidence	1.0
Jeopardy!	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_dbf18509
Calvinball / int_dc08acbd	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_dc08acbd	comment	How the Grinch Stole Christmas!: "And they'll play noisy games like Zoo-zivver-karzay, a rollerskate-type of lacrosse and croquet"!
Calvinball / int_dc08acbd	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_dc08acbd	featureConfidence	1.0
How the Grinch Stole Christmas!	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_dc08acbd
Calvinball / int_dc72c82f	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_dc72c82f	comment	In Fallen London, in the Upper River, you can join the card game that the superstitious Evenlode constabulary play. Your character observes its nebulous rules and numerous odd little rituals and is mystified by them. The varying success text mentions players can cash out and bring in substitutes at any time, the rules sometimes change to Whist and sometimes to poker, card passing behavior changes at specific times and for specific lengths of time, and so on. There's a point during your game where the dealer accidentally destroys a pair of sevens and replaces them with an eight an a six, and no one even raises an eyebrow. You don't win anything playing with the constables; rather, you pick up on secrets the cops spill while spending time with them.
Calvinball / int_dc72c82f	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_dc72c82f	featureConfidence	1.0
Fallen London (Video Game)	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_dc72c82f
Calvinball / int_de73bec9	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_de73bec9	comment	In Home: Adventures with Tip & Oh, Oh shows Tip the Boov sport of Nuttypunny. Contestants are set out into a field of random trials with no real direction and are graded with "Compliances" or "Blunders" based on how they do. Oh reveals that the game is literally impossible to win and is just about having a fun time. When Oh and Tip play together the "right" way, they still get an equal amount of Compliances and Blunders, even getting a Blunder doing the exact same thing that was worth a Compliance earlier.
Calvinball / int_de73bec9	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_de73bec9	featureConfidence	1.0
Home: Adventures with Tip & Oh	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_de73bec9
Calvinball / int_de8f1f24	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_de8f1f24	comment	Kingdom Hearts III opens with and briefly revisits during the Darkest Hour a scene with a boy in white and a boy in black playing... what is called chess in Jiminy's Journal (in English, at least), but doesn't seem to match up to any known form of chess and largely seems to be symbolic of the conflict between light and darkness. For starters, the squares of the board are rotated 45Â° from a traditional chessboard (as in, the players are positioned at the points rather than the edges), although the array of the board still remains (as in, the player-most end does not consist of only one square), and the squares are at varying altitudes compared to each other. During the revisit, the boy in white is down to one piece and is surrounded by black pieces; he abruptly moves his piece back to his end of the board, and several more pieces just appear on his end. The final scene seems to suggest that the board and pieces are just a platform for games to be concocted by players, Ã la tabletop RPGs; with one game over, the boy in white shares a "new" game involving seven black pieces and...
Calvinball / int_de8f1f24	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_de8f1f24	featureConfidence	1.0
Kingdom Hearts III (Video Game)	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_de8f1f24
Calvinball / int_dfdfe88c	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_dfdfe88c	comment	In The Time Traveler's Wife, Henry, Claire, Charisse and Gomez play a game called "Modern Capitalist Mind-Fuck", which seems to have rules based more closely on a stock exchange than Monopoly, despite the fact it use a regular Monopoly board and properties. Watching them play is one of the funniest scenes in the novel.
Calvinball / int_dfdfe88c	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_dfdfe88c	featureConfidence	1.0
The Time Traveler's Wife	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_dfdfe88c
Calvinball / int_e0213763	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_e0213763	comment	Chuckles the jester in Ultima VII is a champion of "The Game", whose rules he cannot explain without violating them. The objective appears to be to complete a conversation with him without using any words containing more than one syllable.
Calvinball / int_e0213763	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_e0213763	featureConfidence	1.0
Ultima VII (Video Game)	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_e0213763
Calvinball / int_e16fa1a8	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_e16fa1a8	comment	The Impossible Quiz, a Flash quiz game whose answers can range from a Moon Logic Puzzle to Trial-and-Error Gameplay. There's no rhyme or reason to most of the questions, hence why it's impossible.
