I invented a football game that I played with football cards. I played it with my next door neighbor who was 4 years younger than me. I was in 7th grade and we played multiple seasons of this game. This is how we played....

We had 4 or 5 teams. So I had a complete set of 24 football cards for EACH TEAM (Topps, Pro Set, Upper Deck, whatever). 1 coach, 1 K, 1 QB, 5 OL, 1 TE, 2 RB, 2 WR, 4 DL, 3 LB, 4 DBs. All the players were totally unique. No player was on multiple teams. I would line up the cards in a formation for both offense and defense on my bedroom floor. I would gently push the OL/DL cards against each other. If the OL card landed on top of the DL card, then that DL was 'blocked' and couldn't move for the entire play. If the DL card landed on top, then he could rush the passer or make a tackle. Any offensive player could block a defensive player but he had to be in front of him, no blocking from behind. I rolled a dice for each offensive position player and whatever number was rolled was how many spaces the player could move. One space = one card length. Can move in any direction. Then I rolled for each unblocked DL player and he moved the same. If a defensive player landed on an offensive player, then I pushed their cards together; if defense was top, it's a tackle and the play ends. If the offense lands on top, then he breaks the tackle and can keep moving. After all the players moved once the QB either had to pass to an eligible receiver, run, or hand it off. If he handed off or kept it, then I just said a loud to myself or my friend what his intention is. If he decides to pass, then he (I) would choose the reciever most open and I had a two separate spinner thingies. One was for a reciever is mostly open or wide open, which had a very high percentage of a completion. The other was for tight coverage or double coverage which had a much higher chance of an incompletion or interception. I chose the spinner that was most appropriate and spun. Once somebody catches or recieves or intercepts the ball, then play continues with blocking and dice rolling. Offense got only 4 downs to get into the endzone. No punts. They could kick a field goal. The way that worked was I actually had to line up and flick a little piece of paper folded like a football through a goal post in the endzone. Those were hard, so I usually went for the TD on 4th down unless I was really close.

I played multiple seasons and kept track of the damn stats. Touchdowns, Interceptions, sacks.... all that BS. It was pretty hilarious. If I played against my friend then it was better because we didn't know what the other person intended to do. Playing alone was tougher because I couldn't trick the offense/defense into a play. Against my friend, I could intend to drop 7 into coverage, but if he blocked all 4 of my DL on the initial setup then I'd probably do a "live audible" and blitz a couple LBs. Otherwise the QB/RB has too much space to run. There would also be times when a WR would go out for a pass and roll a 6 and the CB would roll only a 1 so he'd be way behind in coverage. That usually resulted in a Touchdown, but sometimes the WR would catch a pass and roll a 1 and the Safety or CB would roll a 6 and catch up and make the tackle... hahaha!!! Kids games are great.

All my team names were named after the coaches in the NFL at the time. So my team names were The Gibbs, the Schottenheimers, the Reeves, the Cowhers, etc. That was the purpose of the coach card. The coach represented the name of the team. Yeah, back then football card companies made coach cards. I don't know if they still do but that seems really stupid. And the teams in my league had mixed players from real NFL teams. We actually did a draft--which makes no sense since the real life skill of the players had no impact on the actual game. It was pure luck. I remember one team had Steve Young, Barry Sanders, and Carl Banks. That was my favorite team. I gave it to Barry or kept it with Young all the time and the Carl Banks card must have been enchanted because he was completely unblockable. I used to like to throw to Herman Moore and Jerry Rice all the time. I would sometimes "cheat" and use the "mostly open or wide open" spinner thing for those guys even if they were well covered. I wanted them to do well and they did because I cheated at my own game.

As a kid, I used to go on vacation with a friend to his families vacation home in the mountains. They had stacks of super old comic books for kids to read and no TV. Each summer my friend and I would read those comics thru the summer front to back... in some.. there were advertisements for strat-o-matic baseball. Here's some actual verbage used in the ads "you have real control over 400 players who actually hit, pitch, field, and run according to their baseball abilities". These ads were next to the "sea monkey family" ads which were also fantastical in their own right. The way our 10 year old minds worked.. we imagined little miniature beings that played real baseball. There was no mention of cards or dice or anything, Just an illustration of a pitcher winding up to throw a ball and really descriptive advertising about "real players". Man we would talk about those ads and daydream trying to figure out what the hell this game was and if there were real tiny men that played baseball.. One summer soon after, I rcvd the game as a surprise gift and I will admit I was initially disappointed to finally see cards and dice. But.... then I started playing the game. I was a strat-o-matic freak-a-zoid playing solo games summer after summer, keeping stacks of stats. Holy mackeral... I was hooked big time. As an adult, I tried to find an online similar experience to revisit those glory days of strat-o-matic. Led me right here to WIS

Here' a link to an old stratomatic ad found in the back of the comics. Totally had me fooled into thinking tiny men were inside the game : http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jK4gwTBU34g/TXlDB2eqWvI/AAAAAAAAIn0/nUsqo3EdWHo/s1600/FF053_13.jpg

I bought the sea monkey family. But, wow, tiny men playing baseball?

How about seamonkey baseball ? Better?

I'D BUY THAT!!!