[HN Gopher] Crokinole
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Crokinole
        
       Author : Tomte
       Score  : 317 points
       Date   : 2024-10-17 16:54 UTC (6 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (pudding.cool)
 (TXT) w3m dump (pudding.cool)
        
       | smeagollover wrote:
       | pool for children?
        
         | anamexis wrote:
         | Definitely not just for children! It's a really fun game for
         | everyone, and it's a lot easier to have a crokinole board
         | around the house than a pool table.
        
           | sleepybrett wrote:
           | After building my own.. not much ;) big enough to be annoying
           | to store (doesn't quite fit under the couch or in many tiny
           | closets. A lot of them have hardware sunk into the
           | bottom/back of the board for wall hanging.
           | 
           | But yes, super fun. See the youtube video I posted elsewhere
           | in the thread for a pretty great 'review' of this game which
           | dates back to at least 1867.
        
         | dang wrote:
         | More like shuffleboard. It's great for children (I grew up
         | playing it), and is fun for children and adults to play
         | together.
        
         | yabones wrote:
         | Far from it. This is the game that turns your calm book-and-
         | armchair grandpa into a wild competitive lunatic. It turns your
         | sweet auntie into a table-flipping animal. It's up there with
         | Euchre for turning old people into unhinged gamers, and I
         | absolutely love it for that.
        
           | shimon wrote:
           | I'm particularly impressed by your choice of "up there with
           | Euchre" as a metaphor to explain Crokinole. It's like you
           | wanted to make it relatable for people in a larger geographic
           | region, but only a _little_ larger.
        
       | srameshc wrote:
       | Growing up we called it Carrom board, which is square board with
       | 4 pockets in the corners. I never knew there was an American
       | version of it as Crokinole board.
        
         | sleepybrett wrote:
         | Canadian. I haven't played Carrom, but it's my understanding
         | it's Indian in origin and plays a bit more like a billiards
         | variant, even going so far as to use tiny pool cues.
        
           | pixelatedindex wrote:
           | I haven't played in a while but as long as I remember, there
           | aren't any pool cues but there are varying (house) rules on
           | how/where the disc can be flicked
        
         | darreninthenet wrote:
         | Crokinole is Canadian
        
         | almostdeadguy wrote:
         | Different game, but Carrom is supposed to be great as well. I
         | haven't played it but many of the folks I follow on BGG prefer
         | it to Crokinole.
        
         | rendx wrote:
         | I played both and own a Crokinole board, but strongly prefer
         | Carrom. It's similar but still quite different.
        
           | pahool wrote:
           | Generally, crokinole is a much less punishing game than
           | carrom, if we're talking about Indian carrom boards. American
           | carrom boards, that were really popular in after-school
           | programs when I was growing up, have relatively HUGE pockets
           | than the Indian boards, in addition to being smaller boards.
           | American carrom is like playing 8-ball, Indian carrom is like
           | playing snooker.
           | 
           | I like carrom a lot, but I'm terrible at it. I'm at least a
           | reasonable player at crokinole, and it's a lot easier to
           | introduce others to the game without them getting too
           | frustrated by it.
        
             | pahool wrote:
             | Also, a lot of American carrom boards were produced with a
             | checker board one side and a crokinole board on the other
             | side.
        
       | sleepybrett wrote:
       | Shut Up and Sit Down, popular quirky boardgame review
       | site/channel, did a review of the game, you can find it here:
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMKzeg78peg
       | 
       | It goes over some mostly made up history and covers the rules and
       | why the game is so addictive. Also talks about some games that
       | are similar from different parts of the world like Carrom.
       | 
       | I built myself a bigass hard to store circle after seeing the
       | SUSD review and it's quite popular with the nieces and nephews
       | and their cousins.. and the parents and grandparents around the
       | holidays... and popular with my friends when we're a little tipsy
       | and hanging out.
        
