Ball Tag

About

The backyard game Ricky played with his brothers and cousin. Someone's IT. They run for the ball while everyone else scatters, and the moment they've got it they call STOP. Everyone freezes where they are. You're allowed to plant one foot and pivot on it, or duck, and that's all, while IT lines up the throw. Get hit before the ball touches the ground and you're IT.

The TV is the yard and the broadcast: a camera that follows the ball and cuts to close shots, captions, a slow-motion replay after a hit. Your phone is your controller, with its own view over your player's shoulder.

• Plant and pivot. Frozen, you get one planted foot per STOP and a swing of the other round it. Or duck, under a fastball, though a lob comes down on you.
• Three throws and a fake. Hold the pad to charge, then swipe: straight for a fastball, an arc for a curve round the tree, a scoop for a lob over the hedge. Stop dead before letting go and it's a pump fake, and the TV calls out whoever bit.
• Knocked flying. A hit sends you ragdolling across the grass, further the further ahead you are, so the leader always has the most to lose.
• A yard to hide in. The tree, a hedge and a woodpile each need their own throw to get behind.
• Your face on your figure. A selfie or a finger drawing, printed on the white figure's head, on the TV and on every phone.
• Bots fill the yard to four, and take over a phone that drops until it's back.
• Solo, with no TV. One phone or a computer against one to seven bots, easy, normal or hard, with the captions and the replay phone-sized.
• Two ways to play: fewest times IT wins, or backyard rules, no winner, just the round-up and its awards.

A round, on the TV and the phone

One round from the phone in your hand (held sideways: the stick on the left, the button for the moment on the right). The TV's side of it is in the carousel above.

Before the game

Joining with the code on the TV, a face for your figure, how to play, and the lobby (here, solo's).

Solo

No TV and nobody about: the phone runs the game itself, against bots, held whichever way up you like (here, upright). No name needed. On a computer the keys work too: WASD or the arrows to run, Space for the button, C to duck, and drag with the mouse to throw.