Calvinball / int_e16fa1a8	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_e16fa1a8	featureConfidence	1.0
The Impossible Quiz (Video Game)	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_e16fa1a8
Calvinball / int_e25322af	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_e25322af	comment	Most of the sports featured in Homestar Runner are some sort of Calvinball; even the name "Homestar Runner" derives from a friend of the creators totally mangling baseball terminology. Strong Bad was pointing out how ridiculous these games were as early as "In Search of the Yello Dello": In the Strong Bad Email "army", Strong Bad mentions a dice-and-cards-and-board game called "Three-to-One Marny". In the email "mascot", Strong Bad reveals that Crazy-Go-Nuts University has a "golf club" team, which seems to be an excuse for Strong Bad and his friends to hit stuff with a nine iron. The Cheat is seen taking on "Pile of Electronics State", and Strong Bad announces that next week they're playing "Homestar's Knees Tech". The email "the show" has Homestar hosting a hybrid between a talk show and a game show. He first offers 500 points to the Poopsmith to share his "polictical views", before turning to Pom Pom and asking him, "For the block, do you agree?" and turning it into a bizarre version of The Hollywood Squares. Both leave without answering, to which he awards each contestant 162 points.
Calvinball / int_e25322af	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_e25322af	featureConfidence	1.0
Homestar Runner (Web Animation)	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_e25322af
Calvinball / int_e3c37ed7	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_e3c37ed7	comment	Even Stevens: In one episode, Louis and Twitty play a game called "Sweaty Sock Ball", whose convoluted rules seem to change depending on the whim of the participants.
Calvinball / int_e3c37ed7	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_e3c37ed7	featureConfidence	1.0
Even Stevens	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_e3c37ed7
Calvinball / int_e4732abc	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_e4732abc	comment	In Stargate Atlantis, Ronon introduces Sheppard to a "traditional Satedan sport" which is basically a sparring session where the rules change with every round. After picking himself off the floor a few times, Sheppard complains that Ronon is just inventing this as an excuse to kick his ass. He good-naturedly indulges Ronon though, possibly because he's used to it by now.
Calvinball / int_e4732abc	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_e4732abc	featureConfidence	1.0
Stargate Atlantis	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_e4732abc
Calvinball / int_e48493b3	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_e48493b3	comment	Ultima: Chuckles the jester in Ultima VII is a champion of "The Game", whose rules he cannot explain without violating them. The objective appears to be to complete a conversation with him without using any words containing more than one syllable. Ultima Underworld II has a game called White Rock Black Rock, with fairly simple rules: if you pick the white rock (by choice, not by chance) then you win, and if you pick the black rock you lose. However, the game's rules become very bizarre when you play it in the Ethereal Void later on: fish, limbo, and peas are somehow involved, among other things.
Calvinball / int_e48493b3	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_e48493b3	featureConfidence	1.0
Ultima (Video Game)	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_e48493b3
Calvinball / int_e5964cdb	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_e5964cdb	comment	Several Chess variants can seem like Calvinball, especially given the idea that the more complicated the variant is, the smarter you'd have to be to be good at it. The most complicated is probably "Ultimate Shogi", which has a 36x36 board and 200 different pieces. (And in standard Japanese chess, if a player makes an invalid move, he loses automatically.) This kind of variant chess is parodied in "How Chess Was Meant To Be Played".
Calvinball / int_e5964cdb	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_e5964cdb	featureConfidence	1.0
Chess (Tabletop Game)	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_e5964cdb
Calvinball / int_e5c2a18a	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_e5c2a18a	comment	The rules of the card game Fluxx start simple, but the players can play (and sometimes can't avoid playing) cards that change them frequently. This means that players can never be sure that a winning hand this turn will be one next turn. And there is no win condition until somebody plays a card that defines one, which can be overwritten by a new one. Prince of Persia creator Jordan Mechner explicitly called it a Calvinball card game on an episode of TableTop.
Calvinball / int_e5c2a18a	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_e5c2a18a	featureConfidence	1.0
Fluxx (Tabletop Game)	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_e5c2a18a
Calvinball / int_e5dfd2c1	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_e5dfd2c1	comment	The Zork series featured Double Fanucci, a card game with fifteen suits and absurdly complex rules, which are never given in full. You actually have to play it in one of the games; thankfully, the only rule explained to you there is an Instant-Win Condition.
