Setup:
1. Set up the field so that there is a big plus-sign of one-step-raised tiles, leaving four lower tiles in each corner (picture is forthcoming)

2. Place each player in a quadrant (one of the lowered 4-tile corners). Each player must be touching both forcefield-walls in his corner, so as to be maximum distance from the center. For everything to be fair and equal, you really do need 4 players for this game. It might work with 2, but certainly not with 3.

3. Drop a "longbox" shape. This block will land in the center and take up a large portion of the horizontal arm of the plus-sign.

Play:
At a pre-determined signal (perhaps a neutral referee could count to 3), all players are allowed to move from their corners. They can move anywhere they want on the board, but they CANNOT raise or lower any columns. The player who raises or lowers a column instantly ends the round and gains a penalty point.

The goal is to get the longbox (by pushing it) to touch the floor in another player's quadrant. Doing this ends the round and gives a point to the player whose quadrant takes the longbox (points are bad).

Scoring, Rounds, and Matches:
Each time the longbox touches the floor of one of the quadrants, the player who owns that quadrant gets a point (points are bad), and the round is over. Players return to their corners, touching both walls as before, the old longbox is removed, and a new one is dropped. A new round then begins. A round is also ended if a player raises or lowers any column--in this case, the offending player automatically loses the round and a new round is begun.

Once any given player accrues 5 points, the match can end. If there is a single player who has less points than anyone else, the match is over and that player is declared the winner. If two or more players are tied for lowest score, however, then more rounds are played until there is a single player with the lowest score. All players continue to play in these tie-breaker rounds, even players who have 5 or more points--although they cannot win now, they can still help determine who the winner will be.

Tips:
Mouse movement gives you more control, but remember that if you use the mouse, you run the risk of moving a column and thus penalizing yourself. Players who are afraid this may happen might do better to stick with the keyboard in spite of its more limited control.

I have not yet playtested this game, so I don't know how well it will work in practice.

This is a simple idea that occurred to me while fiddling around with Jalak. Setup is fairly simple. You do need one Jalak Marker Mission. The best way to create it (for this game) is to set the columns to the top, and once they are there, set them to the bottom. As you and columns descend, run around placing Markers at random. Do this twice, and what you will be left with is a lot of Markers all floating randomly in the air above Jalak. Before you play the game itself, set the columns back to the top.

Playing the game is very simple. You can have as many players as you want, but ideally you should also have one impartial explorer acting as referee. The referee gives a count of 1,2,3 and sets the columns to the bottom. As they descend, players race around to try to collect the Markers that will appear to be rising out of the ground. The goal is not to get all of the Markers, but just to get as many as they can before they hit the bottom (and are thus no longer to reach any of them).

At the end, players count up their Markers and the player with the most wins the race. You must of course rely on the players' honesty, unless you want to name each Marker individually and have them PM all the names to you afterwards (and this would be extremely tedious)

A very simple but fast paced ball game.

Teams and Players

This is a game for two teams, each team can have from one to as many players as you like!

Setting up the game

First turn on the jalakfield, then load the rong.jalaball column file with the command:

/loadcolumns rong.jalaball

Once the columns are set, they are not moved at all for the duration of the game.

A single player from either team is elected to trigger the jalaball for each round of play (the 'dropper') for the duration of the whole match.

Objective

Get a jalaball into your own goal! The two team goals (yellow and red) are the single lowered columns in opposing corners.

Playing the game

1 Each team chooses a corner as their goal (yellow corner or red corner) for the duration of the whole match.

2 All team members start each round in their own goal (for example, if you are in the yellow team then you must stand in the yellow corner with the fish symbol).

3 When both teams are in position, the elected 'dropper' drops a single jalaball into the arena. When the jalaball lands, the round starts.

4 Players now jump out of their team goal and attempt to push the jalaball back into their own team goal.

5 Once the jalaball has been pushed into a teams goal, the round ends (the jalaball may be left in the teams goal, see Scoring).

6 Teams now return to their goal ready for the next round of play.

Scoring

Each jalaball that a team pushes into their own goal is one point.

A team that collects three jalaballs (three points) wins a set. When this happens, remove the three jalaballs from the goal and put a single small jalasquare in the goal to indicate a set has been won (see Tips for the suggested way to remove the jalaballs). The opposing team must also remove any jalaballs in their goal, so a new set can be started.

The first team to win three sets wins the game!

Tips

If you're like me, then you use both mouse buttons to run in moul, but this can result in accidental triggering of columns. I suggest using shift with your move forward key to run, and not use the mouse for the game.

If you want a more leisurely game, make people walk!

When a set is won, jalaballs must be removed from each teams goal. The easiest way I find to do this is to lower a column adjacent to your team goal (effectively making your goal bigger), turn off the Jalakfield, and push the balls into oblivion. Afterwards, just make sure you raise the column back up, and turn the Jalakfield back on!

The easiest way to put a jalablock (a small cube) in a teams goal when a set is won is to stand in the centre, face the goal where you wish to put the jalablock, step back very slightly, drop the jalablock into the arena and jump to 'head' the block into the goal!

Here are the rules for "Strander", a 2-player abstract strategy game:

Start the game with all pillars level at the middle height. Opponents stand at opposite ends of the game field on corner "icon" pillars of their choice.

The two "ranks" (two "horizontal" rows of 5 pillars each starting from one opponent's end of the game field) are considered his "territory". The middle "rank" of 5 pillars dividing the two territories is the "neutral zone".

A player can only move onto pillars that are part of his territory, or any of the 5 pillars in the neutral zone. He may not move into opponent territory.

On a given turn, a player may either:

1) Move in any direction to any pillar adjacent to the pillar he is standing on (adjacent = 1 pillar away). This move can involve a jump or a drop.

2) Raise or lower any pillar in opponent territory or the neutral zone, one level up or down. (A player cannot raise/lower pillars in his own territory.)

Here are three restrictions:

1) Even if he stands on a pillar in the neutral zone, a player cannot raise or lower the pillar he is standing on.

2) A player cannot "undo" his opponent's previous move (e.g. lower a pillar the opponent just raised). This is the "Atari" rule from the game Go.

3) Both players cannot occupy the same pillar.

The object of the game is to reduce your opponent's options for movement until he has no means of accessing an adjacent pillar. When a player cannot move his avatar in any direction from the pillar he is standing on, he is considered "stranded", and the game is the opponent's.

If anyone would like this ruleset demonstrated "in person", I'm "Stephen" in-game (KI# 00271364). I'd be happy to make things clearer for you.