there's no reason to have a boat on a basketball court

February 28, 2014 8:14 PM

Inspired by video games such as NBA 2K14, SBNation's sports blogger Jon Bois decided to create a sports video game of his very own. It went terribly.
posted by Potomac Avenue (30 comments total)

Somehow the rebound of death just had me in stitches.
posted by wierdo at 8:31 PM on February 28, 2014 [3 favorites]

"The graphics are decent"

Holy shit, that is funny.
posted by Saxon Kane at 8:45 PM on February 28, 2014 [1 favorite]

Wonderfully Jack Handy-esque.
posted by sourwookie at 8:46 PM on February 28, 2014 [1 favorite]

I have yet to read a Jon Bois-based FPP that doesn't leave me cackling with laughter. He's a funny motherfucker.
posted by COBRA! at 8:59 PM on February 28, 2014 [8 favorites]

If the words Garry's Mod had been in the FPP text, then the outcome would have been a lot more obvious.

But anyway if you're disappointed by the failure, I present a simple sports game here, written in friendly Python.

import random
print "SPORTZTHING 2014"
fiftyfifty = 0.5
favor = 0.0
if random.random() < fiftyfifty + favor:
    print "Team one wins!"
else:
    print "Team two wins!"

I leave it to later developers to build in the fine-tuning, which I project will mostly revolve around the value of the favor variable.
posted by JHarris at 9:02 PM on February 28, 2014 [6 favorites]

Still better than Atari.
posted by The Card Cheat at 9:07 PM on February 28, 2014 [1 favorite]

That was great.
posted by neuromodulator at 9:31 PM on February 28, 2014

That comment thread has some amazing sports gifs in it. My favorite.
posted by ORthey at 9:38 PM on February 28, 2014 [8 favorites]

Evocative of the best of OMM.
posted by Our Ship Of The Imagination! at 9:39 PM on February 28, 2014 [2 favorites]

It went terribly.

I realize this line is in the intro to the article, but I would argue it could not possibly have gone better.
posted by Joey Michaels at 9:43 PM on February 28, 2014 [1 favorite]

Much funnier than I expected. Still giggling.

On the comment GIF front, this one is hilarious, but also? Larry Bird is angry with you.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 10:25 PM on February 28, 2014 [3 favorites]

This is the best possible advertisement for Garry's Mod I could imagine. I saw it on steam, but never understood what it was. Now I want it.
posted by Hoopo at 11:02 PM on February 28, 2014 [3 favorites]

Man, it's like EA's not even trying anymore.
posted by xedrik at 11:08 PM on February 28, 2014 [1 favorite]

you never know what will happen when you play Jon's Basketball Game
posted by Itaxpica at 11:18 PM on February 28, 2014 [6 favorites]

I am entertained. A+. Would laugh again.
posted by janey47 at 12:05 AM on March 1, 2014 [1 favorite]

Read again and laughed again. Then I went to the comments and found that Jon is doing requests. Holy cats I nearly peed myself. I'm crying. He is a genius.
posted by Joey Michaels at 3:08 AM on March 1, 2014

I care little for Garry's mod and not at all for sports, but this was inspired and very very funny.
posted by to sir with millipedes at 4:32 AM on March 1, 2014

The falling railcar has me wondering if it's possible to pull off some kind of mashup between basketball and Worms. Maybe something where there's a turn-based round immediately before the ball come into play where each team gets to comically alter the environment prior to actual basketball play?
posted by RonButNotStupid at 4:56 AM on March 1, 2014 [3 favorites]

Considering he just concluded a run of articles involving glitching a football video game, I can't imagine the details he was trying to get right are the ones the NBA would focus on.
posted by ardgedee at 5:04 AM on March 1, 2014

He should have named it Jon's Basketball Game: No-Pass Look.

As a basketball fan who has gotten as far as making a chair/abomination in Garry's Mod, this was the best way to start my weekend.
posted by Room 641-A at 5:27 AM on March 1, 2014

This is actually a really great multiplayer game. Most fun I ever had playing HORSE.
posted by rlk at 5:57 AM on March 1, 2014 [1 favorite]

Considering he just concluded a run of articles involving glitching a football video game...


Link, for the curious.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 9:41 AM on March 1, 2014

- I have a thorough grasp of BASIC, and once authored a variant of the TI calculator classic "DRUGWAR" in which you could do the drugs yourself and the numbers would add wrong

some of our generation's best work was on a TI-83
posted by SmileyChewtrain at 11:38 AM on March 1, 2014 [2 favorites]

Finally, a video game with crates!
posted by Robin Kestrel at 2:01 PM on March 1, 2014 [3 favorites]

some of our generation's best work was on a TI-83

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by rounding, irrational, divided, and truncated.
posted by zippy at 2:21 PM on March 1, 2014 [4 favorites]

This was great. Thanks.
posted by Conrad Cornelius o'Donald o'Dell at 9:01 PM on March 1, 2014

QWOP: The World's Worst, And Only, Athlete
posted by jcruelty at 9:41 PM on March 1, 2014 [2 favorites]

The 36 Worst Airballed NBA Free Throws In The History Of Civilization

Jon Bois archives are gold
posted by jcruelty at 9:48 PM on March 1, 2014 [2 favorites]

I have literally not played any video game at all since the Atari 2600, much less any of the new sports video games, and yet I laugh hysterically at every story Jon Bois does about them.
posted by Curious Artificer at 8:46 AM on March 2, 2014 [1 favorite]

Oh my god I'm so glad you brought Jon Bois to my attention. I don't follow sports so I would never have known about this man's beautiful comedic genius. The Beeftank series had me crying with laughter.
posted by Frobenius Twist at 2:04 PM on March 9, 2014