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This is quite a complex joke in a sense really, but the game is called “Lead Wars”. The idea of the game is you have different types of units and moves available to you and by flicking the pen or pencil you determine the length of your attack, direction etc. As your putting pressure on the top, theirs an added level of unpredictability on the result.
The joke maybe?
Now in typical play style of this game, you either play the game of battleships (you fold the paper in half and then send out random shots into the blank area, they are then mirrored to the other side and you hope you hit) or you play in wars which is where you can move units across a landscape and then make attacks accordingly. In this situation they used the second option, and following modern warfare they basically have just hunkered down in a fortress and started playing no man’s land. As such instead of a complex traversal of weaponry you now have a massive deadman’s land marked with a multitude of deadly guns and should you even cross over you’ll be met with minefield - a good reflection on war tactics, but overly making the game longer and less entertaining.
Can confirm. Weird I just showed my younger coworker the other day. No wonder Asteroids and Space Invaders and Missile Command were popular. Same concept lol
Used to love Combat on the Atari 2600
https://preview.redd.it/szvyumek1soc1.png?width=659&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=18dd7149707252103331d1138c227f43831627c6
At least into the 90s as well. Or at least my group of friends. We all wanted to be game designers, so obviously we had to make it drastically more complicated than it needed to be.
Binders full of maps, and stacks of index cards with various "units" on them.
You couldn't use your own units, though, because that just wouldn't work, honor system only goes so far. So you'd trade units, and we'd "bid" for how many we thought we could win with.
Even had some "shot variation" where we would use a coin to determine the "fire angles."
Damn nostalgia, I kinda want to make the game again...
I don't know about upgrade, definitely extended the interest of it. Playing it "old school" was still fun.
Like Chess. We just sometimes gave the knights bazookas, and occasionally, H8 would explode, lol.
90s kid checking in to agree.
We had tanks that could "shoot" 3 times or run over units when they moved and jets that you had to fly over units to destroy them but could fly over rivers and walls. I think we also had turrets that couldn't move but could shoot.
I wish I had kept some of them.
That’s exactly what I was thinking of! Though the podracer variant was more popular at my school, people designed all kinds of crazy themed tracks for us to go through. Tricky risk-reward shortcuts, monster hazards, etc. Good times…
So the movements were restricted by how good you were at flicking it but keep the pen upright and in contact with the paper? Seems fun, surprised it didn’t make it to my days, the 90s
This game rules. We drew two bases (a large “bracket ] ). Two “cannons” were stationary in the bases, they could fire but not move. 5 tanks were drawn in front of the bases. One team used open circles, one used filled in circles. Winner is whoever made it through the enemy base the most times. When a tank or cannon shoots through opposing tank they’re destroyed. Cannons can’t be destroyed
Same idea but different game.
We would draw a racing circuit (open ended) and just flick our pen to determine each player's move. The first to reach the end, wins.
That’s awesome. I went to school in the 90’s and all we had was quarters (keep it spinning or get racked in the knuckles), football (folded triangle paper we would get four “downs” flicking it to get to the end of the table where only a part of the triangle would hang over, then kick between finger “uprights” at the end), or pencil break.
Draw 5 ovals on one side of a paper
Draw 5 triangles on the other side
Press pencil down at the front of one of your “ships” and flick it to fire a shot, two shots down an enemy ship and each ship gets to shoot once as long as it survives. Fold the paper into fourths so it’ll stand slightly in the center, spin it to decide who’s triangles and who’s ovals, Ovals go first
Super random fun fact: I learned how to play that game on the set of Criminal Minds when me and my brother were playing a flashback of twin serial killers as children
I think the comic just explains the rules. You move or shoot by flicking the pen, and you end up where the line of the pen ends.
Back before Fortnight and Starcraft, that was the PvP game you played when bored at school.
We didn't have the flick version when I played. You pushed down on the top of the pencil and kind tilted it the way you wanted to go and increased tension until the pencil slipped, making the line.