Calvinball / int_e5dfd2c1	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_e5dfd2c1	featureConfidence	1.0
Zork (Video Game)	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_e5dfd2c1
Calvinball / int_e7e37776	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_e7e37776	comment	Firefly: The episode "Bushwhacked" opens with a spirited game of Calvinball in the cargo bay. It was some bizarre variant of basketball, and it was a team game, but beyond that, no rules were really discernible.
Calvinball / int_e7e37776	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_e7e37776	featureConfidence	1.0
Firefly	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_e7e37776
Calvinball / int_e9cb2780	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_e9cb2780	comment	"Thrashball" in Gears of War is Blernsball as applied to NFL football rather than baseball; in many ways very similar to a familiar sport, but in many others bizarre and incomprehensible. There's a guy with shields in the backfield.
Calvinball / int_e9cb2780	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_e9cb2780	featureConfidence	1.0
Gears of War (Video Game)	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_e9cb2780
Calvinball / int_eaa211ea	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_eaa211ea	comment	On one episode of The Burns and Allen Show, Burns makes up a card game called Klebob as he goes along to psych Gracie. This backfires when Gracie easily figures out the rules to the game — partly because she's a Cloud Cuckoolander, and partly because it's just like the game George made up last week.
Calvinball / int_eaa211ea	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_eaa211ea	featureConfidence	1.0
TheBurnsAndAllenShow	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_eaa211ea
Calvinball / int_ec43f740	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_ec43f740	comment	From RÃ©mi le Radis, Robotic Rock-Paper-Scissors features about 48 different moves, and explaining the broad strokes of its different rules and combinations took a little over three weeks. From what's seen of screen, the Statue of Liberty emancipates the scissors, the USB cable connects the chocolate fritter, and the TV remote destroys the manga. The latter move was used by the Techno-Cyclops during its duel against RÃ©mi, but RÃ©mi revealed he had placed a trap card inside the manga, which turned out to be a Fire-type PokÃ©mon — and fire is super effective against TV remotes.
Calvinball / int_ec43f740	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_ec43f740	featureConfidence	1.0
Rémi le Radis (Web Video)	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_ec43f740
Calvinball / int_ee6c1abc	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_ee6c1abc	comment	In the Strong Bad Email "army", Strong Bad mentions a dice-and-cards-and-board game called "Three-to-One Marny".
Calvinball / int_ee6c1abc	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_ee6c1abc	featureConfidence	1.0
Strong Bad Email (Web Animation)	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_ee6c1abc
Calvinball / int_eedac02b	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_eedac02b	comment	Izaya from Durarara!! plays a game involving a Go board, chess pieces, Shogi pieces, playing cards, and matches (and eventually gasoline). It apparently corresponds in some way with the games he plays with the citizens of Ikebukuro. Other than that, only he knows. His hired secretary can't even fathom how it works.
Calvinball / int_eedac02b	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_eedac02b	featureConfidence	1.0
Durarara!!	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_eedac02b
Calvinball / int_f0a86c12	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_f0a86c12	comment	How I Met Your Mother: "Bask-ice Ball" is a hockey-basketball hybrid played by Marshall's family. Marshall admits to Lily that there are no rules; it's just an excuse for everyone to whale on each other. "Marsh-Gammon" involves a Candy Land board, poker chips, playing cards, a buzzer, handwritten "autobiography cards", a Twister spinner, and some dice. It also has nothing in common with backgammon, since Marshall hates everything about it except the name. This was featured in "Game Night", which reveals that Marshall is very good at games. "Xing Hai Shi Bu Xing" is an unfathomable casino game which features poker chips, Mahjong tiles, changing seats with other contestants, a wheel of fortune, and a jellybean. Everybody is befuddled by it — except for Marshall, who can even give Barney game-winning advice. The game's title, by the way, is Mandarin for "Deal or No Deal".
