What started as something put together to help his APA team celebrate the holidays, has turned into the next fun tool for pool players around the world to compete with friends and work on their game on their own.
“Hill Hill” is a card-based Billiards game that was designed by Brandon Mirigliani from Philadelphia. Brandon has competed on an APA team out of Philadelphia for the last six years and the team gets together every year for a Christmas party to celebrate the holidays. Mirigliani says these parties usually just involve mini-tourneys amongst the team members, but he wanted to do something different last year. “We’ve done mini-tournaments in the past, but this year was the very first version of what would become Hill Hill.”
Hill Hill is a game consisting of five different card types; Runs, Challenges, Bridges, Scratches and Shootouts, and these cards represent various tasks on a pool table, from running a particular ball setup to performing various tests like lagging, bank shots, etc.
Players take turns drawing a card and attempt to complete challenges/runs on the table. If they’re successful, they keep the card and accrue points. Players can also use certain cards to make their path to the “Hill” easier, or more difficult for opponents.
Seeing how much his teammates enjoyed playing the initial game got Mirigliani thinking about a bigger project. “It was a blast playing, and seeing other people enjoying it made me think more and more about it. Why doesn’t pool have something like this? Why can’t practicing run outs and drills be more fun and competitive? And then I got to work on what Hill Hill is now.” he says.
One of the great things about the game is that it doesn’t require a group of people to make use of the cards. “When I started creating this my singular focus was on group play. Something fun, slightly competitive, and fresh. Then, as I started to develop it, my thinking kind of flipped. While it’s a blast with 2+ people, it’s such a good solo training tool. These cards give you consistent run out challenges to practice and learn upon. You can monitor success rates across cards to track your progress and, if you play enough, you’ll actually start recognizing helpful patterns and positions to use in actual 8-ball/9-ball competitive matches.” Mirigliani explained.
Mirigliani has play-tested the game with local players in his area and says the response has been great. “I tested this a few times with local players as the game progressed through development. In addition to getting some great feedback for now, I got a ton of great ideas on how to grow and build upon this idea in the months and years to come. In short, people have loved it. If there’s one thing I’ve become very certain of throughout this process and hearing from players it’s that we deserve something like this in our community. There’s a place for it, whether its used for group fun or solo training, it has purpose.”
Players looking for more information can go to www.hillhillgame.com to check out the website for the game and can purchase the game online at amazon.com. (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C19BKTQW)
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