YIFFBALL.

A Brief History of Balls:

Yiffball was created at EuroHowl'97. It started when people wanted to see what luminous balls bouncing around a darkened room looked like. After a few pained yips from the darkness, several balls were thrown back. And the rest, as they say, is history. Because the room became very warm, people took off various items of clothing to keep cool while playing. Since rolling around half naked was considered somewhat "yiffy", the term "Yiffball" was created. It was suggested at one point that it should be spelt "Yifbal", but some thought it didn't look as good. For this reason, you'll see it spelt as Yif(f)Bal(l).

The Rules:

Yiffball consists of very few rules...

The Teams:

What, you'd think we'd create a sport promoting teamwork and cooperation? It's every player for themselves! There can be between three and eight players at any time, depending on the size of the court. Anyone can play, as long as they are in reasonable health.

The Court:

The court needs to a be a large room which can be completely blacked out. This way, the only visual clues a player has are the luminous balls. For obvious reasons, all furniture and breakables must be removed from the area of play, along with anything that may injure or electrocute any of the players. Good ventilation is also required as the room can get very hot if air is not allowed to circulate.

All the room surfaces should be flat are firm enough for the balls to bounce on. Soft pile carpet will not work, since the balls would not bounce on such a surface. Linoleum or carpet tiles are reasonable surfaces to play on.

The room used for the EuroHowl'97 "Tournament" was 40ft by 15ft which provided room for six or seven players.

The Equipment:

High density rubber balls are required for play. They should be luminous and approximately 1 inch in diameter. Any larger and they'll bruise. Approximately twelve balls are required for an eight player game, more if you're playing the "hoarding" types like Raukan. Non-luminous balls could be used in conjunction with the luminous type, adding a "stealth" surprise element.

You only need enough clothing to cover your modesty. Yiffball get's pretty hot and sweaty, so there's not much call for it. Just make sure that all sharp pointy things are removed, such as belt buckles, glasses, watches, and artificial limbs. Footwear should be removed as well.

The Gameplay:

We never really got this far, we just got as far as rolling around sweaty and half naked while throwing luminous balls. :) So there's no real objectives to the game, except to have fun and throw balls at anything that might yelp...

The first task is to "charge" the balls. To do this, the balls are held under a light source. This causes the balls to glow in the dark for a period of about three or four minutes before they need to be charged again.

The lights are then turned off, and gameplay begins. All that should be visable at this point are vague outlines and the glow from the balls. The room lights may be briefly lit during play to destroy players night-vision. This prevents any deliberate aiming.

During play there are few rules, it's a frenzied free for all, as people try to gain possesion of balls. Possesion can be gained either by catching the balls, or prising them from the paws of other players. the only rule is that you don't cause injury or cause pain to the other players. After all, since there's no points, the winner is one who had the most fun...

Gameplay halts when the balls require another charge. Once the balls have been recharged gameplay can then resume. This continues until players can no longer speak coherent sentences.

The EuroHowl'97 Tournament:

• "Growler" Tiogar.
• "Chomper" Utlah.
• "Hoarder" Raukan.
• "Skulker" Megadog.
• "Pouncing" Locandez.
• "Grabber" Outsider.
• "Joker" Guardian.
• Wizard "The Wiz" Wolf.

Utlah swipes at a glowball in the corner, while Tiogar prepares to pounce. Spot the ball time folks. There's four in all, can you spot them all?

Utlah pounces a ball in the doorway, while Tiogar, in a rare moment of panic, cowers from a volley of glowballs.

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