you prevent the other team from scoreing by punching the other team's balls. if you lose your balls, you're out because you don't have the balls to play anymore. they change color depending on how much action you get, so if you're really hot, they're firy red, but if you play with your balls all night without scoring, they turn blue.
also depending on how hard core you are, they could be really big balls, or if you play timidly and are too afraid to step up, you have really small balls.
wait...
The idea was to write a really epic babble-on script with randomized "plays" that would eventually dictate a winner. That never happened unfortunately, although I do have a rough copy floating around somewhere.
So what is Deathball?
Deathball is a game played in a Low Gravity environment consisting of a "giant 3d oval" where the object of the game is to score by any means neccessary. Players can run across the bound outer shell of the dome but the typically travel by jumping across the arena and getting drawn toward forward by the various gravity wells.
The ball itself can be used as a weapon and explodes at the end of each quarter/period/round. When a player is killed they are quick-cloned using super fast cloning tanks. The idea of various add-ons like weapons, platforms, and the like was something I dabbled with but since the script was never finished most of this is all hypothetical.
There is the possibility of playing street deathball by just beating the shit out of eachother on the way to scoring across the field.
I gotta hop on a plane but hope that helps a little bit. Questions, comments?
Weapons: Obviously, could be a very interesting addition. I can see it Thunderdome style, where the players grab weapons during play. Maybe every few minutes (or whatever, depending on how long a quarter is) a weapon is released from a random spot in the arena and players scramble to grab it. Could be anything, swords, knives, knucks, nades, guns. Add a real random element. A player may be really good on offense, but if he can't get a weapon he's good with, he may never get close enough to score, versus a not so talented player who just happens to get a weapon he owns with.
Another possible way to "script" games: Do more of a SHFT (that's what it's called, right? the thing in the mall). Each player is defined as an npc with their various stats and skills, then runs a script to decide what action to take. If they have the ball they decide wheather they should push towards the goal, pass the ball, etc... based on if they or a team mate is being covered by an opponent(s). Do they try to avoid an opponent or take them head on, based on what weapons are in play, etc...Or do they hang back to attempt defending the goal cause they're not good on offense. Do they bother going for a new weapon that spawned based on how far it is, who else is near it, how good they are with it. Yes, obviously this would still take quite a bit of work, but I imagine the end result would be quite sweet. Then, if you want to add PCs into the game, they they just spawn into this environment. NPC players would still run on their scripts, but the player could make decisions based on info fed to them (ie. Bob the goat ninja is open, not close, and near the goal, Joe the camel herder is being covered closely, near by, and not near the goal, something like that). Again, tossing out ideas. Possibly, eventually even allow players to work their way up to the role of captain, allowing them to give various commands to NPC players.
Lastly, Timmy, despite the obvious innuendo, that actually sounds like it could be a pretty sweet game.
Okay, I think I'm done for now. Atleast on this topic.Babydoll
Have you ever watched "Salute of the Juggers / The blood of heroes"?
That's what I think when I hear "Deathball". Also, set in the appropriate setting and most importantly, it has Rutger Hauer in it :)