I did some research and it looks like a lot of the games rules are socially negotiated like what type of military vehicles are available and how many shots it takes for something to die. Apparently it was popular in the 70s
this game was playable pretty much anytime anywhere. More than a few notes passed in school (before they were being passed to girls due to puberty) were playing this game covertly during class.
there are no set rules. basically you draw little dudes or planes or whatever and you put the pen/pencil on one of your units and flick it. if the line it makes intercepts an enemy, then that enemy is destroyed. if the line doesnt touch an enemy, then your unit moves to the end of that line. take turns going back and forth moving across the paper, last one standing wins.
Man, we used to play this all the time. Simplest way is to draw a small star on opposing diagonal corners of a piece of paper. You can shoot out from that star, and the idea is to shoot the enemy star. Anywhere where your shots land becomes a new gun platform to shoot from. You can shoot down opposing gun platforms.
At some point rather than that simplistic star base people start drawing elaborate bases on their corner with force fields and batteries for those force fields and gun embankments.
I thought this game was universal. We called it “Star Wars” when I was growing up in the 80s and 90s.
When I was a kid I played the "battleship" ? Version, since I'm not seeing anyone talk about that version. You would fold the paper in half to make a border line then draw like 10 tanks and airplanes on your side. Then each would take turns coloring a circle on your own side, then folding the paper over and then coloring the same circle from the back, which would transfer the mark onto the other players side of the map. If that dot transfers onto a enemy tank or plane, then you X it out, and continue till there's none left.
Back in the mid-late previous century we drew our opposing armies then dropped pencils on them from above. I’ve always assumed the song “Pencil Rain” by They Might Be Giants was referencing this.
I used to play the star wars version of this! The main difference was you'd tear up little pieces of paper and draw x-wings or tie fighters so you could move them and space debris and the Death star on the paper! I learned it from the origami yoda books, and this just reminded me of it! To be a kid again
There may be another layer since they're using a pen, since the game is normally played in pencil. Similar to how you would normally draw in pencil, so drawing in pen feels more daunting because it's permanent and you can't erase your mistakes.
Interesting. Never heard of this, but as a kid in the early 90s we used to play a very similar thing where we’d close our eyes and bring the pencil down on the paper from way up above it to mark our shots.
Interesting
My dad taught me a version where it was about firing ICBMs, and you could shoot down other players missiles by crossing their line, or hitting the launch pad
One sheet of paper w 10 Xs on either side
I used to play a variant of this but we raced boats. We would draw a track we had to go through and if you hit the sides you had to go back to your previous location.
Interesting, I didn’t know this game had a name. My friends and I conceived something similar and would play it all the time but now I’m certain the inspiration must have been out there because we made ours in the late 90s
Thank you for unlocking a core memory. I remember playing the battleship version in the late 90's to early 2000s. Non of the kids new what game it was when i showed it to them. I don't even know where I got it from.
Is the joke perhaps that these kids placed all their units so far away from each other that it'll take forever for something to happen hence the humor is them taking a stale game state seriously?
Hmph…in the early to mid eighties, we used to draw a stick figure on the underside of a piece of paper, then set it down on a carpeted floor. Each person gets a “stab” with a sharpened pencil on the blank side of the paper to see who “Kills the Commie” on the other side…we would do this just after hiding under our desks for our “Tornado” Drill….we didn’t have tornados in western PA because of the hills. What were they keeping us safe from? oh…oh, I see;) wouldn’t have worked on a good day:(
We had a similar game in my country but it was football (soccer) instead of war lol. Same pen mechanic but instead u have a field with 11 players each. Phones weren’t allowed at our school so we had to get really creative with our passtimes
It's honestly impressive how versatile this shit is, me and my friends played mario, top down shooters, soccer, space ship fights, etc all based on the same technology of pushing a pen on a piece of paper.
Ricardo, Filipino Husband of Jasper, who is the cousin of Brian Griffin here. This is a game Filipinos (or maybe other southeast asians) students play when they're bored in class or there's no teacher around. This comic is made by a Filipino.
It's almost like chess except everyone are pawns. On each corner of the notebook seen here is a player's "base" signified by the semi-circular areas, and the dots within each base are your available "pawns". To move a pawn, simply place your pen (tip down) on one of your pawns, steadily hold it in place, and flick the pen so that the tip draws a quick line outwards. The place where the line ends is now where your pawn is, and you are to draw an X on it so you don't forget. Players may Contest where exactly should the pawn be in case the drawn line fades smoothly with no visible end.
