together, in a sense

For nearly a month now, I’ve been obligated to write a post explaining the rules of Palace Ball (during times of heightened nationalism, it may also be called Freedom Ball). There isn’t a whole lot to it beyond what you see in the above video, but it works roughly as follows:

Palace ball field

1. You can play on a rectangular or square field; something about the size of a tennis court or little larger should work. There are end zones at opposite ends. There is no out of bounds at the sides.
2. The primary ball (or palace ball) starts in the center of the field. It should probably be 18-20″ in diameter, maybe a bit more. Something like this ball should work well. Experiment for best results.
3. Each of the two players start with a ball for bowling / throwing at the primary ball. These are called bowlers. They should be about 10″ in diameter and can either be kickballs or playground balls like the palace ball. The bowlers should be different colors, since each player can only use his or her own bowler. Unlike in the video, each player should have the same type and size of bowler, or it’s just unfair (I still contend that this is the only reason Ben won the match in the video).
4. When the game starts, each player tries to repeatedly throw / toss / bowl your bowler in the palace ball, pushing it into the opponent’s end zone. They must release their bowler at least 3 feet from the palace ball.
5. You can play for a set period of time, or to a certain score.

The game would probably work quite well with doubles (still one bowler per team), but more than that is probably a bit much.