Blob Volley

Blob Volley is beach volleyball boiled down to the part everyone remembers: a ball, a net and someone on the other side who is absolutely going to make you dive. Each player is a gooey blob with big eyes that never leave the ball. They squash flat when they land, stretch tall on the way up, and bounce the ball off whichever part of the dome they manage to get under. Where you stand decides where the ball goes, so the whole game is a running argument about half a metre of sand.

The ball is a striped beach ball with real weight to it. It picks up spin from the blob that hits it, so a shot struck while you are sprinting sideways curls away from the blob chasing it. Get your jump right and you can climb above the ball near the net and drive it down: that is the smash, and it is the fastest way to end a rally. Get it wrong and the ball clips the tape and drops on your own side. The net is solid, the poles are solid, and the bunting strung overhead is a ceiling the ball bounces off, so nothing ever leaves the court.

Play it two up on one screen or take on the computer at Easy, Normal or Sharp, where Sharp reads the ball's landing point and times its smashes to meet it. Points run to five, ten or fifteen, win by two, sides swap at half time and the serve alternates. Pick the sunny Beach day court, the Sunset one with the long shadows, or the Night stadium under floodlights, and switch on the gull pick-ups if you want a passing bird to drop a big ball, a low-gravity spell or a scorching one into the middle of a rally. Both players on a phone get their own thumb controls in the bottom corners, or you can just tap and hold your own half of the sand.