What is Paper Soccer without double bounces?
In the standard game, landing on a point that a line or a wall already touches is a bounce and earns another move, and the bounces chain: your turn ends only when the ball reaches a clean point. In this variant, turned on in the table setup, a bounce earns one extra move and no more. The first move of your turn can bounce as usual, but the extra move it gives you never bounces again, even when it lands on a used point. Your turn then ends, and your opponent plays from there.
Every turn draws one line or two, so the long bounce chains that carry the ball across the pitch in the standard game are gone. The ball can now be handed over on a point that is already used, and from there the opponent's first move may bounce at once. A player can also be left with the ball in a dead end after their opponent's extra move, and then loses, so the extra move becomes a way to trap the opponent as well as to advance.
Rule changes
| Rule | Standard Paper Soccer | Paper Soccer without double bounces |
|---|---|---|
| Bounces | Standard Paper SoccerLanding on a point that a line or a wall already touches earns another move, and every move can bounce again. | Paper Soccer without double bouncesThe first move of a turn can bounce and earns one extra move. The extra move never bounces, wherever it lands. Turned on in the table setup. |
| Lines drawn per turn | Standard Paper SoccerAs many as the bounces allow, until the ball reaches a clean point. | Paper Soccer without double bouncesOne, or two after a bounce. |
| Where the turn passes | Standard Paper SoccerAlways on a clean point, untouched by any line or wall, unless the game ends. | Paper Soccer without double bouncesOn a clean point, or on a used point after an extra move. The opponent's first move from there bounces as usual. |
| Stuck ball | Standard Paper SoccerA player who has to move and has no line left to draw loses. Under these rules that is always the player whose own bounce ran into a dead end. | Paper Soccer without double bouncesThe same rule. After an extra move lands in a dead end, the turn passes and the opponent, who cannot move, loses. |
| End of the game | Standard Paper SoccerThe ball in the goal you attack wins, the ball in your own goal loses, and a player who cannot move loses. | Paper Soccer without double bouncesThe same. |
History
Paper Soccer is a pencil-and-paper game drawn on squared paper, known in Poland as piłkarzyki. The bounce is its signature rule: a move that reaches a point with lines already on it, the pitch's edge included, is a bounce that gives the player another move, so that a turn ends only on a point with no lines.
Other versions limit the bounce in different ways. The Russian variant has no bounce moves at all, and a computer version from 2005 plays without them too. In Texas Soccer, no two diagonal lines may cross.
We know of no published source for this exact rule. It is offered here as a middle way between the standard game and the versions without bounces: a bounce still pays, but only once a turn.