#234 Bed Time
Posted on April 27, 2007 at 12:00 am by Chris
Chapter: Comics
A friend of mine had a game called Crossbows and Catapults. It was a 2 player game where each side had some plastic bricks to build a fort out of and then some little crossbows and catapults to launch plastic discs at them. We used to play it in the hallway at his apartment building. It had a good mix of strategy, luck and skill. Half the time we didn’t play the real game. I think we had more fun setting up challenges like trying to land a disk into a ring of bricks by rebounding it off the wall than playing the game properly.
Tags
Sounds sorta like Crossfire! where you try to hit the spinny thing and the triangle into the other person’s ball-bearing catcher, but much more fun…
OMG I used to play that with my father, and when my primary teacher asked me what I played with my father, I told her “catapults and crossbows”… she sent me to the schools shrink… I had I lousy childhood
ha ha.
I think I still have that game. I’d need new rubber bands, though. when played at close range, like four feet, only the crossbow was useful.
Did that game have a back story, or did my brother just make it up?
I remember that the oil piece was useless on it’s own, and too much trouble to use right, so we justed made it an extra fire piece
I’d always put my commander guy on the tower. then when the tower was knocked over, he’d end up behind the tower, pretty much safe, save for a luck shot.
I always pulled the crossbow’s bolt back past the stop, so it shot harder. I usually won… when we played to the end of a game.
strange… I was thinking of this game earlier.
I had a game a lot like that, infact the artilery looks exactly the same. The ame was that one side had a castle and another has a little rampart (never felt that was exactly fare) and you each had some wepons and you had to storm the castle, wich you could blow to peses with your cannons and such.
Why play with small ones. Building full scale isn’t that hard, I managed to get a small group of teens to build a fine 12′ arm traction trebuchet. Two adults should be able to toss one together in a saturday, for about $100 in materials.
If your ambitions are higher, see http://www.siege-engine.com, or http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=rjnerd (has video of the teens, as well as some of my larger efforts.)
Yeah, I had that game to. But lost the rules and stuff early. Me and my sister used to try for skill shots to! From the table to the floor, to hit the dominoes/cat/the plastic bricks/each other……good times.
That idea is brilliant. I would never use my door again(why it would be fun to remove the door entirely just to confuse would be guests), just catapault myself with the use of seige weaponry that I’ll dub “Trebdor the Flinginator”
i think this is in the top 4 best drawn panels.. i love it. also the sky-diving cards is up there!!
Toshmate! – What are the other 2 in your top 4?
I had a game like it. It has a castle on one end and minimal fortifications on the other. The castle had a huge advantage as one spot for the defenders was extremely hard to hit. You also had places to hit it to make sections of the castle fall down. The castle always won. The attackers had more guys in the field who could move around. Theyw ere easy to wipe out.
I wonder how much medieval warfare would be different if they had used Biffs instead of large missile weapons.
Wow, hopefully something bad doesn’t happen to the window. I mean come on the wall is going to be fixed but those windows are one of a kind.
It sounds like a few of the people here have played Siege. There were a few different sets, and the general goal was to knock over all of your opponent’s small plastic soldiers. The fortifications on either side had special target areas which triggered various wall collapses, ramparts explosions, and other effects that knocked over a specific number of plastic soldiers. Flinging those tiny reddish marbles was always fun.
…so he uses…a catapult…to get into bed…that’s pretty brilliant. No more stairs!
So my guess is in the morning, he slides down a pole to get to the kitchen.
Okay, I’m a little confused. Is he trying to land on his bed or make it completely through the window?
Natester – Yes.
I think he’s trying to get in to the window to land in his bed. Am I right? meh… I never heard of or played seige before but I play a similar more tactical game called Risk. Anyone know it?
I had this game too! Oh man it was GREAT! I still dig it out sometimes on really rainy days and play a few rounds with my brother. The rules were REALLY complex though! I don’t think there’s one person who ever played by the rules! Lol.
I certainly just made them up, but it was really great fun (oh, and Marshall, the oil peice is used as a duel fire peice as well! ;-D If you used it and shot it into the middle of a group of people you could then put a fire peice on it and that set it on fire, destroying things).
Anyway, great comic! Keep it up!
I have siege too, used to play it all the time with my little bro. Eventually we lost a lot of the pieces, so now its impossible to play, since we have like… 1 marble lol.
Great comic too!
Wow. I used to play that when I was but a wee child. I think my stepdad hid it when i kept hitting him with the shells form the catapults XD
I used to declare that I’d won when i fired a ring of fire at someone.
’twas a most humourous game indeedeth.
I can completely relate to that. I used to play board games, but instead of following the rules I’d just play the game the way I thought it should be played. Sometimes the most fun you get out of a game is not actually playing it.
he probobly has a cushin in front of his bed with unlocked wheel (fffwwwooossshhh-fluummpa)
http://www.thebookofbiff.com/2006/08/28/104-jump/
I had that game! man it was awesome, and when you hit the little castle doors all the defenders would fly off…
Good times.
haha!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I can bookmark this now!!!!!!!!(can’t control my ! button)
I loved that game.
Good idea with the catapult, BTW!
it must have been REALLY windy
I’m going to make either a cannon, or a trebuchet now.
A friend and once created an awesome game after finishing a Chemistry test early and having time to kill. It was a cross between War (the card game) and Jinga. I can’t remember how it was played, we never discussed the rules (we had to be quiet-ish so other people could finish the test). It was a lot of fun though.
Why is this called bedtime?
This must be the only comic that can make something like a backyard catapult sound perfectly normal. 😉
“Oh dearie me, must get the catapult realigned this afternoon.”
CATapult???XD
i had freakin mousetrap etc. as a kid. my first ”dangerous” toy was a power ranger zord with missiles at like, 6 or 7 years old. power rangers sucks now, past time force, except for this one episode with all the red rangers. beetleborgs as bad guys forever! 🙂
Thanks to this panel, I’ll now have nightmares about Biff using his ‘pass through solid objects’ power to invade my room at night…