Games Unicorns Play · 10:41pm Feb 12th, 2016
At one time, I made my living designing games, so I have a professional interest in the games that writers use in stories. Unfortunately, most games that writers make up for stories are poor games. Quidditch, in the Harry Potter series, is among the most glaring examples. The Golden Snitch makes the rest of the game irrelevant.
So I was pleasantly surprised with the description of the game Diskus in the TwiLuna story A Moonlit Balcony. The game actually sounds like a fun past time that a couple of competitive magic users could have fun with.
“The rules are as follows: two ponies make three to six magic disks and have to keep them in plain sight between three to eight meters in the air at all times; no physical contact with or directly using spells on the other pony, and no making illusions of one’s own disks or one’s opponent’s.”
“The objective is to touch all the other pony’s disks with one’s own magic, at which point you win and the game is over. Players can attempt to dodge their opponent’s spells by moving the disks or by countering the spells.”
A Moonlit Balcony uses the game to good effect by showing, rather than telling, how Twilight and Luna become closer as friends through shared experiences.
I have been thinking on other possible games that unicorns / alicorns could play using magic. I suspect the students at Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns (SGU) play a lot of games to practice their skills and one-up each other. How about a Jenga-like game where each player has to take out blocks and hold up the remaining tower with their levitation without it toppling over? Or the top of Mount Cantor seems to have snow year round, snowball fights with levitation (and possibly with flying and teleportation) sound like they could be a lot of fun. Advanced magic users could play a hide and seek-like game of 'Teleport Tag'. And competitive dueling or wrestling that included levitation, illusions, shields, and other spells could be very exciting.
Story ideas: After missing her in Amending Fences, Twilight invites Lyra Heartstrings to a game night at the castle. Rarity could also come along. Perhaps they could play a game that Lyra was a champ of, back in her days at the SGU. It could be fun to see Lyra dominate in a levitation game based on experience and skill rather than raw power. Or to see Rarity dominate in a levitation game that was based on precision and multi-tasking or on creative expression. Including Starlight Glimmer in a foursome could be an interesting way to help her make more friends in Ponyville.
What other games might unicorns play?
Another unicorn game in a story is Horn Foiling, used to show how the relationship between Twilight and Celestia is changing in Grasping Happiness.
A blog post by Estee, Patreon Blog Takeover: "If it was completely fair, it wouldn't be a competition": balancing sports in Equestria -- and elsewhere. (Dinode) describing sports in the Triptych Continuum. This post references Estee's fun story A Good Trot, Spoiled about Minotaur's introducing Celestia and Luna to the game of Golf.