Calvinball / int_f0a86c12	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_f0a86c12	featureConfidence	1.0
How I Met Your Mother	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_f0a86c12
Calvinball / int_f1360d68	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_f1360d68	comment	The Gundam Fight in G Gundam actually does have a set of codified rules; however, in the Finals, the host nation (who is the defending champion) has carte blanche to alter the rules at will. Neo Hong Kong's Prime Minister changes all sorts of rules to screw with The Hero Domon, including a cage match with explosives (while holding Domon's Gundam in place with a giant horseshoe magnet); most scarily, he also suspends the normal Thou Shalt Not Kill rule.
Calvinball / int_f1360d68	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_f1360d68	featureConfidence	1.0
Mobile Fighter G Gundam	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_f1360d68
Calvinball / int_f1d35e6c	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_f1d35e6c	comment	Atlanta: At an Oktoberfest celebration Earn and Van play something called "Hootz-Kutz" which involves people sitting in a circle and passing ping-pong balls around and tossing them at a cup in the circle. No one ever explains to Earn how or why you're supposed to pass or shoot and he amazes the crowd by just leaning forward and dropping the balls in the cup (apparently something no one has ever thought of).
Calvinball / int_f1d35e6c	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_f1d35e6c	featureConfidence	1.0
Atlanta	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_f1d35e6c
Calvinball / int_f1da64b5	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_f1da64b5	comment	During the filming of The Lord of the Rings, in a break between shots Dominic Monaghan and Billy Boyd started tapping each other while making noises. Their 'game' became elaborate enough that Elijah Wood came over and asked if he could play too, at which point Dominic and Billy started making up rules on the spot. Apparently it took months before Elijah figured out that the game had been entirely improvised.
Calvinball / int_f1da64b5	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_f1da64b5	featureConfidence	1.0
The Lord of the Rings	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_f1da64b5
Calvinball / int_f361b493	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_f361b493	comment	In the I Love Lucy episode "The Golf Game", Lucy and Ethel want to take up golf, and ask Fred and Ricky how to play. The men don't want their wives following them around the golf course, so they try to discourage them by inventing a set of crazy and overly complex rules.
Calvinball / int_f361b493	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_f361b493	featureConfidence	1.0
I Love Lucy	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_f361b493
Calvinball / int_f6384958	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_f6384958	comment	On The Electric Company (1971), Jim Boyd's inventor/salesman introduces Luis Avalos' game company executive, Mr. Overprice, to the game called "Pay". It involves hitting an enormous baseball with a cudgel and running around the bases (i.e., the office furniture).
Calvinball / int_f6384958	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_f6384958	featureConfidence	1.0
The Electric Company (1971)	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_f6384958
Calvinball / int_f6c05e8e	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_f6c05e8e	comment	Friends has a number: "Cups" is a card game Chandler invented for the sole purpose of allowing Joey to win money from him without recognizing it as charity. Beginner's Luck is a vitally important feature. Joey auditions to be a host of a quiz show Bamboozled! which involves "Wicked Wango Cards" and "The Wheel of Mayhem". Chandler is skeptical when he helps Joey rehearse but by the end he declares it "The best game ever!". The executives decide it's too complicated for the audience to follow and decide to simplify it to a straight Q&A with the scores held up by girls in bikinis. "Phoebe Ball", invented by Phoebe on the spot, appears to consist of Phoebe asking questions and arbitrarily awarding points for the answer closest to the description she was thinking of. The others last a single round before giving up in frustration. Chandler and Joey play a number of dangerously stupid games of their own invention. One is "Hammer Darts"; beyond what can be intuited from the name, all we know about it is that it cost them their insurance and part of the wall. Another is "Fireball", which involves oven gloves, lighter fluid, and a tennis ball, and its variant "Ultimate Fireball", with a bowling ball and acetylene torch.
Calvinball / int_f6c05e8e	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_f6c05e8e	featureConfidence	1.0
Friends	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_f6c05e8e
Calvinball / int_fb27829b	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_fb27829b	comment	In Fantastic Mr. Fox, the animal school's official sport is Whackbat, an incomprehensible game similar to baseball and cricket played with a flaming pinecone. A sequence of the game in play features animals hitting the pinecone, running around in random directions, and spinning in place.
