Action-Mat Football

Action-Mat Football is a tabletop dexterity game themed after American Football. Players advance the ball along the playing surface (a 30 x 65 inch mat representing a football field) by flicking it with their fingers, thus causing it to slide on the playing surface. Each flick of the ball represents a play.

Prior to executing each play the offensive player chooses which type of play to use and determines where on the field he will place the individual members of his team. Simultaneously the defensive player places his individual team members on the field, in an attempt to guess the offensive play. After the defensive player has placed his tokens the offensive player then places his tokens according to the play previously chosen.

As in real football, the offensive player has four general options on each play: passing, running, punting or attempting a field goal.

In order for a pass play to be successful the offensive player must flick the ball, causing it to slide along the playing surface, ultimately contacting one of his own tokens. The player tokens consist of flat cardstock and when the ball token slides over top of them they tend to slide along with the ball token. When the ball stops sliding, if there is only an offensive player's token still caught underneath it, the play resulted in a pass completion. If there are one or more player tokens from each team, the pass was incomplete. If one or more tokens from the defensive team remain under the ball token, with no tokens from the offensive team, the pass was intercepted.

Running plays are not executed by sliding the ball. Instead both players secretly deploy their individual player tokens to any of the multiple eligible running lanes on the field. If the offensive player deployed his ball carrier to a running lane that was left unguarded by the defensive player, then he simply rolls three dice with the result being the number of yards gained on the play. If the lane is guarded by a defensive player, then both players roll a single die, and the yards gained (or lost) is determined by subtracting the defender's result from the offensive player's result.

Punting is performed by sliding the ball token down the field. If the ball slides into the endzone the receiving player can choose to start their drive at the 20-yard line, or attempt to return the punt by rolling dice to determine yardage.

Field goals are made by finger-flicking the ball token into the air and through a set of plastic uprights.