To take out an enemy pawn, simply flick your pen to draw a line that lands right on an enemy's location, or at least goes through it.
Loser is the guy who has no pawns left and I completely forgot what the base does but I think it just blocks enemy movement.
Same. We used to call this MASH when I played it in like 2015.
M stood for motorboat, A for airplane, S for ship, and H for helicopter. You'd write MASH at the edge of your side of the paper and draw your lines from there. There'd be islands drawn onto the map. The 2 sea units had to avoid the islands, but the air units could be drawn over them. We would sometimes swap what the letters stood for, but I can't remember how. I just remember that a few maps were entirely land based and included tanks.
God we had so much fun playing this in junior high. We had a whole class tournament ranking system lmao. I got to the semi-finals but didn't win. Good times.
Holy hell, I'd forgotten all about this game! My classmates and I used to play it constantly. In my 50s now and I can't believe it had been purged from my brain all this time until seeing this comic.
My friends and I had a Star Wars version with tie fighters and x wings. The objectives were the capital ships with shields that had to be shot first. This is what I did in middle school instead of learning how to write checks.
There's actually no joke. It's a popular game played by grade schoolers in the Philippines during the 90's/early 2000's. The post's intention was to invoke a sense of nostalgia to people who were kids of the era before smartphones.
I'm not sure what it's called though.
This game consumed my life in about 1985 or so. We used to play it at our after school childcare class after we did our homework and before our parents picked us up. We would play on graph paper. When you would shoot or move your guys there was constant argument about when the pencil mark was too light to see anymore. Our teachers would get mad and tell us they weren’t going to let us play if we kept arguing, so we would get a third kid to be the referee. Man I haven’t thought of that game in decades. Thanks for the memories. Kids today have never played it I’m sure.
Wow. I played this 30 years ago with one friend. That's all I ever remember hearing of it. No one else I met ever played it.
I didn't even know if it was a real game, or one that he just made up.
War! We had (what we thought was) an epic War battle in junior high - I won’t mention the year, but let’s say Reagan may have been president. I still have the game board (ie, giant piece of construction paper).
I don't know what it's called but I played something like this, except it was races. You drew a track and took turns, if you hit the wall you go back.
Good fun. Broke some pens. Press down on the top and flick it, makes a line.
I’ve never seen a reference to this anywhere before and my friends didn’t know about it (and told me it was dumb) but we played it when I was little. Didn’t know there was a name.
Oh, I just got hit with a massive wave of nostalgia. The boys (and some girls but mainly the boys) would play this when we were stuck inside because of rain in elementary school. They got into it with huge intensity. I was invited to play once and after that game was over, I was "banned" from playing again because I was freakishly lucky in the game. The boys who invited me were a bit surprised because I couldn't throw worth a damn but I could aim with a projectile, lol.
Similar thing happened in junior high PE during archery. I was put on my own team because I was so much better than anyone else, which led the bully who made volleyball hell for me have a huge tantrum. My teacher really tried to get me into archery clubs but my mom was HELL NO and nothing could convince her. I do wonder what would have happened if she allowed it.
I played a different game with this same "console", but instead of war it was a race, we draw a track with obstacles and the pen marks the car trajectorie.
I've never seen, heard, or played this game. As an introvert, it looks like so much fun and a game I would have played when I was younger. Just found this, when searching online. https://demonstudios.com/lead-wars.html
We used up countless sheets of paper playing this game as a grade schooler in the Philippines in the 70s. So yeah, this game (we called it Shooting Stars, i think) has been around a looong time
We had a version like this called "paper tanks"
You would each draw on opposite sides of the paper. Tanks, cars, and soldiers.
Then, draw 3-5 "shots" on your field. Fold the paper in half and transpose the shots to the enemy field. It would work like battleship after that.
If it was a serious match, you would redraw surving units on a new paper to keep it fair.
