The previous post about Extreme Swingball prompted an e-mail from Strange Games reader Rob Edwards. In it he details a similarly painful game he calls Extreme Bucket Ball. 
The game works best with smallish teams of two or three players each. Teams take it in turns to have one of their members be the Bucket Boy - this player stands in the centre of a 3m chalk-drawn circle on the floor and uses both hands to hold a plastic bucket on top of their head. The game starts with Bucket Boy's team mates trying to toss as many tennis balls as possible into the bucket - Bucket Boy can aid this by moving around but he must remain inside the circle at all times. Similarly, team-mates must throw the balls from outside the circle. The opposing team however must try to disturb Bucket Boy, getting him to miss balls or even better spill his bucket. They do this by firing any tennis balls they can get at Bucket Boy's body (again, they have to remain outside the circle) You can make a no-headshots rule if you like. Whenever a ball becomes free there is a mad scramble for control of it from both sides. Play for a set time, count the bruises and the balls in Bucket Boy's bucket then swap sides and play again. Good clean fun.Addendum: As lsk rightly points out in the comment section..this game would be improved and made much fairer if a no crouching rule is enforced on Bucketboy(Strange Games has also covered Bucket Ball and Hanetball previously - click on the links to discover more)
Extreme Swing Ball is the name for a superb combat-type game sent into Strange Games by 
regular reader Duncan Flann. It is like some sort of bizarre blend of conkers, swingball and sword fencing.
Mr Flann writes: "Me and my friend Steve Brand invented Extreme Swing Ball a few years ago and we play quite regularly. It's simple and quite addictive to play and can be unpleasantly painful when you lose. It works best with two players. Each has the string and ball part of a swingball set (basically a tennis ball connected to a one and half meter piece of cord). At the start of the game each player sets his ball swinging in a circle. They can have it swinging at any height, in any plane(horizontally or vertically) and at any speed they like, but it must be swinging around for the duration of the game. The players now approach each other and try and get their ball to hit their opponent while avoiding being hit themselves. Points are scored for striking different parts of the body: 1 for an arm or leg, 5 for the torso and 10 for a head shot. Once a strike is made play stops, players move apart and set their balls swinging once again for the next round. Also, a little like the game of conkers, if 'tangles' (each players strings become tangled) occurs then players move apart and start afresh. If one of the players is found to regularly cause 'tangles' then the other can request a free strike! Play tends to shift between tense standoffs, wild rapid swinging as a defensive measure and desperate lunges forwards. Often the player that performs best is not the quickest swinger or the most violent but rather the one who has the most manoeuvrability. To see a master ESB player duck down, as their opponent's ball whizzes overhead, and get in a strike to the knees is a joy to behold"
Does watching violence on television and in films create a more violent society? You could debate this all night...but far better to play Get on the F***ing Floor instead. 
This is another marvellous game sent in by Strange Games reader Katie Jacobsen.Kate writes: "All you need to play is a toy gun. Choose one player to exit the room with the gun. The remaining players establish conversation. They can talk about anything except the game itself. The player chosen to exit the room should stand just outside the door, so (s)he can hear the other players' conversation. After a few moments, or however long it takes for the players in the room to establish a natural conversational pattern that is distracted from the game, the outside player bursts in as aggressively and suddenly as possible, brandishing the gun and screaming in a menacing voice, "GET ON THE F***ING FLOOR!!" The amount of surprise and fear (some may say authenticity) of the holdup is ranked, and the process is repeated until each of the players has had a chance to play the armed intruder."
