I just happened upon the Ball of Bastards. It is a Flash site tackling the issue of football-related violence made for the football World Cup 2006. It uses satire, black humor and visual look reminiscent of Terry Gilliam’s surrealistic Monty Python animations. And, of course, minigames.

The result is flabbegasting but this seems to be the intended result, too. Two of the minigames use very common control schemes: In the Wall of Justice you shoot footballs to targets by moving the cross hairs with the mouse and firing with mouse button whereas in Frank’s Superspitter you shoot saliva (!) by adjusting the angle with the mouse pointer and the shooting power with the press of the mouse button. The Piercing Shriek, however, uses a novel control scheme: you can abuse the ref by screaming and yelling to the microphone conneted to the computer. In addition to those, there are puzzles that take use of 3D images that require special glasses to see.

Ball of Bastards sets itself from the mainstream with its unique audiovisual look. The content is worth getting acquinted, too: It is great that the developers haven’t settled for the usual preaching and condescending style. On the other hand one can speculate if this presentation style does any better in raising questions related to the problems that are the theme of the site. The minigames are well done, but I cannot imagine one playing them for very long. I would think that for most people Ball of Bastards will be a one-visit resort. Still, it’s a good way to burn a half an hour and worth checking out.