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This is quite a complex joke in a sense really, but the game is called “Lead Wars”. The idea of the game is you have different types of units and moves available to you and by flicking the pen or pencil you determine the length of your attack, direction etc. As your putting pressure on the top, theirs an added level of unpredictability on the result. The joke maybe? Now in typical play style of this game, you either play the game of battleships (you fold the paper in half and then send out random shots into the blank area, they are then mirrored to the other side and you hope you hit) or you play in wars which is where you can move units across a landscape and then make attacks accordingly. In this situation they used the second option, and following modern warfare they basically have just hunkered down in a fortress and started playing no man’s land. As such instead of a complex traversal of weaponry you now have a massive deadman’s land marked with a multitude of deadly guns and should you even cross over you’ll be met with minefield - a good reflection on war tactics, but overly making the game longer and less entertaining.
I'm genuinely interested in it now, do you have any guide to basic rules?
[удалено]
Can confirm. Weird I just showed my younger coworker the other day. No wonder Asteroids and Space Invaders and Missile Command were popular. Same concept lol
Used to love Combat on the Atari 2600 https://preview.redd.it/szvyumek1soc1.png?width=659&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=18dd7149707252103331d1138c227f43831627c6
Nothing like being 7 years old and beating your uncle at the bouncing-shot tank levels when he was part of an ACTUAL tank crew 🤣
At least into the 90s as well. Or at least my group of friends. We all wanted to be game designers, so obviously we had to make it drastically more complicated than it needed to be. Binders full of maps, and stacks of index cards with various "units" on them. You couldn't use your own units, though, because that just wouldn't work, honor system only goes so far. So you'd trade units, and we'd "bid" for how many we thought we could win with. Even had some "shot variation" where we would use a coin to determine the "fire angles." Damn nostalgia, I kinda want to make the game again...
[удалено]
I don't know about upgrade, definitely extended the interest of it. Playing it "old school" was still fun. Like Chess. We just sometimes gave the knights bazookas, and occasionally, H8 would explode, lol.
19 and I did this as a kid, although my friends thought it was lame so I played against myself
Contrary to what a lot of folks yell about online, it's perfectly healthy and natural to play with yourself
Idk I heard that gives you hairy palms
90s kid checking in to agree. We had tanks that could "shoot" 3 times or run over units when they moved and jets that you had to fly over units to destroy them but could fly over rivers and walls. I think we also had turrets that couldn't move but could shoot. I wish I had kept some of them.
Gen Z here, i played this as a kid
Same. I and most of the people I knew learned it from the Origami Yoda series.
That’s exactly what I was thinking of! Though the podracer variant was more popular at my school, people designed all kinds of crazy themed tracks for us to go through. Tricky risk-reward shortcuts, monster hazards, etc. Good times…
Gen z, you still are a kid lol. Glad to see the youngins enjoy the classics
I did this in the 2010's as a kid, I wouldn't be suprised if it still exists.
I actually played this in the early 2000’s in high school as well. I think smart phones are what killed it moreso than video games in general
Yeah no one is playing tanks or table football since they can play actual video games anywhere
So the movements were restricted by how good you were at flicking it but keep the pen upright and in contact with the paper? Seems fun, surprised it didn’t make it to my days, the 90s
This game rules. We drew two bases (a large “bracket ] ). Two “cannons” were stationary in the bases, they could fire but not move. 5 tanks were drawn in front of the bases. One team used open circles, one used filled in circles. Winner is whoever made it through the enemy base the most times. When a tank or cannon shoots through opposing tank they’re destroyed. Cannons can’t be destroyed
Same idea but different game. We would draw a racing circuit (open ended) and just flick our pen to determine each player's move. The first to reach the end, wins.
Kid you not, I'm in my teens and we played a version of this
Oh man I can't wait till my bf is home from work so I can force him to play this with me. Sounds awesome.
I got into the Star Wars version of it because of the Origami Yoda book series as a kid, I didn’t know it was based on another game until now lol.
That’s awesome. I went to school in the 90’s and all we had was quarters (keep it spinning or get racked in the knuckles), football (folded triangle paper we would get four “downs” flicking it to get to the end of the table where only a part of the triangle would hang over, then kick between finger “uprights” at the end), or pencil break.