       | titanomachy wrote:
       | > In non-competitive, less plamigerent settings, their skills
       | really shine
       | 
       | "Plamigerent" isn't a word, and I can't find any English words
       | similar to it. It seems an unlikely typo. I wonder if the author
       | included it to catch LLMs plagiarizing his work.
        
         | mike_ivanov wrote:
         | Lexical watermarking! If that's the case (and if this idea
         | sticks), I'm wondering how far it could go.
         | 
         | One could imagine a (dystopian?) world where everybody speaks
         | they own highly individualized, maybe even copyrighted
         | language, and where interpersonal communications happen via AI
         | translators.
        
           | collingreen wrote:
           | :( is this our generations version of cyberpunk theme?
        
         | russsamora wrote:
         | you found it! i suppose i owe you a prize... it was initially a
         | test to see how closely people read, but was also curious about
         | LLMs.
        
           | ChrisArchitect wrote:
           | A perfectly cromulent strategy!
        
           | 1-more wrote:
           | Any of these words meaning "flame"
           | https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-
           | Slavic/p... + "-gerent" so "flame-making" makes sense in
           | context. Could also be "palma" which is Polish for "stain" (a
           | funny sentence when you consider dropping the uppercase
           | letter). Rare to mix Slavic words with a Latin suffix like
           | that, but just as valid as Greek-Latin words like television,
           | homosexual, and hypoadrenalism.
        
           | morkalork wrote:
           | "You shall know a word by the company it keeps" and so you've
           | now added to the English language, congrats!
           | 
           | >plamigerent adjective /,plaemI'dZer@nt/
           | 
           | Etymology: Derived from the prefix "pla-", suggesting play or
           | game, and "migerent," possibly from the Latin "migrans,"
           | meaning moving or changing, combined with a connotation of
           | belligerence.
           | 
           | Definition: Describing a setting or atmosphere characterized
           | by competitive tension, where the dynamics of skill are
           | heavily influenced by aggressive or disruptive play. Often
           | contrasts with more relaxed environments where players can
           | fully showcase their abilities.
        
         | dimatura wrote:
         | That stood out to me too! It's a fun-sounding word. I googled
         | it prepared to learn something new, only to get one hit - this
         | article.
        
         | abridges6523 wrote:
         | I was wondering about that too.
        
       | dicytea wrote:
       | For those frustrated with the game not working, it looks like
       | that the canvas rendering the disc can block the "Place disc"
       | button, depending on your initial window size. To fix this, use
       | your browser's device simulator (Ctrl+Shift+I -> Ctrl+Shift+M on
       | Chrome, Ctrl+Shift+M on Firefox) to narrow the window's width,
       | then refresh the page.
        
       | julianeon wrote:
       | This seems like a great social game. I like how it's very tactile
       | yet looks like it could be taught, or learned, in a few short
       | minutes.
        
         | eliasson wrote:
         | It is. Every now and then when we have guests at home we bring
         | out the board and it is an immediate success. Age does not seem
         | to matter, I have played with people between 10 to 80 years old
         | everyone gets the mechanics within a few minutes.
         | 
         | Highly recommended!
        
         | Taylor_OD wrote:
         | Introducing it to new folks and then watching them sink their
         | first 20 is so awesome.
        
       | adamgordonbell wrote:
       | Played in basement at grandmas house as a kid, in Southerner
       | Ontario.
       | 
       | I've never seen it spelt before.
       | 
       | As a kid, it was said like: Crow-ken-no
        
         | sgt wrote:
         | That makes sense. Crow-ken-no is kinda like Crokeno without the
         | -le.
        
       | graypegg wrote:
       | My grandparents had a crokinole board! I'd say it's definitely a
       | known game among older generations around southern ontario, but
       | much less common with younger folk. It's really fun though, and
       | families that do play it can get really competitive about it.
        
       | transcriptase wrote:
       | It's popular in Atlantic Canada too, especially when the weather
       | prohibits washer toss!
       | 
       | https://www.mynslc.com/en/Discover/Whats-the-Occasion/Happy-...
        
