While I did recently do a review of a bean bag chair with the word "sumo" associated with it, the game in this comic has nothing to do with that. The game they're playing is an actual playable game that I invented in High School for pretty much the same reason Tedd said, except in my case it was for a study hall period. As with most card games, it is ideally played from opposite sides of the table; Elliot and Tedd are positioned as they are simply for artistic convenience.
I've posted the rules for the game, along with some sample images. The game is pretty simple once you know how to play, and I've done my best to cover everything and make this easy to understand. I don't commonly write up rules for games and haven't done extensive play testing for a while, however, and may make edits to clarify things based on feedback. I will announce any such edits in the news. If you have feedback to give, you can get my current e-mail address through this link.
The reason this is specifically a sumo game is that I was interested in making my own games in high school, and was looking for simplistic concepts to work with. Sumo Wrestling seemed like a good, simple concept: push the other guy out of a ring. That's a major simplification, of course, but it's what got me looking into sumo wrestling. I was originally hoping to make a sumo wrestling computer game in QBasic (*shudder*), and wanted to incorporate authentic sumo terminology and moves. As such, I did a lot of research, and learned how impressive sumo wrestlers actually are. Anyone who says they're just fat guys pushing each other around hasn't done their research.
Speaking of authenticity, yeah, I know. Real sumo wrestling and what's going on in panel one of this comic look vastly different, but it's a reference to E. Honda from Street Fighter II. He might have been in Street Fighter games other than II, but the 10,000 versions of Street Fighter II are the ones I remember and played as a kid.
Comic for Wednesday, Jul 16, 2008:
Commentary
I've posted the rules for the game, along with some sample images. The game is pretty simple once you know how to play, and I've done my best to cover everything and make this easy to understand. I don't commonly write up rules for games and haven't done extensive play testing for a while, however, and may make edits to clarify things based on feedback. I will announce any such edits in the news. If you have feedback to give, you can get my current e-mail address through this link.
The reason this is specifically a sumo game is that I was interested in making my own games in high school, and was looking for simplistic concepts to work with. Sumo Wrestling seemed like a good, simple concept: push the other guy out of a ring. That's a major simplification, of course, but it's what got me looking into sumo wrestling. I was originally hoping to make a sumo wrestling computer game in QBasic (*shudder*), and wanted to incorporate authentic sumo terminology and moves. As such, I did a lot of research, and learned how impressive sumo wrestlers actually are. Anyone who says they're just fat guys pushing each other around hasn't done their research.
Speaking of authenticity, yeah, I know. Real sumo wrestling and what's going on in panel one of this comic look vastly different, but it's a reference to E. Honda from Street Fighter II. He might have been in Street Fighter games other than II, but the 10,000 versions of Street Fighter II are the ones I remember and played as a kid.