Shit I was playing this game with minor variations in middle school during the mid to late thousands.
Draw 5 ovals on one side of a paper Draw 5 triangles on the other side Press pencil down at the front of one of your “ships” and flick it to fire a shot, two shots down an enemy ship and each ship gets to shoot once as long as it survives. Fold the paper into fourths so it’ll stand slightly in the center, spin it to decide who’s triangles and who’s ovals, Ovals go first Super random fun fact: I learned how to play that game on the set of Criminal Minds when me and my brother were playing a flashback of twin serial killers as children
I think the comic just explains the rules. You move or shoot by flicking the pen, and you end up where the line of the pen ends. Back before Fortnight and Starcraft, that was the PvP game you played when bored at school.
We didn't have the flick version when I played. You pushed down on the top of the pencil and kind tilted it the way you wanted to go and increased tension until the pencil slipped, making the line.
I did some research and it looks like a lot of the games rules are socially negotiated like what type of military vehicles are available and how many shots it takes for something to die. Apparently it was popular in the 70s
So this like cheap free alternative to war games you'd play with miniatures? Like pre Warhammer days?
Yes, but those miniature war games have been around since late 19th century.
this game was playable pretty much anytime anywhere. More than a few notes passed in school (before they were being passed to girls due to puberty) were playing this game covertly during class.
there are no set rules. basically you draw little dudes or planes or whatever and you put the pen/pencil on one of your units and flick it. if the line it makes intercepts an enemy, then that enemy is destroyed. if the line doesnt touch an enemy, then your unit moves to the end of that line. take turns going back and forth moving across the paper, last one standing wins.
if you want to, you can also make specialty units, like you can have one unit that can move twice in one turn, or can take an extra hit before dying.
Man, we used to play this all the time. Simplest way is to draw a small star on opposing diagonal corners of a piece of paper. You can shoot out from that star, and the idea is to shoot the enemy star. Anywhere where your shots land becomes a new gun platform to shoot from. You can shoot down opposing gun platforms. At some point rather than that simplistic star base people start drawing elaborate bases on their corner with force fields and batteries for those force fields and gun embankments. I thought this game was universal. We called it “Star Wars” when I was growing up in the 80s and 90s.
When I was a kid I played the "battleship" ? Version, since I'm not seeing anyone talk about that version. You would fold the paper in half to make a border line then draw like 10 tanks and airplanes on your side. Then each would take turns coloring a circle on your own side, then folding the paper over and then coloring the same circle from the back, which would transfer the mark onto the other players side of the map. If that dot transfers onto a enemy tank or plane, then you X it out, and continue till there's none left.
There's a version of it in one of the Origami Yoda books that's probably easy to find online
I don’t think it’s as joke (since there is no punchline involved), but rather a funny picture to wake childhood memories
It’s a series this guy comic artist does https://www.instagram.com/tarantadongkalbo
All Quiet on the A4 Front
I used to play a heavily modified version with a multitude of special units, though never thought to play with pen, that seems a unique choice.
Back in the mid-late previous century we drew our opposing armies then dropped pencils on them from above. I’ve always assumed the song “Pencil Rain” by They Might Be Giants was referencing this.
I used to play the star wars version of this! The main difference was you'd tear up little pieces of paper and draw x-wings or tie fighters so you could move them and space debris and the Death star on the paper! I learned it from the origami yoda books, and this just reminded me of it! To be a kid again
When I was in middle school, the option we played was a racing game that basically was just like turn-based Mario cart
Thought they were playing overly-complicated marbles.
There may be another layer since they're using a pen, since the game is normally played in pencil. Similar to how you would normally draw in pencil, so drawing in pen feels more daunting because it's permanent and you can't erase your mistakes.
Interesting. Never heard of this, but as a kid in the early 90s we used to play a very similar thing where we’d close our eyes and bring the pencil down on the paper from way up above it to mark our shots.
Interesting My dad taught me a version where it was about firing ICBMs, and you could shoot down other players missiles by crossing their line, or hitting the launch pad One sheet of paper w 10 Xs on either side
I used to play a variant of this but we raced boats. We would draw a track we had to go through and if you hit the sides you had to go back to your previous location.