Calvinball / int_fb27829b	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_fb27829b	featureConfidence	1.0
Fantastic Mr. Fox	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_fb27829b
Calvinball / int_fc2d494	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_fc2d494	comment	Not Always Working has a story about a group of coworkers playing "tabletop-Calvinball", of which the only solid rule is that you have to find someone to take your place when your break ends, as the players are trying to keep the game going as long as possible.
Calvinball / int_fc2d494	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_fc2d494	featureConfidence	1.0
Not Always Working (Website)	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_fc2d494
Calvinball / int_fc658ed1	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_fc658ed1	comment	Mountain Time has "PlusBum":
Calvinball / int_fc658ed1	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_fc658ed1	featureConfidence	1.0
Mountain Time (Webcomic)	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_fc658ed1
Calvinball / int_ff4e1b34	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_ff4e1b34	comment	Dharma & Greg features a scavenger-hunt like game created by Greg and several of his law school friends at Harvard, where the goal is possession of a statue of a Glory Schnauzer dog, which must be claimed by secretly replacing it with a bust of Eisenhower. Steps to reclaim it after losing possession involve photographing the holder with the Jamaican flag or putting butter on a windowsill and filling a bathroom with a flock of ducks.
Calvinball / int_ff4e1b34	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_ff4e1b34	featureConfidence	1.0
Dharma & Greg	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_ff4e1b34
Calvinball / int_ffc6ca91	type	Calvinball
Calvinball / int_ffc6ca91	comment	In The Goldbergs, Barry and Adam invented a completely nonsensical game with a foam football called "ball-ball." The game mainly exists to be a sport Barry can win every time and feed his delusions of being a star athlete.
Calvinball / int_ffc6ca91	featureApplicability	1.0
Calvinball / int_ffc6ca91	featureConfidence	1.0
The Goldbergs	hasFeature	Calvinball / int_ffc6ca91

The following is a list of statements referring to the current page from other pages.

Calvinball	processingCategory2	Absurdity Ascendant
Calvinball	processingCategory2	Born in the Funny Papers
Calvinball	processingCategory2	Comedy Tropes
Calvinball	processingCategory2	Game Tropes
Osomatsu-san / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Tesagure! Bukatsu-mono / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
The Day I Became a God / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Invisible Games (Blog) / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Things Mr. Welch Is No Longer Allowed to Do in an RPG (Blog) / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Harlem Heroes (Comic Book) / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
My Little Pony: FIENDship Is Magic (Comic Book) / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
The Boys (Comic Book) / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
The Muppet Show Comic Book (Comic Book) / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Frazz (Comic Strip) / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Over the Hedge (Comic Strip) / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality / Fan Fic / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Calvin & Hobbes: The Series (Fanfic) / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Dream On You Crazy Princess (Fanfic) / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Game Theory (Lyrical Nanoha) (Fanfic) / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
The Dragon and the Butterfly (Fanfic) / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
The Legend of Total Drama Island (Fanfic) / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
The Omniverse Event (Fanfic) / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
BASEketball / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Bedknobs and Broomsticks / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Death Race 2000 / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Kaamelott: Premier Volet / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Space Jam: A New Legacy / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Spice World / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
The Accidental Tourist / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Top Gun: Maverick / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Star Wars Legends (Franchise) / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
The Smurfs (Franchise) / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Bludgeoning Angel Dokuro-chan / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Durarara!! / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
JK Haru is a Sex Worker in Another World / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
A Separate Peace / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Amelia Bedelia / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Black Jewels / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Bludgeoning Angel Dokuro-chan / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Durarara!! / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Havemercy / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Infinite Jest / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Joker Game / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Malazan Book of the Fallen / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
No Game No Life / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Nyaruko: Crawling with Love! / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Principia Discordia / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Reign of the Seven Spellblades / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Rihannsu / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Skippy's List / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
The Beast from the East / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
The Tim Tebow CFL Chronicles / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Where the Wild Things Are / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Who's Afraid of Beowulf? / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
CalvinBall	seeAlso	Calvinball
Cricket Rules	seeAlso	Calvinball
MorningtonCrescent	seeAlso	Calvinball
Ptitler4e1mm02	seeAlso	Calvinball
StarBright	seeAlso	Calvinball
UnintelligiBall	seeAlso	Calvinball
Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo (Manga) / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Gabriel DropOut (Manga) / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Jusâ€ ice (Music) / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Qwerpline (Podcast) / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
The Bugle (Podcast) / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Wolf 359 (Podcast) / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue (Radio) / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
The Penny Dreadfuls Present (Radio) / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
The Gungan Council (Roleplay) / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
A Bit of Fry and Laurie / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Adventures in Wonderland / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Battlestar Galactica (1978) / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Battlestar Galactica (2003) / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Bottom / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Defiance / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Family Feud / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Firefly / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Green Wing / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
