Calvinball!, Or its non-copyright Agespast equivalent

Puddleglum, bewildered as usual by the sudden changes to the playing field, shakes her now-white hair out of her suddenly dark face and wonders why she thought she'd seen someone flying. She turns to go look for the Calvinball but walks into a tree instead, fogetting about the lack of depth problem. Suddenly, a large light (dark?) bulb appears, hovering in mid-air above Puddleglum's head.
Puddleglum: Aha!
She reaches into her purse which no one had noticed she was carrying and pulls out a mirror. Using it, she can now see the world as though it was normal -- except backwards. So, she starts to walk backwards and somehow manages to bump into the same tree again, and in doing so both the light bulb and the mirror break and the negative photo zone is disabled. The accompanying explosion startles the nearby players and umbrellafish drops the Calvinball in surprise. Luckily, the mirror broke when the negative photo zone was still enabled, so Puddleglum is spared seven years of bad luck. She takes a run toward the startled umbrellafish or, more precisely, the Calvinball.

Elekoth, who had been absent mindedly wandering the cave for the latter half of the game, accidentally tripped over the "New Game Line" triggering a new game of Agespast Calvinball that will hopefully have more participants than ever. All the players reappear at centerfield, all scores are reduced to zero, and a Calvinball drops from the sky.

Lady Godiva seizes the opportunity to finally influence the game and runs after the Calvinball! Unfortunately, she trips and falls as her fingers brush the ball, redirecting it into some nearby shrubbery [a singular, collective noun]. Anticipating a herd of Calvinball players running towards her, Lady Godiva (still on the ground) covers her head.

Magnus triggers the LaserQuest zone, turning the landscape into a dark, smoky labyrinth with "Spinning Wheels" by Blood, Sweat & Tears blaring in the background.

Magnus: Mr. Laser-tag-machine....GO!

Magnus fires a flurry of laser beams at the ultralight (and ultraviolet) Calvinball, and thus propells it towards his goal. He also wonders where Sauron the Dark Lord of LaserQuest is hiding...

Puddleglum sees where the Calvinball is headed and decides she must take drastic action. She whips out a laser gun and takes aim at the Calvinball, which is still hurtling towards Magnus' goal. Taking a deep breath, she pulls the trigger...and a little flag reading BANG pops out.

Puddleglum: Stupid pantomimes. Now what?

She resolves to take even more drastic action and starts running after the Calvinball. As graceful as always, like a swan on land, she stumbles after the ball. When she finally clues in that she's not going to catch a laser-propelled, flying Calvinball, she instead throws her "laser" gun at it. Unfortunately, she misses by a long shot and the gun hits Magnus' goal, blowing it to bits in a large explosion.

Puddleglum: Cool!

The Calvinball lands on the ground at the other end of the field. Puddleglum is awarded ten points for the faulty equipment, but is docked five for damage to official Calvinball property.

Magnus is slightly miffed that his goal was so callously blown to smithereens...
...though he is also awestruck by the beauty of the giant explosion.

Magnus ponders and decides that the moment has come for the Ultimate All-Purpose Phrase of Calvinball:

Magnus:

Magnus is awarded 1000 points for being the first to use the Ultimate All-Purpose phrase in the entire game thus far!

With the utterance of said phrase, the terrain is again transformed...

At the sidelines....

Azisien: It's my turn to give this a shot!

Generic Warning Character #8347: But Azisien, you are unaware of this game's virtues, you will be...

Azisien: Silence! Try I must! Sure, I'm a little accident prone, but how bad could it be?

Azisien steps onto the field, and just as he does, he watches as Magnus utters a phrase. Tons of bells and ringers go off as Magnus and his team are awarded 1000 points. Suddenly, the terrain rapidly changes to...

Computerized Female Voice: Primordial Earth Mode Activated.

Azisien: Primordial.....oh whatever. How bad could it be?

Azisien starts to run towards the Calvinball at the center of the field as it rapidly changes into hot rocky surfaces littered with molten pools of ooze. Lightning begins flashing in the sky and occasional meteorites smash into the field, causing large craters.

Azisien: Oh man...

Azisien watches as the ground around him quickly starts turning into boiling pools of goopy water. Running as fast as he can, barely avoiding the collapsing solid ground behind him, he makes his way to the Calvinball as the others roll around on the ground, laughing hysterically.

Finally, he reaches the center of the field, and grabs the Calvinball, only to find that it has a large phrase printed on it which reads: "Pick this up to trigger a large asteroid impact at this location."

Azisien: You've gotta be kidding m---

His sentence was cut off by a massive asteroid which obliterates Azisien and the centerfield. Medical crews rush out onto the impact site and retrieve the heavily mutilated fragments of Azisien. As they leave the field, and the other players stop crying tears of laughter, the terrain begins to change....

Announcer: Barahad, having been side-tracked by major, ground-shattering issues in his homeland, has left the game, and has been replaced by Generic Player #456. Let's see what kind of hilarity ensues...

#456: OY! I'm here for Calvin...*#456 is trampled by a horde of masked figures wielding croquet mallets, riding broom-stick ponies, in hot pursuit of the Calvinball

#456: Everything...so...cold...

Announcer: Oh dear. Looks like whoever is on Barahad's team had better hope he gets back from whatever it is he's doing soon...

I hereby resurrect this topic to bring you...
the "official" rules of Calvinball!

Enjoy!

Hooray for the official rules of Calvinball! But...where exactly are they?

This post has been edited by Barahad on Apr 13 2005, 02:52 AM

Whoops. Not sure how I managed that one...here they are:

The Official Rules of Calvinball

edit: made the link work.

