Tabletop Cricket Game

Above is the 56” x 40” “office” version of CricketLive, a Cricket game in which a real ball is “bowled” by one player and a Batsman, controlled by his opponent, tries to actually hit that real ball. (Please see the complete Cricket rules below.)

TG&A participated in the development of the original version of the game which was designed for arcades and was much larger.

While the size was reduced, many of TG&A’s original designs remain. The Batsman mechanism and one of several bowler mechanisms are included, as is the basic configuration of the field and its ball-return geometry.

The video below shows a user at the Control Box moving the Batsman left-and-right, rotating, and swinging at balls if they were being pitched.

The CAD images below illustrate the development of first prototype of the movement mechanisms for the Batsman as shown in the above video. The basic mechanisms have changed little since then.

Alternative mechanisms for the Bowler including a user-guided mechanical one, and a fully electronically controlled mechanical bowler were developed through the prototype phase. Ultimately, simplicity and therefore cost drove the design to a simple, user-guided, spring-loaded mechanism.

Several table designs were also designed and modeled from the original arcade-driven, larger size through shapes that enabled multiple players to participate, to the final smaller home / office appropriate size. (TG&A did not design the final product shown at the top.)

For those not familiar with Cricket, here are the rules:

•You have two sides, one out in the field and one in.

•Each man that’s in the side that’s in goes out, and when he’s out, he comes in and the next man goes in until he’s out.

•When they are all out, the side that’s out comes in and the side that’s been in goes out and tries to get those coming in out.

•Sometimes you get men still in and not out.

•When both sides have been in and out including the not outs, that’s the end of the game.