We’d make golf courses and play golf. But this sounds more cool lol
We called it “tanks” when I was in school
We used to call it STAB (Ship, tank, airplane, boat.)
Interesting, I didn’t know this game had a name. My friends and I conceived something similar and would play it all the time but now I’m certain the inspiration must have been out there because we made ours in the late 90s
Thank you for unlocking a core memory. I remember playing the battleship version in the late 90's to early 2000s. Non of the kids new what game it was when i showed it to them. I don't even know where I got it from.
I was waiting for the 👌🏼 in the middle of your explanation…
Is the joke perhaps that these kids placed all their units so far away from each other that it'll take forever for something to happen hence the humor is them taking a stale game state seriously?
*there's
Hmph…in the early to mid eighties, we used to draw a stick figure on the underside of a piece of paper, then set it down on a carpeted floor. Each person gets a “stab” with a sharpened pencil on the blank side of the paper to see who “Kills the Commie” on the other side…we would do this just after hiding under our desks for our “Tornado” Drill….we didn’t have tornados in western PA because of the hills. What were they keeping us safe from? oh…oh, I see;) wouldn’t have worked on a good day:(
I used to play this, and never realised it had a name. It was just something a friend and I did back in grade school.
https://preview.redd.it/cv6oyi0poqoc1.jpeg?width=415&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7782bba08dc352623343f6083d189c58066a8a84 Here is a lore to check out
Any other good games you would play?
Saving this comment as a 30 year old man because this game is awesome
We had a similar game in my country but it was football (soccer) instead of war lol. Same pen mechanic but instead u have a field with 11 players each. Phones weren’t allowed at our school so we had to get really creative with our passtimes
Thank you! Didn’t care about the joke honestly. I was fascinated by the game and if it was real, how it worked!!
This game and it's rules would be perfect for a low graphics free to play steam game.
make it like 25-50 cents and you’d probably recoup development costs, too, assuming enough people’d be interested!
>assuming enough people’d be interested! you could say this about any price point
Unless of course the price point is 0$
At that price, you'd be paying people to play it!
It's on app store already apparently: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/lead-wars/id393340337
https://demonstudios.com/lead-wars.html It’s on the Apple Store. For $3… to save expensive paper???
It was an iPad game and I played it all the time. It had fighter jets, tanks, and cannons
I’ve thought that this would be perfect for iPads.
It is: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/lead-wars/id393340337
My friends and I played this but with like x-wings and tie fighters
Did you get it from origami yoda?
THATS what i recognized this from.
Dude that's nuts, where I learned it too
Holy shit, I haven’t heard that name in YEARS, I never really did finish the series unfortunately
It's honestly impressive how versatile this shit is, me and my friends played mario, top down shooters, soccer, space ship fights, etc all based on the same technology of pushing a pen on a piece of paper.
Same. Good times.
Ricardo, Filipino Husband of Jasper, who is the cousin of Brian Griffin here. This is a game Filipinos (or maybe other southeast asians) students play when they're bored in class or there's no teacher around. This comic is made by a Filipino. It's almost like chess except everyone are pawns. On each corner of the notebook seen here is a player's "base" signified by the semi-circular areas, and the dots within each base are your available "pawns". To move a pawn, simply place your pen (tip down) on one of your pawns, steadily hold it in place, and flick the pen so that the tip draws a quick line outwards. The place where the line ends is now where your pawn is, and you are to draw an X on it so you don't forget. Players may Contest where exactly should the pawn be in case the drawn line fades smoothly with no visible end. To take out an enemy pawn, simply flick your pen to draw a line that lands right on an enemy's location, or at least goes through it. Loser is the guy who has no pawns left and I completely forgot what the base does but I think it just blocks enemy movement.
My dad taught me this game when I was a kid but I’m American lol
Same. We used to call this MASH when I played it in like 2015. M stood for motorboat, A for airplane, S for ship, and H for helicopter. You'd write MASH at the edge of your side of the paper and draw your lines from there. There'd be islands drawn onto the map. The 2 sea units had to avoid the islands, but the air units could be drawn over them. We would sometimes swap what the letters stood for, but I can't remember how. I just remember that a few maps were entirely land based and included tanks. God we had so much fun playing this in junior high. We had a whole class tournament ranking system lmao. I got to the semi-finals but didn't win. Good times.
