What the Rugby World Cup can teach game designers

Rugby has a long history of tweaking the rules to create more friction, making the sport more challenging and fun to watch - as have the best video games

This weekend, thousands of households are likely to become good natured war zones as families and friends argue over whether to watch the Premier League football or the Rugby World cup. 300 years ago, lucky sports fans didn't have to worry - because there was no such thing as football, or rugby, or American football for that matter - they all existed together as one sport: hugball.

Perhaps the purest of all ball games, legend has it that hugball (also known as Shrovetide Football, Mob Football, or la soule in parts of France) used to be played with the head of an executed criminal - though Fifa regulations now generally discourage this. But, no matter the name or the nature of the ball being used, the rules (or lack thereof) were always pretty much the same: two vast teams would rampage through a town or field trying to get an object into the opposing side's territory.