The Ultimate Game (Babble)

My photos of this are not worthy of the awesomeness I’m trying to present, but I figure with enough descriptions to guide people through it’s still worth a post.  Because wow.

The other night Quinn and Mona were absorbed in a game of ‘chess.’  Neither of them knows enough to actually play, so they improvise.  (They do this kind of thing a lot.  At a friend’s house the other day they decided to play checkers using Tootsie Rolls.  When I pointed out that a few moves in they wouldn’t be able to tell which pieces belonged to whom, they moved Quinn’s to the light colored squares.  This of course creates new problems, but they just changed the rules about how to jump, where to move, etc.  The rules were fluid, and as long as no one ends up crying I stay out of it.  But back to the ‘chess’ game….)

They abandoned their game at some point to watch something on TV, and Ian called me into the living room to look at how they left the board.

Now, Ian is an Army Major who understands strategy.  He’s a smart guy who likes a good puzzle.  But he could not decide which player had the upper hand in this game.
On Quinn’s side we have two rooks and two knights, fortified by an army of frogs.  There is also a ring of mystery placed front and center.  This does look daunting.

But, on Mona’s side we have two rooks and two knights, but also a bulldozer being driven by a toy shrimp, and a snake slithered halfway onto the board.

How many frogs does it take to overwhelm a bulldozer?  Or are the frogs merely spectators since most of them are not on the actual board?  Is the bulldozer more or less of a threat when you add the shrimp?  Are the powers of that rook changed with the blue frog on top of it?  How do the Uno cards factor into any of this?  What does that ring DO?

We will never know.  Probably because they never quite knew.  But whatever game that was, I want to try it.  Because again, just…. wow.