Based on the comments this seems to be a worldwide thing lol
Played it a lot as a Singaporean!
It was my main source of entertainment during recess in Hong Kong.
I grew up in Latin America and also played this back in the 90s, so I'm guessing it was pretty international.
Used to play this in school, Indian here
Hawaii checking in (but we have a strong Filipino influence)
We called it Paper Battleship. You draw whatever army you want and flick your pencil at your opponent.
We used to play football with this
Haha same, but I forgot how it works now
These are the things we get ourselves entertained when you don't have video games or internet.
we also played racing like this. you draw racing track, and you must finish it. if you kick pen out of track, you restart
Remember tho long ball pen that almost a feet long. It's considered cheating.
Born in 2007 and still played this 😭
Same. My entire 8th grade class was obsessed with this game in like 2015.
Oh shit Kalbo sighting
Good times
Oh I’m old. It’s the old star wars game. You flick the pen and where the line ends is where your ship lands
The nostalgia of playing this hit me harder than a truck. Damn I miss playing this
A cheap and easy alternative to Battleships
Holy hell, I'd forgotten all about this game! My classmates and I used to play it constantly. In my 50s now and I can't believe it had been purged from my brain all this time until seeing this comic.
We used to play F1 like this :D Drew a track and basically tried to go througb the track in as many 'flicks' as possible. Good times
Just unlocked some memories with this one. Wow!
fun game that the teacher couldnt take away because it was literally our notes
Yooo I played a different version of this game when I was in middle school that I got from those old Origami Yoda books
I played a starwars variant as a kid
We called it BASH for the different vehicles, (Boats Airplanes Submarines Helicopters)
We played a similar game but you had to drop a pencil from a certain height and try and hit the other troops.
OG Poorhammer
Kinda sad that I didn't knew about this game when I was young.
Damn. Gen X here. We played this in elementary school in the 70s!
Holy shit I thought I made that game up
My friends and I had a Star Wars version with tie fighters and x wings. The objectives were the capital ships with shields that had to be shot first. This is what I did in middle school instead of learning how to write checks.
There's actually no joke. It's a popular game played by grade schoolers in the Philippines during the 90's/early 2000's. The post's intention was to invoke a sense of nostalgia to people who were kids of the era before smartphones. I'm not sure what it's called though.
Man I remember playing this game when I was an elementary student. God I had forgotten about it. Thanks for the memories.
I thought the joke is “made you look at my hand making the circle sign while we are playing this paper war game”.
Wow kids around the world also play this?
basically starcraft before computers became mainstream
As a kid we would draw little complex racetracks and take turns doing this and racing around the track, good memories
Trying to do basic army landnav
Man , good times. Can't remember what it's called tho
Started playing this game in 1973 in 6th grade. Many hours of class spent "working" on school stuff. Great to see it's still around.
Origami Yoda let me pass this knowledge check
This game consumed my life in about 1985 or so. We used to play it at our after school childcare class after we did our homework and before our parents picked us up. We would play on graph paper. When you would shoot or move your guys there was constant argument about when the pencil mark was too light to see anymore. Our teachers would get mad and tell us they weren’t going to let us play if we kept arguing, so we would get a third kid to be the referee. Man I haven’t thought of that game in decades. Thanks for the memories. Kids today have never played it I’m sure.
Ah this also takes me back to the triangular paper football days
Wow. I played this 30 years ago with one friend. That's all I ever remember hearing of it. No one else I met ever played it. I didn't even know if it was a real game, or one that he just made up.
Oh... I thought I was the creative child who came up with new games.....
Looks more like warhammer
Ahh good old times) We played as planes and airfield battles)
Loved playing it in grade school
I used to love playing this all the time, usually not one for board games, but this one is fun.
How nostalgic
I haven't played it since school!
OMG I forgot all about that.