       | legitster wrote:
       | Crokinole exploded in the board game community a few years ago. I
       | got a lovely hand made board from Canada.
       | 
       | It's a purely tactile experience - the way the disks crack when
       | they hit each other, the bounciness of the pegs, getting that
       | perfect shot between two sets of pegs, swinging used disks around
       | on the ring at the end of the round - it's a very satisfying toy.
       | 
       | You'd be right to think of it as another version of shuffleboard
       | or curling, but the game can live on a small table and you can
       | crank away games from the comfort of a chair with a beer.
        
         | vundercind wrote:
         | On _the_ board gaming website, Board Game Geek, It sits in the
         | 47th overall rank by ratings (this is _very_ high, even quite
         | good games are often well south of 1,000 in the overall ranks)
         | and _fifth_ in the family games category.
         | 
         | https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/521/crokinole
         | 
         | I'd have had a board years ago if not for worrying it'd become
         | another huge rarely-used thing to store or dispose of, after
         | perhaps a year of good fun with it. Still haven't played.
        
           | binarymax wrote:
           | Eh, chess is ranked #453, go #219 and backgammon #1545. The
           | highest ranking game is "Brass: Birmingham" which I have
           | never heard of - so I don't know what to make of these
           | rankings.
        
             | jefftk wrote:
             | They're not ranking games on whether you've heard of them,
             | but on how fun the BGG community finds them to play.
             | Monopoly is rated #27,258.
        
               | binarymax wrote:
               | I certainly understand that. But again I don't know what
               | to make of the rankings. Yes, I know this is a niche
               | community and yes I know there are more games than these
               | classics...but comparison on Crokinole being #47 among
               | thousands of games in the community is difficult to
               | interpret for someone who hasn't played hundreds of
               | different board games.
        
               | legitster wrote:
               | The best boardgames, as scored by people who play
               | boardgames.
               | 
               | No different than the top review aggregators for any
               | medium. The top movies on Rotten Tomatoes are not ranked
               | just by name recognition.
        
               | vundercind wrote:
               | BGG is heavily about[1] the _board game night_
               | experience. Family, gamer group, newbies with a seasoned
               | board gamer showing them some new games, that kind of
               | thing.
               | 
               | Two-player games tend to suffer in the rankings to begin
               | with, for that reason, though some do OK. Two player
               | games with long or highly variable play times tend to
               | suffer even more. Two player games that a brand new
               | player is unlikely to enjoy playing against someone with
               | even moderate skill is an even bigger handicap.
               | 
               | There's also, undeniably, some novelty factor, especially
               | near the top of the lists--which is part of why
               | crokinole's ranking is so remarkable.
               | 
               | Approximately nobody is breaking out chess or go at a
               | board game night, even as a sidebar game for two players
               | while they wait for others to finish a larger game. Maybe
               | speed chess, I suppose. But in general those are less
               | "we're having a game night" and more "we're having a
               | chess/go/backgammon night" sort of games. Like, if
               | someone's not _into_ chess and you suggest a chess match
               | to kill some time waiting for the rest of the group to
               | show up, they're probably going to be less-happy than if
               | you pulled out any of dozens of lightweight, quick
               | 2-player games with fairly good BGG ratings. By that
               | metric of game night suitability, chess and go et c.
               | _aren't_ top-100 material. They're less board-gamer games
               | and more chess-person or go-person or whatever games.
               | 
               | [1] By this I mean the preferences and interests of the
               | active parts of the community tend to run this way. You
               | see lots of midweight attractive-looking newb-friendly
               | (and also well-designed!) games good for multi-game
               | gatherings, and big baroque "we're getting together for
               | six hours to play one single match of _this game_ " games
               | near the tops of lists, as a result, as those are the two
               | kinds of game-playing gathering that are the ideal form
               | of board gaming for the crowd there. It's not a place
               | with an unusual density of chess tournament fans, you
               | know?
        
