Abstract: A dark court game apparatus and method involves securing illumination markers to a ball-based game court to identify portions of the court so the players can orient themselves relative to the court when it is rendered dark. At least a portion of a game ball is likewise illuminated so that its location and direction can be detected in the dark. Various combinations of illumination markers may be illuminated for varying the difficulty of game play with the least number of illumination markers corresponding to the highest level of difficulty. The invention is further directed to the court, illumination markers and game ball used to accomplish the method of the invention.