Designed by: David Harvey
BONK (also published as Rollet) is a two v two team game of trying to score points by knocking a wooden ball into your opponents’ goal. How? By rolling ball-bearings at it, of course.
The game consists of a convex wooden board with a wall around the perimeter. The wooden ball begins in a small nick at the centre. Each player occupies a corner with a wooden ramp in front of you that rotates on an axis. Everyone starts with three ball-bearings in their corner of the board too, and after a double-high-five with your opposite number, play begins at a frantic pace. The idea is simple: roll ball-bearings down your ramp to knock the wooden ball in the direction you want it to go: away from your goal, and into the other teams’. But the game can be played different ways – your partner can play offensive while you play defence, or you can take responsibility for one side of the board. You can both go high-velocity attack but run the risk of having the opponents end up with all the ball bearings (there’s also a cannonball variant, where you can actually make getting all the ball-bearings at your opponents end of the board a goal – hugely risky, but fun)
The game when a team reaches five goals, or – if the other team is on four goals – establishes a two-goal lead from that point.
Beautifully designed fun. I prefer the turn-based flicking of Crokinole to frenzied real time games like this - it slightly reminds me of how bad I am at table football - but that's very muc a personal preference, and this is still a lot of fun.
Plenty, but not of the arbitrary kind.
Zero
Zero
Plenty! After a few games you might need to sit down, but it's the type of thing that could make frequent appearances over the years and become a family favourite.
4-4
Players
6+
Years
5-15
Mins
Sam says
A first play of BONK (or Rollet) doesn't give too much away - it seems like fast-moving sphere-based carnage, and that's not too inaccurate a description. But it also rewards repeat plays as you realise there is more here than first meets the eye. The fastest hands help but they're no banker if you rush your shot. Anticipation is a key part too, not to mention the management of the ball-bearings. Ending up with none at all is exceedingly dangerous, so scattergun fire may only take you so far. As well as being a lot of fun, the Rollet board (we haven't seen the BONK version in the flesh) is also a beautiful object to look at, hand-crafted in India with profits returning to help improve living standards. A lot of fun, and a big hit with us.