The Come Out and Play Festival is a street games fesitval dedicated to exploring new styles of games and play.

Come Out & Play 2009 in New York

Outdoor Cham Ball
Martial Arts meets Dodgeball with a Bungee Cord. Bring your Courage.

Start Time: Saturday June 13 at 1-4 PM
Location: Heckscher Fields in Central Park near 65th St & Central Park West entrance
# of players: up to 12 at a time
Duration: Each game will last approximately 30 minutes. Multiple games will be played.
Designers: Charles Amis, Che-Wei Wang, and Adam Nash

Outdoor Cham Ball is a fast-paced physical game that blends tetherball, dodgeball, and martial arts.

It's played by two opposing players or teams in a 30 foot circle with a soccer ball fixed to the ground by a 10 foot bungee cord.

Players hit the ball with their forearms, fists, shins, and feet in an attempt to hit the other player in any other area of their body. All the while, both players avoid touching the bungee cord.

Both players begin with twenty points and lose a point every time they are touched by the bungee cord or the ball anywhere other than their forearms/fists and shins/feet.

The player to reduce their opponent's points to zero is the winner.

Register to Play

The Rules
A.) Cham Ball
B.) The Line (bungee cord)
C.) The Center (2.5' diameter circle around the anchor)
D.) The Anchor
E.) Service Zone
F.) The Reach (20' diameter or the radius of the bungee cord with no stretch)
G.) The Ring (30' diameter or the average of the Reach Circle and Stretch Circle)
H.) The Stretch (40' diameter or the radius of the bungee cord at full stretch)

Object of the Game
Avoid being hit by the bungee cord while you deplete your opponent's points by hitting them with a ball in specific areas of their body.

Primary Rule:
Both players may only touch the ball with the Active areas of the body and they may not touch the Line at all. Active areas of the body fall into two categories: the Blockers (wrists to elbows and ankles to knees) and the Strikers (fists and feet). All other areas of the body are Passive. Players who are touched by the ball in a Passive area or touch the Line lose a point.

Beginning Play:
To begin, the two players stand in opposite Service Zones. They each have 20 points to start. The older player serves first.

Service:
The Server drops the ball anywhere within their Service Zone. As soon as the Server's hands leave the ball, it is in Active Play. Neither player is allowed to leave their Service Zone until the ball leaves the Server's Service Zone. The Server may strike it as many times as they wish with Active areas of their body before it leaves their Service Zone. Once the ball has left the Server's Service Zone, both players are free to move to any position in the Ring. The Server may not touch the ball again until the other player has touched the ball, this is called Reception.

Active Play:
While the ball is bouncing in Active Player, it remains in Active Play and can be hit by either player after it is received from a serve. If at any time the ball stops bouncing and has rolled for over a second, Active Play stops, and the player who did not touch the ball last becomes the Server. If the ball has rolled for over a second after a serve, the non-server becomes the server. As long as the ball is hit with Active areas, Active Play continues. If either player touches the ball with a Passive area or touches the Line at any time during Active play, Active Play stops and the player who was touched loses a point. The player who lost the point becomes the Server.

Time:
The game has no time limit. If the ball has only touched one player for 30 seconds, Active Play stops and the other player becomes the Server. Traditionally, a ten minute half-time is issued the first time one player reaches ten points.

Winning:
The player who has depleted the other player's points to zero wins.

Rules for Team Play:

  • Cham can be played by two equal sized teams of up to four people.
  • Each team begins with the number of points equal to 10 x number of players + 10. So a team with four people has 50 points.
  • Only one player from each team may be in the Ring at one time, this is the Active Player.
  • All of the above rules apply to the Active Player, but at any time during non-Active Play, an Active Player may switch places with one of their outside teammates, Passive Players.

Bio: Charles Amis, Che-Wei Wang, and Adam Nash
Charles Amis, Che-Wei Wang, and Adam Nash are all masters students at NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program.

Charles and Che-Wei invented indoor Cham in the summer of 2008 which won first place in the Instructables "Invent-a-Sport" contest and was a part of the NYU clubs for the fall of 2008.

Adam and Charles have been developing a fictional world for the past year of which Cham is the main sport.

All of us love to play games and make up our own.


View COaP 2009 at Heckscher Field in Central Park in a larger map