Game: Fubi

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Walt Mulder — 2006-12-03T01:29:30+00:00

A shot from Essen 06. Still going strong

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Walt Mulder — 2006-12-03T01:29:25+00:00

The designer Ivo at Essen 06

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Spiderman_ — 2005-10-24T04:46:10+00:00

Side View

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Spiderman_ — 2005-10-24T04:46:10+00:00

Top View

Thread: Session Report

yudp — 2003-01-03T13:58:54+00:00

Dale 2-1 Raj
Dale 2-0 Dave

After some snacks on New Year’s Eve, it was time for the games. Fubi had been laying out on the kitchen table and had been getting glances and comments all thru the night. So we pulled out the sticks and started to play. In the first game, there was a very slow start to the game as no one scored for over 5 minutes. We just went back and forth over and over again. Raj had one close call where he got the ball past all of the defenders but couldn’t get it to completely cross the line. A little later, I had the same thing happen to me, but Raj mishit it when trying to clear the ball from the penalty area, and I had a quick goal. After the restart, we were falling into the same pattern until Raj scored a great goal by zigzagging off the elastic bands twice and then hitting the back edge of the last central defender to go in for a goal. I don’t know if he could have possibly planned it, but it looked great nonetheless! But, my obvious Fubi experience triumphed in the end, and I put away a 2-1 victory. Dave then wanted to play, so I sat him down and taught him the rules (all two of them). Similar to billiards, there is an element of “Speed Kills” to Fubi. If you hit the ball to hard, it’s impossible to know where it might end up, and some of these wild shots would rebound and ricochet all over the place. Sooner or later, one of these would go all the way back near Dave’s goal leaving me with an easy shot. I won that one 2-0.

Thread: User Review

yudp — 2003-01-02T15:28:56+00:00

After setting up Fubi (finally – after over 9 months of ownership!) – thanks in large part to the appearance of the game in the Games 100 – I managed to talk my wife into a quick game of Fubi. The game itself is pretty simple – here is a brief description. The “board” is a felt covered soccer field. On this field are a number of “soccer players” – which are really just plastic pegs. On each turn, one player hits a heavy metal ball (not as large as a pinball but larger than a pachinko ball) with a plastic stick (think of a Kraft cheez-and-cracker Handisnack stick on steroids) which has both a fat end and a tapered end. If the ball crosses the goal line, you score a point! If not, your opponent gets to hit the ball from wherever it stopped moving.

But before you can play, you have to set the game up. You set it up by hammering in metal poles around the outside which you then stretch an elastic band around. This band is quite taut when fully stretched and the ball bounces off of it quite far. After you do this, you place the “players” into place by hammering them in. The colors of the players don’t really matter because they merely act as obstacles for getting the ball in the goal. The setup is fairly simple. You need only a hammer and about 5 minutes. It’s hard to put the pegs in the wrong places because there are small pilot holes that are placed to help show you where to pound the suckers in.

The game itself is simple – the only rules to the game (at least the only rules included with my copy) are summarized above. Smack the ball with your stick. If it’s in the goal, score a point and start over. Try not to hit many of the plastic pegs representing players because this will generally cause the ball to ricochet off in some direction you didn’t intend. Also, don’t hit it too hard into the elastic because it’s strung quite tight and will send the ball flying. If it doesn’t score a goal, your opponent gets to hit the ball from wherever it stopped. Rinse, lather, repeat. That’s all there is to the game?

Are there any tactics? After 5 games, there are only minimal tactics involved. If you look at the picture (somewhere else here on the ‘Geek) – you can see how congested the goal area can get. The players are in an inverted pyramid shape in front of the goal. However, in this alignment, there are a few pathways that lead directly to the goal. So you don’t want to hit the ball so that your opponent will have an easy shot to the goal. Also, there are a few areas on either side of the goal, where there are actually no players to impede your shot. The only player which is even remotely in the way is the “goalie” – but from the acute angle from the side, the goalie seems to be used more often to help bank the shot it rather than stop it.

So is it fun? Yes, it’s actually quite a bit of fun. Mind you, it’s all mindless fun – but not a bad way to spend 5 or 10 minutes while you’re waiting for another game to start or something like that. Could you play it all night? Only if it were the only game in the house. It’s good but it’s not that good.

Why would I want it? Well, as I said earlier – it’s fun. I would place this in the same vein of games as Loopin’ Louie, Bamboleo, Tipp Kick, Finger Hockey, Elchfest or Crokinole. They’re great games to have out in case you need fillers for a large game night. You can easily waste away as much as 30 minutes playing these while you wait for more people to show up or for another table to finish so you can start a meatier game. Also, I think they’re great games to use to attract people who wouldn’t otherwise play games. Loopin’ Louie has attracted more than a few people into our game group because after seeing Loopin’ Louie, they always ask “So, do you have any other games?” – at which point you can then break out Carcassone, etc.

Oh yeah, after seeing this played at Christmas parties, one other reason to have it is that kids seem to love it. They actually can play it all night. Teach the kids the rules in about 30 seconds and then you may not have to deal with them the rest of the night at all! Just for that it would be worth the full purchase price!

Thread: Session Report

yudp — 2003-01-02T15:27:56+00:00

In the first game, there was a lot of feeling around and we decided to play to 2 goals. Neither of us had played the game before, so we had to learn the physics of the Fubi universe. It was surprising how stiff the pegs acted when the ball hit them. More often than not, the ball would ricochet quite far when it hit a peg. Scoring proved tough in the early going and it probably took about 15 turns before I broke the ice. Tracy restarted the game and hit the ball into the corner. I mishit the ball and it took a ricochet off a peg and landed right in the middle of the pyramid of pegs just in front of my goal. Needless to say, an easy goal for Tracy on the next turn. After the restart, I took a conservative approach and tried to do what Tracy did on the last restart. Unfortunately for me, the cosmos were aligned in her favor and she pocketed the ball from about 2/3 of the way across the field. Game over, good night.

Matt came over for some two player gaming and Fubi was first on the table. It was just recently put together, so I was excited to try it again (especially having lost the night before in the inaguraral Fubi match). Having a slight advantage in Fubi-physics and Fubi-tactics, I quickly scored the first goal after a mishit on Matt’s part. After the restart, there was a bit of cat and mouse, but then I managed to get one in from about the center line. Game one to me. Having gotten used to the game, Matt wanted a quick rematch. He proved to be a quick learner and took advantage of my mistakes winning the game 2-1. For the final game, we chose to play a sudden death match to one. Because of this, the game was extremely conservative. Much of the early game (probably 10-12 turns) was just hitting the ball from one deep corner of the board to another. I broke down, though, and tried to get in better position. I hit one of the middle players though and the ball came to a stop near the center line. Matt quickly lined up the shot and slotted in home for the series victory.

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yudp — 2003-01-02T13:58:45+00:00

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yudp — 2003-01-02T13:58:40+00:00