               | yifanl wrote:
               | I mean, Brass Birmingham and many other high ranking
               | games would be rather poor choices for pick-up and play
               | game nights with most groups (number 7 is Twilight
               | Imperium, which takes 6 hours on the short end!). Indeed,
               | a lot of them can be played as deeply as Chess or Go.
               | 
               | There's been study over what "biases" the site has, which
               | I personally think is rather uninteresting (what's the
               | use of a global ranking without bias, after all?), but
               | there's a lot more to it than what's easy to learn.
        
               | vundercind wrote:
               | Yeah, the other category (I mentioned in my footnote-
               | edit) is giant games that you dedicate a large part of a
               | day to. Diplomacy, Twilight Imperium, that stuff. The two
               | ideal gaming-situations for BGG-type gamers are multi-
               | game game nights, and gatherings to play a single round
               | of gigantic games that they can never get their more-
               | normal casual game night enjoyer friends to play with
               | them :-)
               | 
               | Further, you see a lot of "This game has seen tons of
               | play at our table! Maybe 100 times!", not like chess
               | where 100 matches is something someone who's barely even
               | interested in chess may achieve by accident (I bet I've
               | played 200+ matches in my life, and I'm not really that
               | into chess, don't find it as fun as probably _most_ other
               | board games I 've played, and remain entirely terrible at
               | it--and I mean it, even chess programs set to stupid-mode
               | so they only look one move ahead get me about half the
               | time, because I reliably blunder badly at least once per
               | match and they catch it every single time). It's just a
               | very different crowd than the dive-very-deep-into-one-
               | game sorts that might rate whichever game they've chosen
               | to do that with as #1 and aren't even really looking
               | around for other games.
               | 
               | There are exceptions in the rankings, that's not
               | absolute, but mid-weight game night games that play
               | something in the 4-8 range, good lighter filler games for
               | game night, and enormous this-is-your-whole-day games,
               | tend to be the ones that do well, assuming they're also,
               | like, actually good for what they are. That's why super-
               | famous games like chess aren't higher than they are (if
               | chess were just invented today I bet it'd struggle to
               | break the top 5,000--"Two stars, some of the variant
               | rules are OK but ultimately if you want an abstract two-
               | player game on a grid, you're better off with GIPF, and
               | the knife-fight tension and wonderful portability of
               | something like Hive just isn't present here, if you want
               | a game with theme but don't really care about it
               | connecting well with play--which this game clearly
               | doesn't--just get Hive. Also they should print the piece
               | layout and move sets on the board, it's hard to remember
               | all that stuff and it's not like that space is used for
               | attractive artwork or anything mechanically-relevant
               | except the grid anyway.")
        
               | kelseydh wrote:
               | BGG has a lot of problems with its ranking system, but
               | one of those is that it favours complex games.
               | 
               | The reason being is that complex games are played by
               | fewer people and those who do master it are more likely
               | to give high ratings. Whereas, a less complex game gets
               | played more and is subjected to harsher ratings.
               | 
               | Somebody made a great data analysis of reranking BGG
               | ratings by complexity for the real top games list:
               | https://dvatvani.com/blog/bgg-analysis-part-2
        
             | IshKebab wrote:
             | Yeah because most people do not find chess, go or
             | backgammon particularly fun. Sorry to burst your bubble if
             | you thought they were somehow perfect games.
             | 
             | BGG rankings tend to be pretty good. I find they rate co-op
             | games, sequels, kickstarted games and very heavy games a
             | bit too highly. But apart from that they're good.
             | 
             | I don't know why you would expect Backgammon in particular
             | to be highly ranked. It's got more strategy than most
             | highly random games (e.g. cribbage) but it's not _fun_ , at
             | least not compared to the many many better board games that
             | exist now.
        