This post has been edited by Avacar on Apr 14 2005, 12:04 PM

Well I notice that we haven't exactly been breaking out into song during the course of this game...and I'm worried that our scores are logically consistent...hmm...we'll have to fix that.

Barahad declares the term 'ethical lawyers' to not be an oxymoron, causing the rules of the universe to unravel, leaving the score at S7 to Moo.

Evilbunny declares moo to be a noise made by a muddy aardvark and that therefore she is winning. again.

Evilbunny: I've also found the wickets and flags! rock!

This post has been edited by EvilBunny on Apr 14 2005, 07:13 PM

Elekoth steals the rock, declaring it the Calvinball, and, hoping over a wall of wickets, causes the score to be divided by 1983.

Barahad becomes confused by Elekoth's theft of EvilBunny's verbal statement, and stumbles (in his confusion) into the random literary device zone, activating it. The flashy, spinny wheel spins and comes to rest on 'alliteration'.

Theophilus tries to take the new Calvinball with trepidation. Then a three-toed tree sloth turns up and treats Elekoth to a toffee tart, thereby turning his attentions to things that are not the Calvinball. Theophilus takes the terrific Calvinball and twirls towards a thicket of trees.

Theophilus and Elekoth are docked 10 points for 'Failing to use Italics in a Narrative Zone.'

Magnus produces a Scottish caber and, popping some protein pills, swings at the Calvinball as it hurtles towards yon thicket.

The Calvinball ricochets back towards Elekoth and lands squarely in his Toffee Tart.

Magnus: That's 10 points for giving Elekoth his just desserts!

The other players cringe at the unleashing of yet another horrible pun and begin to advance threateningly on Magnus.

Magnus grabs the Calvinball and runs for his life.

This post has been edited by Magnus on Apr 15 2005, 04:39 AM

Theophilus deactivates the alliteration zone. Then she points out to Magnus that it's been awhile, so that's why she forget to use italics. Then she docks Magnus 34 points for ignoring the alliteration zone, and 45 more points for using a pun that's already been used in this game.

Magnus: Shazbot!

Puddleglum chases Magnus and the Calvinball. She is so intent on chasing him that she doesn't look where she is going and trips. As she trips, she "trips" the device which activates the "Fortunately, Unfortunately Zone." Unfortunately, this means that the one sentence must begin with "fortunately" and the next with "unfortunately," etc. Fortunately, this is only in effect for the next three posts.

Unfortunately for everyone else, this catches them off guard and Magnus drops the Calvinball. Fortunately, Puddleglum reacts quickly for once and grabs it, making a dash for the goal.

Fortunately EvilBunny has the Flag of Immunity, which means she does not need to obey any rules.

Unfortunately she appears to be obeying the rules anyway.

Fortunately for everoyone, Barahad, being distracted by the notion of chocolate pudding and ice cream, steps on the Calvinball and goes spinning through the air, landing on a giant red button which has the universal symbol of chocolate pudding on it, thereby activating the tasty desserts zone. Everyone must now be wary of the pitfalls (and pits) of the dessert terrain. Hopping onto a gingerbread camel with the Calvinball, Barahad races off across the treacherous and ever-shifting finely powdered brown sugar dunes of this particular dessert towards the elusive oasis.

The dessert, for the record, is apple crisp.

Suddenly! Out of nowhere, thought to have disappeared, Umbrellafish walks out onto the playing... er, "field". But what's that? She found the Calvinball hidden transformation base? Things start to go awry when the players find themselves in a dessert eating contest. Umbrellafish vaccuums up her apple crisp, winning the contest and 393 points. Also, 73Q ghost points for finding the transforming base.

Content with her recent victory, she puts all her points (except the ghost ones...) in a bag and continues on her way when she is knocked over by a rowdy group of three other participants! She drops her point bag and they scatter everywhere. In a mad rush between the four of them, they scramble to pick them up and claim them for themselves. Umbrellafish only manages to salvage 94 points. Where did the rest go?

Umbrellafish runs off, determined to find the elusive oasis, Barahad, and a more sensible way to carry her points around.

This post has been edited by umbrellafish on May 8 2005, 01:37 AM

Elekoth runs out and grabs 94 of the Umbrellafish points, gains a bonus of 25 more for eating the Just Deserts given by Magnus (and thus avoiding having to eat a landscape-sized delicacy) He then proceeds to use the next year to dig a hole in which to hide his points (having learnt from Umbrellafish).

Elekoth: Oops, China is a bit further than intended...

On his way back up, Elekoth finds a fossilized Cro-Magnon Calvinball which activates the 'Unrealistic Prehistory' zone <Think Flintstones>

Avacar gains 340 points for having Chapeled a Calvin Point every day for the last 340. The Chapel explodes and reveals the Calvin Ball.

Avacar: Ha! My ball isn't fossilized! It must be the real ball!

Avacar runs for the 10th wicket

This post has been edited by Avacar on Apr 10 2006, 12:57 AM

Barahad recalls Avacar using a similar ploy during the last Agespast meet - at the time, involving a frisbee and first base. Undeterred by Avacar's charge to the alleged tenth wicket, Barahad cuts right, heading to the seventh wicket. Somehow, this new direction sends him immediately to the tenth wicket, where he calmly beans Avacar on the head with the first base of the Agespast meet, stealing the Calvinball and winning the first and last letters of the alphabet.

Satisfied, Barahad departs the tenth wicket, heading...elsewhere.

This post has been edited by Barahad on Apr 17 2006, 07:09 AM