Many years ago, I invented a game called Ryanball.  The idea was inspired by the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes, in which Calvin invents his own game and calls it Calvinball.  Unlike Calvinball, however, which centered around making up the rules as you go, I did come up with a pre-determined set of rules.  But Calvinball at least inspired me to name a game I invented after myself.

Ryanball is an outdoor game that is ideal for hot summer days, to be played by people who don’t mind getting slightly wet to help cool them off from the sun.  The game is well-suited for a large group of kids to run around and stay active, but can be played by anyone of any age.  Now that we are in the summer months and now that groups of people are starting to actually gather together again (hopefully safely), I thought this might be a good time to introduce this game to any readers who may be looking for a fun active outdoor game.  To my knowledge, Ryanball has not been played in quite some time, and since this game is largely unknown and needs to be passed down for generations, I thought I would use this opportunity to bring it back.

For context on the original creation of Ryanball, we have to go back to the summer of 2003.  As a much younger adult back then, I had been recruited as the “games coordinator” for the Vacation Bible School being held at the church I was attending at the time.  The theme of the VBS that year was SCUBA, or Super Cool Undersea Bible Adventure, which featured a lot of water themes.  The way the VBS format worked, the kids (up through 4^th grade) would be split into groups, each with an assigned leader, and go from station to station every 15 or 20 minutes.  I was in charge of the “games” station, which was outside in a grassy area in the backyard of the church.  It would be my job to supervise a group of kids with games for about 15 to 20 minutes before they moved on to their next station, then welcome a new group of kids, and do the same thing for four or five different groups.  Everything, including the games, were planned out with a set curriculum and had a specific theme to them in keeping with the evening’s lesson.  I remember being given a curriculum ahead of time for each evening’s games, looking through it, and thinking, this isn’t going to take up enough time, and some of this isn’t going to work, I need to come up with something to fill up some time.  This led to the creation of Ryanball.

Given that I was already working with a water theme, the materials for Ryanball included:

• 4 plastic spray bottles (12 oz. each)
• 4 to 8 water splash balls (ideally 8)
• 1 or 2 water buckets

The most important thing is the balls used in this game are extremely soft, like a water splash ball.  It needs to be guaranteed that if you’re going to throw a ball at another kid, there is absolutely no chance that it could even possibly hurt them.

There are three objects to the game of Ryanball.  First, if you have one of the four spray bottles, spray people with water as much as you can.  Second, if you have one of the splash balls, throw the ball at someone who has a spray bottle so that they will stop spraying people.  And third, avoid getting sprayed with water or hit with a splash ball as much as possible.

For game setup, choose a large grassy area where people can run around.  Before the game starts, fill the buckets with water and place them in the middle of the playing area.  Put the splash balls in the buckets as well, with the same number of balls in both buckets.  Also fill the spray bottles with water and set them next to the buckets.  When the game is ready, have the kids line up on either end of the field and blow the whistle to begin.  If you’re like me, you will want a referee whistle to do this, but I suppose simply saying, “Ready, Set, Go” will also work.

Once the game starts, the kids can run to the middle to try to get either one of the four spray bottles sitting next to the buckets or one of the splash balls inside the water buckets.  If they get a spray bottle, they can start spraying other people with water as much as they can.  If they get a splash ball instead, they can throw it at someone with a spray bottle.  They are not allowed to throw the ball at anyone without a spray bottle.  Also, nobody is allowed to have more than one item in their hands at any time; they can pick up a spray bottle or a ball, but not both.

If a player has a spray bottle and gets hit with a splash ball, they must immediately drop the spray bottle where they are and allow someone else to pick it up.  The spray bottle is up for grabs to whoever is the first person to pick it up (which cannot be the person who just dropped it).  The new person with the spray bottle then starts spraying people as much as they can until they in turn also get hit with a splash ball.  This cycle keeps going for a few minutes, with the madness of four different chases going on simultaneously (since there are four spray bottles), or perhaps with two people spraying each other at the same time.  Eventually, the game ends after a few minutes when the referee decides, that’s enough, and simply declares the game over.  Nobody wins or loses in Ryanball; people simply run around for a few minutes, either armed with water or trying to run away from those who are.

I decided to test this out on our group of VBS kids that year, and allowed for the last 5 minutes of each group activity for Ryanball.  This way, I still got to a couple of the “real” games which related to the lessons, but also allowed them a few minutes at the end to have a little extra fun.  It turned out to be pretty popular with the kids.  Some observations that I noticed from gameplay included:

The spray bottles had a tendency to go empty pretty quickly.  I improvised a rule that if a spray bottle went empty, the kid could just hand it to either me or one of the teens helping me and report it empty, and we could then fill up the bottle from one of the water buckets.  (We were not allowed to be sprayed, since we were not playing.)

The plastic spray bottles had a tendency to break easily if kids, instead of dropping them like they were supposed to, threw them way up in the air instead.  This wasn’t supposed to happen, but it did anyway.  In order for this game to work, you need a couple spare plastic bottles handy, in case any of them break.

As the kids became more experienced at the game, when they would get hit with a ball and have to drop the spray bottle, a group might congregate around it, seeing who would pick it up.  When another kid picked up the spray bottle, they might get hit with another ball one second later and have to drop it, and then this would continue for a few times in a row while others tried to see if they could pick it up and successfully run off.  Sometimes, when a spray bottle was dropped, one kid would hover over it, but instead of picking it up and getting immediately pegged with a splash ball once he touched it, would just stop and hover over it, guarding the bottle until either everyone left to join a different water fight, or for an awkwardly long time.

People seemed to have fun with the initial Ryanball games, so from that point forward, during the following years in which I was involved with VBS at that church, I brought back Ryanball those years as well.  I remember the pastor even played it along with the kids one time and said he loved it.

Since those days, to my knowledge, Ryanball has not been played, but I thought I would introduce the game here on this blog for the sake of posterity.  If you are looking for a fun water game to introduce to a group of kids during the summer, or even if you are a group of adults who want an outdoor summer game as an alternative to joining a softball league, Ryanball might be the game for you.  While the game was not designed to have winners or losers, if you would like to form a competitive Ryanball league, perhaps we could come up with a scoring system for each player.  If you have any questions on rules or other gameplay scenarios, look me up, leave a comment, let me know.

If you’re looking for other games to play, at some point, I will have to post about other fun active games on here, and/or variations of card games that I have also invented.  But those will have to wait for another time.  In the meantime, feel free to invent your own game and name it after yourself!