⚔️Sumo Push

Controls

The stick on its own is a whole game, and a player who only pushes can still win. The button is there for anyone who wants it.

How a round goes

No clock. The stick drives your wrestler, and once you are moving you carry weight — stopping or turning takes real work. Run into someone and your speed dumps into them; hold the stick into the contact and you dig in and keep your feet better.

The button is a charge: a crouch everyone can see, then a lunge in the direction you were pointing that you cannot steer, then a moment flat-footed. A charge that lands launches whoever it hits. One that misses leaves you light and wide open, and every charge costs wind. The bar under each wrestler is their wind — it pays back fastest standing still, and a masher runs dry.

Crossing the straw bales does not end you on its own. You land on the straw with your arms going, and for about half a second the stick pulling you back in bites more than twice as hard — push inward and you scramble back on to the clay. Only a real shove is final: cross fast enough and there is no catching yourself.

The ring shrinks over the first forty-five seconds, so nobody can hide at the edge. After that the bales keep coming, slowly, and go hot and red while they do — a bout always ends.

Scoring and winning

Last wrestler on the platform wins. If everyone goes over, the bout is lost by whoever touched down first, so the last to fall still takes it — shove someone off and follow them out, and the win is still yours. A draw needs both of you to land in the same instant.

Tips

• Watch for the crouch. A charge cannot turn, so step out of its line and let it go past — near the straw, it may carry them right over.
• Lean in, do not flee: a wrestler pushing into a charge takes it far better than one running away.
• Elbows happen. Four kids shoving each other on screen means four kids shoving each other — leave room around the stations.