Bottlecaps is a classic game from your father’s childhood, that is still just as much fun today. It’s for 2 to 6 players for each court: for more players, draw more courts. Never play this game in the street. Play indoors on any smooth floor. The boxes can be made on the floor with chalk, or with a thin masking tape.
Each player has his own unique bottlecap, the cap from a bottle of soda (or ‘pop’). For stability and better sliding across the surface, the bottlecap may be weighted by filling it with wax, or with corks from other bottlecaps. The corked bottlecap, once common, is now rare. The author’s favorite caps to play with were caps he made by adding 3 or 4 corks, thus forming what we called a ‘3-corker’ or a ‘4-corker’. The largest cap he ever made was a 104-corker, which rolled on its side, knocking away all the other bottlecaps, and drawing cries of “No fair!” and “Can I make one!” from all the other players.
How to Play. After deciding which players will go first, second, third, and so on, the players play in turns. First, player number one shoots, then player number two shoots, and so on. The ‘shooting’ of the bottlecap is really flicking it with the middle finger. The bottlecap is placed on the ground or floor. Then the middle finger rests against the inside of the thumb as it forms the shape of an ‘O’ — then that finger is released with great force and strikes the side of the bottlecap, which sends the cap rushing forward across the playing surface.
Each player begins by placing his bottlecap in Box 1. The object of the game is to shoot your bottlecap from Box 1, to Box 2, then to Box 3 (and so on) all the way to Box 15 — ,and then backwards to Box 1, to Box 15, to Box 14 and so on, all the way back to Box 1. The first player to complete this odyssey is the winner. After the winner wins, the other players keep playing to determine second place and third place.
Box 15 is called the ‘poison box’, and is marked with a chalk-drawn skull and crossbones inside the box, along with the number 15. A player’s bottlecap may safely enter box 15 only if it has come from box 14, or if the player has completed half his journey and has returned to box 1 and is now going backwards to boxes 15, 14, and so on. Otherwise, if a player’s bottlecap lands in box 15, then the cap must be returned to box number 1, and the player must begin from there, and start over again.
Here are more rules. A bottlecap is “inside” the box only when it is completely inside the box, and not touching any of the box’s lines. Whenever a player’s bottlecap lands inside the box he is going for (the next box in his sequence), then he gets a free turn. He will then place his bottlecap anywhere inside the box or touching any line of that box, then shoot the cap. Usually he will shoot the cap toward the next box he is aiming for, but occasionally he will shoot it at an opponent’s cap, to knock the opponent out of position.
One bottlecap may strike another bottlecap(s), sometimes accidentally, other times on purpose. When this happens, play continues normally, unless a player’s cap has been knocked into the poison box, when that player must return to box 1. On any of his turns, a player may choose to shoot his cap at another player’s cap, sometimes to knock it away from the box it was heading for, other times to knock it into the poison box (and other times to poison it by hitting it, which will be explained later, below). A frequent scenario is this — a player shoots his cap for a box (say, box number 3) but the cap lands not completely inside, but touching one of the box’s lines. Now it is the next player’s turn, and this player shoots his cap and lands it completely inside box number 3. Using his free turn, this player will now position his cap inside box number 3, near the cap that is touching the line. Then the player will shoot his cap so that it strikes the opponent’s cap, and send it far far away from box # 3.
A skilled player may earn more than one free turn in a row. For example, if the skilled player shoots his cap from box 6 and it lands completely inside box 7, then he gets to shoot again for box 8. If it lands inside box 8, then he gets to shoot for box 9, and so on.
The most dangerous part of the game occurs when a player reaches box number 13 and must shoot into box number 14. He may choose to avoid the risk and not shoot across the path that leads over box number 15 — but not many will resist the challenge to shoot the cap along that dangerous direct path. Alas! How many shouts, swears, and tears have fallen from the players whose too-soft shots have landed their bottlecaps inside the fateful poison box?
When a player has successfully moved his bottlecap from box 14, then to box 15, then back to box number 1, then he continues playing, this time moving backwards from box 1, to box 15, to box 14, and so on. The winner of the game is the player who reaches box 1 again, after trekking from box 1 to box 15, returning to box 1, then moving from box 15, to box 14, and so on all the way back to box 1.
When a player has completed half of this odyssey — when he moved from box 15 back to box 1 — he is then elevated to a more dangerous status. Now his bottlecap is poisoned, and he is immune from the poison box 15, and immune from other poisoned bottlecaps. (Although it is perfectly fair to agree beforehand on game variations where poisoned caps will not be immune from other poisoned caps.) Now, anytime that another bottlecap — without preferred poisoned status, as described above — anytime that another bottlecap touches this cap, then that cap must return to box 1 and begin his game again.
The winner of the game, as already mentioned, is the first player to complete the odyssey and return to box number 1. Enthusiastic players can play this game for hours and hours, day after day.
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