               | vundercind wrote:
               | As I mentioned in another comment, I expect most of these
               | classic games would do even worse if they were released
               | today. Struggling to find an audience, ranking down in
               | the lower reaches on BGG. The communities around them and
               | their cultural heritage are what they're really _about_ ,
               | and I doubt that you could bootstrap them back up to
               | their current prominence if they showed up out of nowhere
               | today, based solely on the strength of the games _per
               | se_. Though, to be fair, the majority of top-100 BGG
               | games will be all but forgotten in 100 years, too.
               | 
               | All the more reason Crokinole--a far less well-known
               | classic game than backgammon or chess or go--ranking so
               | highly is remarkable.
        
         | hibikir wrote:
         | Not so few: It was a big hit in the Gathering of Friends
         | convention almost 20 years ago, and BGG con started
         | commissioning 2 new custom painted boards every year: One to
         | raffle, and one to keep.
         | 
         | It's a great activity to do while you are waiting for some
         | people to show up. As any dexterity game, the issue is playing
         | across skill levels. Going against an experienced player as a
         | newbie means they better take it easy on you, or you are never
         | scoring a point
        
       | pjot wrote:
       | When I was a kid my neighbors (who were from Ontario) taught me
       | this game - we played all the time! It's been over 20 years since
       | and every few I try and recall what "that game" was. So glad to
       | have seen this!
        
       | yifanl wrote:
       | For interested woodworkers, here's a nice post-mortem of
       | someone's attempt at making a Crokinole board:
       | https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/731671/postmortem-on-the-hi...
       | (Complete with creating a set of jigs from scratch)
       | 
       | Really shows how much has gone into a silly flicking game you
       | play at the pub.
        
         | fanatic2pope wrote:
         | It looks like those instructions are from 2011. CNC machines
         | are pretty common these days and could help simplify it quite a
         | bit.
         | 
         | For example:
         | https://hub.shapertools.com/creators/5cfea3909fc9260017675dc...
        
         | msoucy wrote:
         | I, as a fledgling woodworker, was able to make my own board
         | with some guidance from a friend. It's definitely a rewarding
         | and educational project! Plus it makes a nice wall decoration
         | when not in use. I used Purple Heart wood for the edges, which
         | looks gorgeous but was difficult to work with. It took a few
         | days of 3-4 hour blocks, due to a busy schedule, so a more
         | experienced woodworker should be able to do one pretty easily.
        
       | sandymcmurray wrote:
       | And now you need to know about Crokicurl, a mash-up of Crokinole
       | and curling!
       | 
       | https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/crokicurl-curling-cr...
        
         | blast wrote:
         | Curlinole would be easier to say...
        
       | codenberg wrote:
       | https://www.youtube.com/@TraceyBoards/videos
        
       | idunnoman1222 wrote:
       | If you do play crokinol and have never used Gliss powder I
       | suggest you try it, though it is a bit messy
        
       | hawski wrote:
       | I watched it two or three times before I understood I was
       | watching a 30 second loop, only because I was getting impatient
       | and showed all controls in the browser.
       | 
       | Amazing feat of repeatability, but also nerve control. One
       | mistake and you are losing it. Even if it looked less fun than
       | later videos.
        
       | Notorious_BLT wrote:
       | Got a board a year ago and love it, a friend tried it once and
       | bought a board too. I'm tempted to get one delivered to my
       | parents and in-laws, so we can all play when I go out to visit.
       | It's so simple to teach, and yet there's a ton of room for
       | improving simply by playing. Any time we have people over, the
       | board eventually comes down off the wall, and the first-timers
       | get a quick lesson.
        
       | sergiotapia wrote:
       | feels like I could crush it in this game, i grew up playing lots
       | of canicas as a kid in Bolivia :)
        
       | mlhpdx wrote:
       | I played this game as a kid at the local grange hall. I don't
       | recall how it came to be a part of the local scene back then, but
       | I've recalled it fondly over the years.
        
       | amelius wrote:
       | Is this an air table?
        
         | ZeWaka wrote:
         | No, it's basically covered in extremely small sand particles
         | that make the pucks glide - like table shuffleboard.
        