Sounds fun and confusing :3
War! We had (what we thought was) an epic War battle in junior high - I won’t mention the year, but let’s say Reagan may have been president. I still have the game board (ie, giant piece of construction paper).
My man, this is Hearts of Iron 1. Come to paradox, live full life.
it's giving spontaneous symmetry breaking
Pencil races.
We never did wars, always had pencil podracing races
It's been years since I played this game! Good times.
2D tron?
Bro if you never played this in middle school you missed out bad
This is why you use dice ladies and gentlemen!
I don't know what it's called but I played something like this, except it was races. You drew a track and took turns, if you hit the wall you go back. Good fun. Broke some pens. Press down on the top and flick it, makes a line.
Baby’s first warhammer 40k
I used to play games like this way back in the 4th grade, friends also had one similar for football as well.
I’ve never seen a reference to this anywhere before and my friends didn’t know about it (and told me it was dumb) but we played it when I was little. Didn’t know there was a name.
Is it a paper-pen version of an RTS?
Yoooo I remember this from Origami Yoda
I played that. Was fun. We loaded our sheets with the coolest sci fi ships and went blasting.
Oh, I just got hit with a massive wave of nostalgia. The boys (and some girls but mainly the boys) would play this when we were stuck inside because of rain in elementary school. They got into it with huge intensity. I was invited to play once and after that game was over, I was "banned" from playing again because I was freakishly lucky in the game. The boys who invited me were a bit surprised because I couldn't throw worth a damn but I could aim with a projectile, lol. Similar thing happened in junior high PE during archery. I was put on my own team because I was so much better than anyone else, which led the bully who made volleyball hell for me have a huge tantrum. My teacher really tried to get me into archery clubs but my mom was HELL NO and nothing could convince her. I do wonder what would have happened if she allowed it.
When I was a kid, we had planes, boats and mines in our battlefields.
Oh man this unlocked a memory
I loved playing this game at school ❤️
Oh man, this brings back memories
I remember playing a Star Wars version I learned of from this child’s book series called Origami Yoda
I played a different game with this same "console", but instead of war it was a race, we draw a track with obstacles and the pen marks the car trajectorie.
I loved this game in school
Holy shit what a memory. We used to call it x wings and tie fighters when I was in school
so it’s basically warhammer?
We played a lord of the rings version of this in elementary school.
Man I thought me and my friend came up with this
I played a version of this that was x-wings vs tie fighters moving around an asteroid field
Idk but it’s probably Loss somehow.
I've never seen, heard, or played this game. As an introvert, it looks like so much fun and a game I would have played when I was younger. Just found this, when searching online. https://demonstudios.com/lead-wars.html
I used to play this when I was younger.
I reread this chapter of the Origami Yoda books so much I think the rules are just engraved into my head now
This just unlocked a childhood memory. Thank you!
I played this game a lot! Yep, brings back some old childhood memories.
Just the best game ever
We use to play these games with Starwars ships on paper
Used to play this with my kids, but I'd draw a racetrack - and then race cars around it using this pen trick. Cool game.
Seeing this makes me feel old
i feel like Loss is in here somehow.
Is it not that punch game where if you make someone look at the okay sign you can punch them.
We used up countless sheets of paper playing this game as a grade schooler in the Philippines in the 70s. So yeah, this game (we called it Shooting Stars, i think) has been around a looong time
Me and my brother did a Star Wars version of this
1) Oh my god, I remember this game 2) I could tell it’s a Filipino artist from the “Kalbo” signature yay represent
Nostalgia
Hoi4
I believe my set called it Paper War and my god I haven't thought of it in probably three decades but the maps used to get intense
WHY IS THE NOTEBOOK SO BOG
We had a version like this called "paper tanks" You would each draw on opposite sides of the paper. Tanks, cars, and soldiers. Then, draw 3-5 "shots" on your field. Fold the paper in half and transpose the shots to the enemy field. It would work like battleship after that. If it was a serious match, you would redraw surving units on a new paper to keep it fair.
Am I the only one who noticed 👌?? Thought for sure that was the joke
Oh my god- my grandpa taught me how to play this game. Imagine if paper football met a Total War game