# Name Those Fictional Games & Sports **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 9, 2007, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-those-fictional-games-sports/418611 "2007-09-09T22:03:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![sciurophobic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cab0a1/32.png) [@sciurophobic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sciurophobic)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2007, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-those-fictional-games-sports/418611/21 "2007-09-09T23:42:36Z")
Thud ---
**Author:** ![OneCentStamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/13edae/32.png) [@OneCentStamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OneCentStamp)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2007, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-those-fictional-games-sports/418611/22 "2007-09-09T23:52:46Z")
“Sphere chase,” the unnamed sport of the Masters from John Christopher’s trilogy about the Tripods. ---
**Author:** ![detop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bcef8e/32.png) [@detop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/detop)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2007, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-those-fictional-games-sports/418611/23 "2007-09-09T23:57:17Z")
Kitten poker from BtVS [Future Sport](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0158409/) Dragon poker from Robert Asprin’s Myth books ---
**Author:** ![Baldwin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baldwin/32/7264_2.png) [@Baldwin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baldwin)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2007, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-those-fictional-games-sports/418611/24 "2007-09-10T00:05:11Z")
Dazzle Dart, from the Malcolm Jameson story “Bullard Reflects”. ETA: All these Star Trek references, and has anybody mentioned good ol’ Three-Dimensional Chess? (Didn’t Paramount actually market some sets? Man, that’d be a collectable.) ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2007, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-those-fictional-games-sports/418611/25 "2007-09-10T00:08:06Z")
**Dazzle Dart** , a relay-light-beam game in Malcolm Jameson’s 1941 science fiction story “Bullard Reflects”. Today, they’d use a laser beam instead of a flashlight. In the 1970s, somebody made a computer game out of it. I just wrote a piece about it for Optics and Photonic News. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2007, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-those-fictional-games-sports/418611/26 "2007-09-10T00:11:18Z")
Unlikeliest. Simulpost. Ever. ---
**Author:** ![zamboniracer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e9a140/32.png) [@zamboniracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zamboniracer)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2007, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-those-fictional-games-sports/418611/27 "2007-09-10T00:20:43Z")
The card game TEGWAR from [Mark Harris’ book & movie “Bang the Drum Slowly”](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069765/) . TEGWAR stood for The Amazing Game Without Any Rules. ---
**Author:** ![bmoak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9dc877/32.png) [@bmoak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bmoak)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2007, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-those-fictional-games-sports/418611/28 "2007-09-10T00:31:06Z")
Gymkata! ---
**Author:** ![AmalgramFour](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85f322/32.png) [@AmalgramFour](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AmalgramFour)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2007, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-those-fictional-games-sports/418611/29 "2007-09-10T00:31:26Z")
How about _The Long Walk_ and _The Running Man_? ---
**Author:** ![racer72](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/racer72/32/3075_2.png) [@racer72](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/racer72)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2007, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-those-fictional-games-sports/418611/30 "2007-09-10T01:12:49Z")
Paper Football. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2007, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-those-fictional-games-sports/418611/31 "2007-09-10T01:16:19Z")
Thunderdome ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2007, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-those-fictional-games-sports/418611/32 "2007-09-10T01:18:36Z")
31 posts and no one’s mentioned submarine races? ---
**Author:** ![mobo85](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b19c9b/32.png) [@mobo85](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mobo85)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2007, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-those-fictional-games-sports/418611/33 "2007-09-10T01:19:05Z")
[QUOTE=Baldwin] ETA: All these Star Trek references, and has anybody mentioned good ol’ Three-Dimensional Chess? (Didn’t Paramount actually market some sets? Man, that’d be a collectable.) [/QUOTE] I seem to recall a licensed set being advertised in a magazine by one of those “The \_\_\_\_ Mint” companies. _Futurama_ satirized the three-dimensional chess by having a three-dimensional Scrabble board in one episode. _The Ren & Stimpy Show_ had “the most funnest game in the whole world,” Don’t Whizz on the Electric Fence. The rules are self-explanitory. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2007, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-those-fictional-games-sports/418611/34 "2007-09-10T01:22:13Z")
If they actually market a game and people buy it, doesn’t that disqualify it from this poll? If so, 3-D chess and Thud! are real games. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2007, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-those-fictional-games-sports/418611/35 "2007-09-10T01:52:20Z")
Arky Malarky in the old Eric Frank Russell story, “Now Inhale.” Have you ever played “The Game” from **Rosenkranz and Guildenstern Are Dead**? ---
**Author:** ![Governor\_Quinn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/d26b3c/32.png) [@Governor\_Quinn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Governor_Quinn)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2007, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-those-fictional-games-sports/418611/36 "2007-09-10T02:04:47Z")
[QUOTE=RealityChuck] Have you ever played “The Game” from **Rosenkranz and Guildenstern Are Dead**? [/QUOTE] Do you not think the more relevant question may be, “Have you played it and known you were playing it?” ---
**Author:** ![Lamar\_Mundane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lamar\_Mundane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamar_Mundane)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2007, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-those-fictional-games-sports/418611/37 "2007-09-10T02:09:59Z")
I was going to say TEGWAR. Buck-Buck was a game from a very old Bill Cosby routine. Fat Albert used to dominate. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2007, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-those-fictional-games-sports/418611/38 "2007-09-10T02:22:22Z")
[QUOTE=Lamar Mundane] I was going to say TEGWAR. Buck-Buck was a game from a very old Bill Cosby routine. Fat Albert used to dominate. [/QUOTE] Buck Buck was a real game- it had different names, depending on the city you lived in. In New York City, where I grew up, kids called it “Johnny Ride a Pony.” Whatever you called it, the object was the same: one side was bent over in a line, against the schoolyard wall, while the guys on the other team members took running jumps and tried to land as hard as possible on people’s backs, hoping to make them collapse. ---
**Author:** ![633squadron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/6/ee59a6/32.png) [@633squadron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/633squadron)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2007, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-those-fictional-games-sports/418611/39 "2007-09-10T02:53:13Z")
[QUOTE=Bosda Di’Chi of Tricor] Mythical games & sports abound. [/QUOTE] Brockian ultra-cricket from _Hitchhiker’s Guide_ ---
**Author:** ![mobo85](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b19c9b/32.png) [@mobo85](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mobo85)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2007, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-those-fictional-games-sports/418611/40 "2007-09-10T02:55:34Z")
[QUOTE=astorian] Buck Buck was a real game- it had different names, depending on the city you lived in. In New York City, where I grew up, kids called it “Johnny Ride a Pony.” [/QUOTE] My grandfather tells me he used to play Buck Buck when he was a child. Since the Fat Albert routines and subsquent TV show were based on Bill Cosby’s actual childhood (and Fat Albert was supposedly a real person), it isn’t surprising that this game actualy exists. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-those-fictional-games-sports/418611.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-those-fictional-games-sports/418611.md?page=3)