           | pahool wrote:
           | Often in tabletop crokinole play, the "sand" isn't even used.
           | Modern boards are often slick enough to get away with playing
           | without it, and if it's a board that you roll out regularly,
           | you may not want the cleanup overhead associated with using
           | shuffleboard "sand."
           | 
           | Also note that you'd never use actual sand on a crokinole
           | board or tabletop shuffleboard. Sand, wax, or powder is what
           | the shuffleboard products are referred to as and are made of
           | specially formulated silicone beads (much less abrasive than,
           | say, beach sand) or cornmeal, or even sometimes ground walnut
           | shells.
        
       | ZeWaka wrote:
       | They've had this at PAX (East & West) the past years, it's been a
       | ton of fun playing it and getting better.
        
         | ink_13 wrote:
         | I remember the first year they introduced it, as a final in the
         | Omegathon. It was really tense!
        
         | losvedir wrote:
         | Learned about it at PAX East this year. Was the sleeper hit of
         | the event for me and a couple of my friends! It was right there
         | next to Klask, which is another kind of interesting tactile
         | game, though I preferred Crokinole.
        
       | charlietran wrote:
       | I love IRL Crokinole so much that I made a single-player tower-
       | defense-ish version of it for the browser:
       | https://games.charlietran.com/crokunolu/
       | 
       | Made it with the Crisp game library which I highly recommend for
       | quickly making charming little 2D games:
       | https://github.com/abagames/crisp-game-lib
        
         | ddek wrote:
         | Nice game, works great on mobile
        
         | sgt wrote:
         | Love it!
        
         | gagik_co wrote:
         | This is super fun; easy to get into and really nice that it has
         | proper mobile support, great stuff!
        
         | SyrupThinker wrote:
         | Very fun. Unfortunately there is a way to, in my opinion,
         | cheese it. I made it to 2485 on my second attempt.
         | 
         | Reversed to avoid spoiling the game: .gard ot reyalp eht
         | gnicrof yb devlos eb dluoc siht ebyaM .kcab ot kcab tsrub eht
         | reggirt ylbailer ot mhtyhr a ni taht od ot eunitnoc tsuj nac
         | uoy ,kcilc ot ecalp thgir eht dnif uoy fI
        
           | charlietran wrote:
           | That's great feedback, thank you. I built a rudimentary
           | control scheme on top of the minimal Crisp library and will
           | take a look into doing a little more with it.
        
         | vunderba wrote:
         | Good job. Problem with a game like this is that it's too
         | deterministic, you use the exact amount of impulse to aim the
         | disc at the exact same spot every time. If you have decent
         | handeye coordination it swiftly becomes rather trivial.
         | 
         | The real game is less deterministic purely by having to contend
         | with messy real world physics. If you want to make the game a
         | little more engaging, I'd recommend trying to figure out a way
         | to mix up where you have to fire the shots from, etc, add
         | blockers to get in the way to shuffle the timing, etc.
        
           | charlietran wrote:
           | This is true, I jammed the game out rather quickly but next
           | thing I'd try is a hold-for-power control scheme (like the
           | interactive demos in the article)
        
         | capital_guy wrote:
         | This is a thing of beauty. Thank you for sharing!
        
         | ionwake wrote:
         | as someone who has made huge mammoth games that I have never
         | finished, this is the most well executed stylistic epic damn
         | thing EVER. From the sounds to the low res, love it.
        
       | zknow wrote:
       | so cool to see this on here, I'm from rural southern Ontario and
       | I feel like I always have to explain it to anyone from the city
       | or 'not from these parts'
        
       | tantalor wrote:
       | _A matchup not unlike ... Swift vs. Eilish_
       | 
       | What does that even mean.
        
         | reducesuffering wrote:
         | Taylor Swift and Billie Eilish are very big pop stars. It's
         | trying to make a comparison like a battle of the "greats"
        
           | tantalor wrote:
           | Okay but this is a sport, with objective winners. How do you
           | win at being a pop star?
        
