Name one field/court sport* that wouldn't be livened up with a bit of topographical tomfoolery.

Since many sports either use the entire field or have the players switch sides periodically, I don't think symmetry is necessary. For the same reason, the topography can be computer generated but needn't be.

Surfaces could be modified between seasons. There's no need to change the topography more than once a year or so. Indeed, there may be a benefit to leaving the modified surface as is for the life of the venue: players can learn to take advantage of the geography.

*Sports where players don't move across the field (javalin, archery, shotput, etc), and sports where the geography already varies (golf, cross-country running) excepted.
-- phoenix, Dec 02 2009

Royal Slant Court Tennis Royal_20Slant_20Court_20Tennis
Similar idea here. [DrWorm, Dec 02 2009]

Football on a slope Favela_20Football
[theleopard, Dec 02 2009]

(?) Football in the old, traditional stylee http://www.youtube....watch?v=QSAGJZ1lRiE
This is what they want! [DrBob, Dec 02 2009]

Pah! Call that old traditional stylee? http://www.bagame.com/
Medieval football, no rules, played from one end of town to the other [pocmloc, Dec 06 2009]

javalin missile v T72 Tank http://www.youtube....watch?v=muDQt_gJ9kQ
[outloud, Dec 07 2009]

Why should it matter? I mean, if the teams swap ends regularly (at least 8-10 times per match/game, just to minimize the chances of teams complaining they were more tired during their uphill struggle-half).

I must say, I admire the idea of javelin as a team sport. Good luck with that.
-- Dub, Dec 02 2009


golf? you're on a bit of a roll yourelf today phoe!
-- po, Dec 02 2009


Early Judge Dredd stories features Shuggy, a future cue-based sport that was played on a complex table will hills and other terrain features.

It was used for "hustling" stories, suggesting a seedy (if slightly silly) underworld.
-- Aristotle, Dec 02 2009


The classic game is called King of the Hill. Armies like to play this even today, taking hills for no better reason than some general remembers it was a good idea.
-- ldischler, Dec 02 2009


I both echo 21Q's first anno (especially the bit about how 'javelin' is spelled) and support this idea. If professional sports were played under the same conditions as the amateur sportsman has to endure then it would be a lot more entertaining.
-- DrBob, Dec 02 2009


My thought was the bar should be raised for the professional player. These could even be part of entirely different leagues.

Rugby, soccer and football (any) would be more difficult and whole strategies could be formed around the geography of a given venue. Basketball and tennis would both be all but impossible.

(I usually leave my misspellings as a warning to others.)
-- phoenix, Dec 02 2009


it'd have to be both symmetric and consistent between arenas, and I think we can rule out ice hockey and any other sports where you wear sharpened knives on your feet and launch missiles upwards of 100 mph.
-- FlyingToaster, Dec 02 2009


// I both echo 21Q's first anno (especially the bit about how 'javelin' is spelled) and support this idea //

I concur. I like that "excepted", or 'accepted' both work here. (phoenix chose excepted.) Maybe, there's more here than meets the ï. In American Football, different topographical fields for different Arenas?

I want to see the one with the IEDs/landmines. Now THAT is a football game! [=]
-- Wily Peyote, Dec 04 2009


[+] I agree with this bringing a new dimension to the game because there are advantages on both sides of the field. Say that one side has a steep slope- It might be hard to run uphill but even harder to duck, dodge, and fake moves while running downhill.
-- Jscotty, Dec 04 2009


I am thinking pingpong, but with a circular table sporting faceted bumps. It might be a team sport with several on each team arrayed around their semicircle.
-- bungston, Dec 04 2009


Speaking about Ping-Pong...

No, 21Quest! It would be exciting; and no disadvantage to anybody (everybody plays both sides of the table).

The recessed "facets" would BE the topography.
-- Wily Peyote, Dec 04 2009


I went to a high school that was near a park with a bike jump course (a bunch of small dirt hills at the bottom of a long hill) and we used to play soccer there in PE class. It made for some of the most bizarre and fun soccer I've ever played, and designing a soccer field around that principle would be amazing!
-- Joolin, Dec 06 2009


//Medieval football, no rules//

Well it's not football then, pocmloc, is it!
-- DrBob, Dec 07 2009


Jasper Fforde's "Something Rotten" is set in a parallel world where Full Contact Croquet is the national sport in which balls and mallets can be used aggressively against the opposing team. The playing field boasts such official features as a central hedgerow into which balls can be sent out of play, a fully laid-out out garden tea-party complete with trestle table and crockery - and the interesting opening gambit of each team fielding a lawyer to argue for advantage based on their own adherence and opposition's infractions of the games' myriad and circuitous rules. Each team can additionally field a substitute lawyer, should the first become incapacitated during the course of play.
-- zen_tom, Dec 07 2009


RIP the Easter Road slope.
-- calum, Dec 07 2009


About the length of a football field. Maybe this is what <phoenix> meant. Link
-- outloud, Dec 07 2009


chess.
-- FlyingToaster, Dec 08 2009


I like this for the same reason that I liked the addition of a windmill to random sports.
-- RayfordSteele, Dec 08 2009



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