Ward Batty - The World: Thinking “Globally”

By Ward Batty

I get more “million-dollar” ideas than I know what to do with, so sometimes I just give them away. This is one of those times.

I’d love to see a large globe-like device that would be lit internally so that the image would be something (a small plastic ball that covers the light bulb?) projected onto the surface of the globe, but could also be easily changed. This would be the game “board,” as it were. The ball would need to be able to have pieces placed on it. Magnets, I’d guess. Have enough metallic substance in the glass or plastic so that it would hold a piece, maybe. It would also need either a lot of space from the arm or be supported solely from the bottom or top and could, of course, turn. Make it from plastic and make a beach-ball sized. That’d be impressive.

Lots of games have rules or variants that allow the board to wraparound, but this is just an approximation of what would be possible playing on an actual sphere. From go to chess to Ingenious to Settlers to Ticket to Ride this would create a unique playing surface that would open up a lot of possibilities. And global wargames could be just that.

This is sort of like the Entertaible (which I wrote about in January) but expands the game dimensions and isn’t as high-tech and, therefore, expensive. Plus the publishers still have a physical product they can sell, the ball or whatever the board image is projected through and the pieces.

That’s it, let the nay-saying begin. But you gotta admit, it would be cool.

© 2006 Ward Batty

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Comments:

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Very cool.  I like the inflatable ball idea as one issue will be “storage”. I think the ball as board works, but getting things to stick makes it harder.  For that you need an internal frame which might start to mess with the projection.  Perhaps a hoberman sphere type thing?  good for storage too then… Posted by Matt J. Carlson on Apr 5, 2006 at 01:29 PM | #

If you have an idea for a game on a true sphere, why don’t you just play on two hemispheres?  You could easily make them rigid and magnetic, or just have holes in the surface for pegged pieces.  They could fit inside of each other for storage, and just think of all the free publicity you would get from the Busen Memo jokes. Posted by Thomas Pancoast on Apr 5, 2006 at 02:33 PM | #

see. there you go.  stackable hemispheres solves the storage problem.  That’s why I’m a theoretician, not an engineer.... Posted by Matt J. Carlson on Apr 5, 2006 at 06:50 PM | #

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