             | fwip wrote:
             | Use your imagination.
        
       | renewiltord wrote:
       | This seems like a fun game. One that I enjoy playing is Carrom
       | which a friend taught me. It's a similar game, except the pockets
       | are in the four corners of a square board and then it's like
       | pool.
       | 
       | There are some fun trick shots people do online
       | https://www.youtube.com/shorts/PTTeLj-fSQA
       | 
       | And you can manage a couple of the trick shots yourself with a
       | little practice. It's honestly quite lightweight and easy to
       | learn which makes it fun.
        
         | zem wrote:
         | I was reminded of carrom too, it's super popular in India. kind
         | of like a cross between crokinole and snooker or pool; you need
         | to get your pieces into pockets using a striker, and avoid
         | getting your opponent's pieces in. physically, one big factor
         | is that you're flicking a heavy striker into a much lighter
         | disc.
        
       | bitlad wrote:
       | Looks like carrom but easier.
        
         | maxglute wrote:
         | Carrom is like pool (maybe harder, like billiards), crokinole
         | is like bowling. You can get serendipity strike while
         | inebriated, hence popularity.
        
       | Waterluvian wrote:
       | Had no idea Crokinole was a local thing.
       | 
       | In Grade 7 it became big in our classroom. We ended up having a
       | weekly tournament. I could never shoot the pieces reliably, so I
       | made a tool out of K-Nex that resembled an elastic-powered pool
       | cue inside a barrel that rested nicely on the board. I even had a
       | slider I could adjust to "remember" the right amount of power for
       | a given shot.
       | 
       | The specific rules that came with the board did not cover this,
       | but after me absolutely crushing the first tournament it was
       | summarily banned. This might be part of my engineer origin story.
        
       | jat850 wrote:
       | This game has such a special place in my heart - like others, I
       | have some beautiful handmade boards, some of which have been in
       | my family for a couple generations. Canadian as well which seems
       | thematically common here. My father and I spend as much time
       | trash-talking each other about playing as we do playing. And my
       | grandmother was a complete shark, the crokinole matriarch who
       | would put any of us to shame.
       | 
       | Another reason why I will always appreciate HN and its breadth of
       | community and interests.
        
       | kashif wrote:
       | Carrom is so much better
        
       | extr wrote:
       | At my first job we had a very senior canadian on my team. He
       | introduced Crokinole to the workplace and it never left. A lot of
       | fun and honestly the perfect "office 15 minute break" game.
       | Though inevitably there were a lot of "Come on, best 2 out of 3."
        
       | Taylor_OD wrote:
       | Crokinole is so much fun. I wish boards were not so expensive and
       | difficult to keep nice or I think it would be much much more
       | popular. It inspired me to try a whole slew of other
       | tactile/physical "board" games.
        
         | pahool wrote:
         | Have you tried Flickwars? I don't own it, but played a demo
         | version at a board game convention maybe five years back. I
         | still keep wanting to pull the trigger on buying it but I've
         | been trying to reel in my boardgame-purchasing problem a bit.
         | 
         | Most flicking/dexterity games are pretty abstract: lightly
         | themed, if they're themed at all. And a lot of the ones that
         | are themed, somehow don't get it "right". Flickwars is pretty
         | cool in that it's got a light space battle theme with
         | asymmetric team powers. It also has a neoprene board which,
         | while not being as satisfying as polished wood, makes a
         | surprisingly satisfying flicking surface. There's a modular
         | setup to the game, where players place obstacles on or (because
         | of the neoprene surface) UNDER the board. This meshes nicely
         | with the space theme as you can consider these obstacles as
         | gravitational anomalies. All-in-all, it's a pretty lightweight
         | game, but it's a fun diversion from heavier board games.
        
       | pahool wrote:
       | Almost twenty years ago, I brought a crokinole board into my work
       | and it became a very popular diversion. We came up with a
       | cutthroat version where four players could play individually
       | rather than the more traditional 2v2 four-player variant.
       | 
       | https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/192278/awesome-four-player-...
        
