Air Pool

Remember Air Hockey? Basically it’s a big table with lips around the side, the surface of which is covered in lots of tiny holes. Air is blown up through the holes, and a small puck is levitated off the tabletop. Players get a circular paddle each, and batter hell out of said puck as it ricochets around the table like a mad thing, in the vain hope of it somehow landing in the opponent’s goal. Requires lightning-like reactions and a fair amount of luck, but it’s good, frenetic fun.

But what if you made the table a bit bigger, and instead of just having one goal at either end you have six – one in each corner and one halfway down the longest sides? Add a few more pucks - some red, some yellow, and one black one – and I’m sure you can see where I’m going with this already. The reduced friction on the table would allow for some truly amazing (or perhaps just completely haphazard) shots – the level of foresight required to anticipate how the many pucks will bounce off each other (given that they will travel for so much longer) would stump even the greatest chess Grandmaster.

It could be played with the same rules as normal, sphere-based pool, as illustrated above, but I would kind of prefer something more in keeping with the frantic nature of the original air hockey game. Why not have a couple of “cue pucks” on the table – you could either make them player specific (one each, both slightly different shades of white), or just make either fair game for any player’s paddle. And, unlike pool, you don’t wait for all the balls to settle or for the other player to have his turn before you make your next shot. Just make the whole thing a continuous puck-clacking free-for-all. Not much room for skill or judgement (as if there ever was in the original game); but as you run round the table to smash a cue puck before your opponent does, you’re going to have a pucking good time.