Regular readers will know when warm weather hits I occasionally expand beyond the gaming table to include something a bit more active.
Interestingly, Crossboule actually has an entry on www.boardgamegeek.com, one I happened upon recently and thought why not.
I had seen the game online previously, and thought it would be a monster lot of fun.
Sadly, the US source I found back then never got back to me when I emailed them.
To the small entry at Boardgame geek relates “This take on bocce, aka lawn bowling, gives players soft, flexible balls that will be kind to materials within your house, allowing for indoor games on the stairs, at a bookcase, or wherever else you might think to throw the target ball. Throw the right way in Crossboule, and you can earn bonus points; whoever wins two sets of 13 points first wins the game.”
The game has similarities to bocce for sure, and bocce in turn has some common aspects with lawn bowling.
Lawn bowling is one of the lawn sports you think of when you think of Britain.
“Bowls or lawn bowls is a sport in which the objective is to roll biased balls so that they stop close to a smaller ball called a ‘jack’ or ‘kitty’. It is played on a bowling green which may be flat (for “flat-green bowls”) or convex or uneven (for “crown green bowls”). It is normally played outdoors (although there are many indoor venues) and the outdoor surface is either natural grass, artificial turf, or cotula (in New Zealand),” details Wikipedia.
For comparison the same site explains; “Bocce, sometimes anglicized as bocci, is a ball sport belonging to the boules family, closely related to British bowls and French pétanque, with a common ancestry from ancient games played in the Roman Empire.
“Developed into its present form in Italy (where it is called bocce, the plural of the Italian word boccia which means ‘bowl’ in the sport sense), it is played around Europe and also in overseas areas that have received Italian migrants, including Australia, North America, and South America (where it is known as bochas, or bolas criollas (‘Criollo balls’) in Venezuela, bocha in Brazil). Bocce was initially played among the Italian migrants but has slowly become more popular with their descendants and the wider community.
“The sport is also very popular on the eastern side of the Adriatic, especially in Croatia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina, where the sport is known in Serbo-Croatian as boćanje (‘playing boće’) or balote (colloquially also bućanje). In Slovenia the sport is known as balinanje]or colloquially ‘playing boče’, or bale (from Italian bocce and Venetian bałe, meaning ‘balls’, respectively).”
Just to be detailed, “Pétanque is a form of boules where the goal is to toss or roll hollow steel balls as close as possible to a small wooden ball called a cochonnet (literally “piglet”) or jack,[1] while standing inside a circle with both feet on the ground. The game is normally played on hard dirt or gravel. It can be played in public areas in parks, or in dedicated facilities called boulodromes. Similar games are bocce, bowls and (adapted to ice) curling.
Crossboules is interesting because it can be played on the go. It opens the sport of bocce to a more urban exploration game. Grab your cloth bag boules (think been bags essentially), and head out.
One player tosses out the ‘jack’ and then player’s battle to get there bags closest to target.
In many cases the game takes on a follow-the-leader aspect. If player one makes their shot sliding it across an empty park table, the other player must match that approach.
If it is bounced off a brick wall to land on a fire escape landing, so must other players.
In some respects it is an active walk about much like the current Pokemon craze without your head hanging over a cellphone.
I do wish sets were available locally, and have even suggested that to one store owner.
Or it might be a great thing for a local seamstress to undertake (see the photo and maybe try it).
I’d be interested in this fun looking game.
Check out www.cross-boule.com but it is not an English site. You can search the game on YouTube.com as well.
