What makes Funball unique -- and quite ingenious -- is the use of the board itself. In contrast to Chess or Checkers where each tile is just a place to keep pieces on, many tiles in Funball have different characteristics that can help or hinder your game. Called "bases", these special tiles range from cannons (which change a ball into a cannon that can blow apart balls across long distances), slides (allow a ball to destroy another one even if it is bigger), armor (grow a cage around your ball, making it impervious to attacks), bubbles (turn your ball into a bubble that can float across the board -- must land on an empty base or else it will be popped), and many more. Making full use of these special bases is key to winning the game. If that isn't tricky enough, there is also a pesky spider that can randomly appear to lay eggs on the board - landing on these eggs make your balls bigger. If you don't want this element of randomness, you can toggle this off before starting the game.

In addition to an intuitive mouse-based interface, Funball has help balloons for all the commands, as well as a great on-line tutorial that teaches the basics. You can even use the "Board Editor" to create your own board and fill it with special bases of your choice. The computer AI is more than decent on "hard" mode, and you can play against another human player in hot seat. Overall, Funball is a fun and unique board game that deserves much more notice from board game fans, especially those who enjoy abstract board games with a lot of rules and options. Highly recommended!