       | nogridbag wrote:
       | Crokinole looks fun, but personally I'm into BulletBall and
       | BulletBall Extreme (which may one day be an Olympic sport).
        
       | asadm wrote:
       | growing up we loved Carrom, a 4p game of similar style probably.
        
       | cheeseomlit wrote:
       | Looks fun! Any recommendations on buying a board to start with
       | for less than $100 or so? Might just get a cheapo one on amazon
       | to try out.
        
       | _jholland wrote:
       | Check out the Shut Up and Sit Down review of crokinole:
       | https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XMKzeg78peg&t=580s&pp=ygUJY3Jv...
        
       | bregma wrote:
       | Every wood-paneled Canadian rec room in the 1970s had a crokinole
       | game set up right beside the rod hockey table and maybe the
       | stacks of empty two-four cases. Just thinking about it brings
       | back the smell memory of stale beer and cigarettes mingled with
       | mould from the damp shag carpeting.
        
       | af78 wrote:
       | I live in France and had never heard about this game before.
       | 
       | I can play the simulator on mobile but on the desktop Linux the
       | "place disc" button is unresponsive to mouse clicks. I tried both
       | Firefox and Chrome. Am I the only one?
        
         | TheSkyHasEyes wrote:
         | I was curious how many people outside Canada have heard of this
         | game. :)
        
         | rvba wrote:
         | Doesnt work on mobile too
        
         | af78 wrote:
         | dicytea's workaround
         | (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41871624) works - sort
         | of.
        
       | brailsafe wrote:
       | I've lived my entire life not knowing there was an "L" in the
       | name or even having an approximation of the spelling. I've played
       | it and talked about it, but only vocally, and nobody's enunciated
       | the "ole", so I've always thought it ended with an "oh" sound.
        
       | ksynwa wrote:
       | Ha from the video I was wondering what the point of the board
       | being round was. But the examples that follow which show pegs
       | that didn't go through the hole made it clear.
        
       | thih9 wrote:
       | One-cheek rule:
       | 
       | > The following rules are sanctioned by the National Crokinole
       | Association and used in all NCA Tour events.
       | 
       | > (...)
       | 
       | > 7. i) When a player is shooting, at least one portion of
       | his/her posterior must be in contact with the seat of his/her
       | chair.
       | 
       | http://nationalcrokinoleassociation.com/resources/rules.html
        
       | UberFly wrote:
       | Like poutine, probably coming to a bar or pub near you.
        
       | typon wrote:
       | Weird that this article doesn't mention Carrom at all - maybe
       | people in North America haven't heard of it.
        
       | irrational wrote:
       | Crokinole is an amazing boardgame. It is deservedly in the top 50
       | on BGG. I'm an amateur woodworker and built my own board. We will
       | happily spend hours playing it.
        
       | maxglute wrote:
       | Friend once lamented annoying part of a breakup was losing
       | holiday crokinole priveleges at their ex's family cottage. I
       | loled, but it was really stupid satisfying flicking on a high end
       | board.
        
         | enjo wrote:
         | If you're ever in Denver the Denver Elks Lodge has a really
         | nice Crokinole board and visitors are very welcome!
        
           | DGCA wrote:
           | > To be eligible for membership in the Benevolent and
           | Protective Order of Elks, you must be a citizen of the United
           | States over the age of 21 who believes in God (whatever that
           | means to you).
           | 
           | Bums, I don't meet 2/3 reqs.
        
         | hammock wrote:
         | Where was the cottage, out of curiosity?
        
       | mhitza wrote:
       | It reminded me of Carrom https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrom
       | which is a similar Indian game I've recently discovered via
       | Instagram feed due to following trick shots.
        
       | bilekas wrote:
       | I would love to know why this is so satisfying to watch.. I can't
       | imagine to play but wow.
        
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