Gunball

If you’ve been attending our critically acclaimed Octavarius: So Nefarious run at Comedy Sportz on Sunday Nights at 7, then you may have heard of a little game that we invented called Gunball.

Gunball is a dart game played with the Nerf “Maverick”

and a specially designed game board that’s based off of a wall thermometer.

SCORING

Each player has 6 shots to earn as many points as possible each framing.  The outside columns consist of multiple rectangles worth 0-110 points.  The inside, smaller columns of black and white squares indicate DOUBLE POINTS for the rectangle they are adjacent to.  In cases where a dart is hitting more than one square, the square claiming 51% of the dart is the point value that is earned (if it’s hitting 3 or more squares, then whichever has the majority of the dart is the point value).

GAMEPLAY

The game consists of 10 “Framings” (a combination of frames and innings) that are divided into 4 “Roundings” that define the distance from the game board that the players shoot from.

The first Rounding consists of Framings 1, 2, and 3.  Players stand 7 feet from the board (mounted on a wall or window, plexiglass or glass should be in front of the paper board so that darts will stick) and shoot their 6 darts at the board.  This distance is referred to as “Mustang.”

The second Rounding consists of Framings 4, 5, and 6.  Players stand 9 and a half feet from the board and shoot.  This distance is referred to as “Stallion.”

The third Rounding consists of Framings 7, 8, and 9.  Players stand 12 feet from the board and shoot.  This distance is referred to as “Stud.”

The fourth Rounding is different.  It is the last framing of the game and holds the most importance.  Players return to the Mustang distance and shoot.  In this framing, every “double” that is hit also earns the player a “Centaur Shot.”  Supposing a player gets 3 doubles in the 10th Framing, they will have 3 shots to hit ANY PART of the Centaur at the top of the board (even if the dart is barely touching, that counts as a hit).

The only drawback is, that the player most threatened (score-wise) in the game, gets to place the darts into the gun of the current shooter, who then will have to shoot, not knowing if he is shooting a dart or a blank, until all 3 darts (in this case) have been shot.

Every hit earns the player an additional 100 points.  Bonus: if the player can strike a perfect boner on the Centaur, they will earn 200 points.  If a boner is struck before the final darts are shot, the boner is removed for the opportunity to receive more boner points.

In addition to just playing, the game is made more fun by having all the players also double as sports casters commenting on the game.

“LP steps up to shoot in the 6th framing of Gunball.  He is, of course, finishing up his time at the Stallion distance.  Let’s see what score he can come up with!  His first shots are a little outside… securing a double hundred with his 4th!… a 60… and what might be a double 70 but we’ll have to go in for a closer look…. Ahh… Looks like it’s only a single 70 so a modest score of 330 for LP.  LP is trailing in this game of Gunball and you just hate to see that happen…”

TERMS

Gunball has been building its own terminology for various occurrences in the game.

Double ____ the hard way – getting 2 darts on the same point value

Triple ____ the fun way – a double score and a single score on the same point value

Golden XBox – a framing score of 360

Robin Hood – hitting the a dart already on the board, causing the dart to deflect to the floor, resulting in no points (you hate to see that happen…)

We play this game at home all the time, and we also play after every Octavarius show.  The game has begun spreading, beginning with a dear friend of Octavarius, D7.  Here is his home arena.

If you’d like the pdf of the board, please send an email to me at keith.habersberger@gmail.com with the subject “Gunball” and I will gladly send you the file.