Fictional games

Fictional games are games which were specifically created for works of fiction, or which otherwise originated in fiction.

A 14th-century illustration of Sir Gawain playing the first round of the beheading game with the Green Knight[1][2]

Many fictional games have been translated into real games by fans or ludophiles by creating pieces and rules to fit the descriptions given in the source work. For example, unofficial versions of Fizzbin can be found in reality, and Mornington Crescent is widely played in online forums.

Billiards games

Board games
  • Azad - a tactical game featured in the novel The Player of Games by Iain M. Banks
  • Catch-the-Duke, in Scott Lynch's Red Seas under Red Skies - similar to Chess but much larger: forty White pieces facing forty Black ones on a board forty rows long and wide. Some pieces could be given unusual privileges or movement allowances, as agreed in advance by the players. In the resort of Salon Corbeau is regularly held The Amusement War, games of Catch-the-Duke using live pieces, who are drawn from the poor and destitute; "pieces" removed from the board are subject to public humiliation, beating, torture or rape, to the amusement of the rich and aristocratic spectators.
  • Cyvasse - a strategy game in George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series, which appears to be a combination of Chess and Battleship[3]
  • Dejarik or Holochess - a variant of chess played in the Star Wars setting[3]
  • Gungi - a strategy game in the Hunter × Hunter manga and anime. It is played on a non-checkered gameboard with 81 squares arranged in a 9×9 grid, and has 13 different types of pieces and several stacked constructs.
  • Icehouse - The Empty City by Andrew Looney; an example of a fictional game that now exists as a real-world one
  • Jetan - a chess-like strategy game from the Edgar Rice Burroughs novel The Chessmen of Mars
  • Jumanji - a magical board game from the book and movie of the same name, later released in a variant as a real game
  • Kadis-kot - a board game first seen in the Star Trek: Voyager episode "Infinite Regress"
  • Liar's Lament – a board game first seen in the Pretty Little Liars episode "Playtime"
  • Pai Sho - a strategy game first seen in the Avatar: The Last Airbender episode "The Desert" (S2E11)[3]
  • Stars and Comets - in Andre Norton novels
  • Stealth Chess - a chess variant played in the Ankh-Morpork Assassins' Guild, in which pieces move invisibly; Discworld
  • Sazou - A game similar to Chess played on Draconia and Gallifrey in Doctor Who.
  • Tadek - a strategy game in the Farscape episode "The Flax" that involves building holographic columns while pushing game pieces around a board; the game can be used for gambling[3]
  • Tak - a strategy game in The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss, later developed into a real game.
  • Three-Cornered Pitney - unplayable board game invented by Mad Magazine
  • Three-Dimensional Chess - a strategy game first seen in the Star Trek episode "Where No Man Has Gone Before", later developed into a real game
  • Thud - a chess-like game of Trolls and Dwarves appearing in Terry Pratchett's novel of the same name
  • Zathura - a Jumanji-like game from the book of the same name and the film Zathura: A Space Adventure.[4]
  • Xaries In Kevin Anderson's "The Edge of The World". Simulaing naval fighting and played on a board similar to a chessboard. Pieces include: Captain, Sailors, War Galley, Dromond Warship and Cargo Ship. A War Galley can make diagonal moves. The object of the game is to get the opponent's Captain, similar to the King in Chess. The Sea Serpent is a Rogue Piece which can attack whatever and whenever it wishes. The Sea Serpent can be used to devour the opponent's Captain, a move against which there is no defence and which ends the game - but winning that way is considered unsporting, and a good player is expected to make only restrained use of the Serpent ("The Edge of The World", Ch. 58).

Card games

MMORPGS/Role-playing games

Sports

Athletic sports
  • Assassin's Guild Wall Game - " a cross between squash, urban rock climbing and actual bodily harm", Discworld (named after the Eton Wall Game)
  • Indoor hang gliding - Geoff Maltby in the television series Benidorm claims to be North West champion of it
  • Lifting - popular extreme sport, similar to surfing, but in the air; practitioners ride "reflection boards" on waves of "Transparence Light Particles"; from anime/manga series Eureka Seven
  • Taking the Stone - in Farscape, a game played by the youth of an unnamed royal cemetery planet. The game consists of jumping into a deep well, and chanting while falling. To protect a participant from smashing into the bottom of the well and dying, there is a sonic net which is sustained by the participants' voices, and provides a nice soft landing. Well, most of the time.

Combat sports
  • Anbo-Jitsu - Star Trek: The Next Generation, a one-on-one martial arts combat sport wherein the players are blindfolded and use proximity-detector staves to locate the opponent
  • Ape Fighting - from Futurama, a fighting sport involving two apes (typically gorillas) engaging in pugilistic combat while adorned with comically-undersized costumes and props
  • The Hunger Games - from the books and movies of the same name. Each year, adolescents from oppressed districts are forced to fight to the last survivor in an elaborate outdoor arena, itself designed to pose many threats to tributes' lives, for the entertainment of citizens in the wealthy Capitol district.
  • The Running Man - from The Running Man, the titular television show features convicted criminals fighting for their lives (and pardons) in an arena while being hunted down by professional celebrity mercenaries called "stalkers", presented in the same vein as theme-based pro-wrestlers
  • Kosho - from The Prisoner, Kosho appeared prominently in the episode “It’s Your Funeral.” According to Kosho rules, one opponent must knock the other into a four-by-eight foot tank of water. Trampolines are placed on two sides of the pool and ledges above on three. Upon successful dunking, the Kosho match is over.

Team ball sports

Non-team ball sports
  • Electro-Magnetic Golf - from Brave New World
  • Escalator Squash - from Brave New World
  • Igo Soccer - the participants have to do figures with some pebbles and a ball, sport from the Japanese shõnen Nichijō
  • Gonnis - A combination of golf and tennis featured in the BBC comedy series Look Around You, a parody of science and technology programming.

Other sports
See also: List of fictional sports teams

Video games

Other games

See also

References
  1. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, British Library
  2. Tracy, Larissa (2012), "The Real Price of the Beheading Game in SGGK and Malory", Heads Will Roll: Decapitation in the Medieval and Early Modern Imagination, BRILL, pp. 207–232, ISBN 9789004211551
  3. Whitbrook, James. "12 Games from Science Fiction and Fantasy we'd love Real versions of". Gizmodo. Retrieved 2019-05-26.
  4. Evans, Larry (2005-10-28). "Zathura: A Cosmic Adventure Worth Taking". Space.com. Retrieved 2019-06-01.
  5. Hall, Charlie (5 June 2019). "The Easter eggs hidden in Star Wars Land's Millennium Falcon ride". Polygon. Retrieved 18 June 2019.
  6. Schmidt, JK (31 May 2019). "You Can Start Gambling for Starships With Authentic Sabacc Deck From Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge".
  7. Fink, Charlie. "The OASIS In 'Ready Player One' Runs On Speed And Storage". Forbes. Retrieved 2019-05-29.
  8. Anders, Charlie Jane. "10 Suckiest Video Games People Play In Science Fiction". io9. Retrieved 2019-05-26.
  9. "'Wargames' tale of computer evil mushrooms into top entertainment - Newspapers.com". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 2019-05-29.
  10. Bricken, Rob. "Star Trek: DS9 played the most dangerously idiotic game in the galaxy". io9. Retrieved 2019-05-26.
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