I Love Lucy / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Impractical Jokers / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Late Night / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Little Lunch / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Million Second Quiz / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Most Extreme Elimination Challenge / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Mulaney / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Muppets Now / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
New Girl / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Odd Squad / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Parks and Recreation / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Party Down / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Shaun Micallef's Mad as Hell / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Square One TV / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
That Mitchell and Webb Look / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
The Addams Family / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
The Amazing Race / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
The Bob Newhart Show / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
The Electric Company (1971) / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
The Eric Andre Show / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
The Goldbergs / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
The Goodies / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
The Middleman / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
The Monkees / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
The Office (US) / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
The Prisoner (1967) / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
The Wheel / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
The Young Ones / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Uhu / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Winning Streak / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Zoom / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Hoyle's Rules of Dragon Poker (Tabletop Game) / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Paranoia (Tabletop Game) / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Perplex City (Tabletop Game) / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Trogdor!! The Board Game (Tabletop Game) / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Academagia (Video Game) / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Battle Realms (Video Game) / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Blaseball (Video Game) / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Blue Archive (Video Game) / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel! (Video Game) / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Fallen London (Video Game) / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Fortnite (Video Game) / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Hypnospace Outlaw (Video Game) / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Jazztronauts (Video Game) / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Not for Broadcast (Video Game) / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Secret Agent Clank (Video Game) / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
The Outer Worlds (Video Game) / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Ultima Underworld (Video Game) / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
You Don't Know Jack (Video Game) / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Zork (Video Game) / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Zork: Grand Inquisitor (Video Game) / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Zork Zero (Video Game) / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Grisaia no Kajitsu (Visual Novel) / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
The Fruit of Grisaia (Visual Novel) / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Baman Piderman (Web Animation) / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Homestar Runner (Web Animation) / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
STBlackST (Web Animation) / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Ozy and Millie (Webcomic) / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Precocious / Web Comic / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
DougDoug (Web Video) / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Epic NPC Man (Web Video) / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Joueur du Grenier (Web Video) / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Meme House (Web Video) / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
ProZD (Web Video) / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Rémi le Radis (Web Video) / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Rhett & Link (Web Video) / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
StephenVlog (Web Video) / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
TableTop (Web Video) / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
The Annotated Series (Web Video) / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Ansem Retort (Webcomic) / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
City of Somnus (Webcomic) / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Crit Miss (Webcomic) / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Darths & Droids (Webcomic) / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Dork Tower (Webcomic) / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Erfworld (Webcomic) / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Hyperbole and a Half (Webcomic) / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Insecticomics (Webcomic) / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Little Nuns (Webcomic) / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
New School Kids (Webcomic) / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Problem Sleuth (Webcomic) / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
qxlkbh (Webcomic) / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Sheldon (Webcomic) / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Whomp! (Webcomic) / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
xkcd (Webcomic) / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
All Grown Up! / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Big City Greens / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Chowder / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Fanboy and Chum Chum / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Fantastic Mr. Fox / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Galaxy High / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Gemusetto / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Harvey Street Kids / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Home: Adventures with Tip & Oh / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Life's a Jungle: Africa's Most Wanted / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Molly of Denali / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
My Little Pony: Pony Life / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Recess / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Rocket Power / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Ruby Gloom / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Spliced / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Teen Titans / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
The Ghost and Molly McGee / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
The Mr. Peabody & Sherman Show / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
The Penguins of Madagascar / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Transformers: Rescue Bots / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Trolls: The Beat Goes On! / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Where's Wally? (1991) / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Wishfart / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball
Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple (Manga) / int_1667cb1	type	Calvinball

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