Flick Discs to Score in Carrooka and Not Score in Table Golf Association

• While scanning a wrap-up of the 2021 UK Games Expo that I'd saved in my non-stop quest for info on new games, I ran across mention of Carrooka, a dexterity game handmade by designer Jack Furnival that looks like this:

Image by Allen OConnor

Here's the short description of this game:

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Carrooka is a wooden tabletop game designed and developed in the UK that uniquely combines elements of Snooker and Carrom — with a literal twist as the table spins!

To set up, place the counters on the circular board in the center and at their assigned locations. On a turn, flick the striker to pot the counters, then spin the board to take position for your next turn.

Carrooka can be played by two or four players.

If you know snooker and carrom, then you pretty much already understand how to play Carrooka. As for whether you can play Carrooka, well, the game is relatively available since the Furnivals currently ship games only in the UK. "We are definitely planning on making Carrooka available internationally", Georgina Furnival tells me. "Our waiting list for the States and Canada in particular indicate that there is plenty of demand." She explained the situation in more detail:

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We have every confidence that the boards can cope with international shipping. We still make every board ourselves by hand, so we know that every part is top quality and we have good packaging (which will still be plastic free for international shipping), so the physical part of it is fine. But we are really, really struggling to find any decent shipping rates due to the size of the board. At the moment, the very best cost we can find from the UK to the U.S. is £105, and this excludes any import duties, taxes and local fees.

The boards themselves sell for £125 for the 10-counter game and £147.50 for the 15-counter game, so shipping to the U.S. would practically double the cost of the game — and that's not even available at the moment. Says Furnival, "My plan is to add this option to our website within the next few weeks, which will allow the truly determined to order very soon."

If the Furnivals were able to find a company outside the UK that could produce games to their standards, they might be willing to license their design — although shipping of those games would still be pricey, so they'd likely need licensees all over the place to truly make Carrooka widely available.

For gameplay detail, you can watch the couple play an entire game while explaining the rules:

• Another flicking-based dexterity game hitting the market is Table Golf Association from designer John Garcia.

You can check out the rules on the TGA website or sign up for notice of the April 2022 Kickstarter campaign, but the gist of the game is that you'll set up a hole using some of the 25 double-sided 5"-wide hexagonal tiles, then shoot your shuffleboard-style golf ball one "swing" at a time, trying to come in under par, if possible.

The rules include only three suggested holes — one each at par 3, 4, and 5 — along with guidelines for how to create holes of your own, in addition to rules for how to handles hazards and wind. Here's an example of one of these holes being played in an unfortunately vertical format: