We have a WINNER!

Our “How Can You Use Chopsticks in a Game” contest has ended and our WINNER is:

Jason Norton from Oswego County in upstate New York!

Congratulations, Jason!

As you might suspect, Jason is a gamer. In fact, he has also worked in the games industry. Here’s a brief “tell us about yourself and you in gaming” interview / bio:

  • Jason has a background in IT.
  • He has worked for a start up video game and tabletop rpg publisher.
  • He has been playing board games, tabletop rpgs, and video games for decades.
  • Jason is being credited for development and design support on the upcoming tactical fantasy battle game Warline.
  • He has written for third party D&D and Pathfinder publications.
  • He has helped run and been active in various board game groups.
  • He has played hundreds of different games and enjoys GMing.
  • Some of his favorites include Dead of Winter, Sagrada, and Lords of Waterdeep.
  • Recently he has been play testing games and making workshops for Tabletop Simulator (with permission).

So, there you have it. A gamer who’s been gaming for years and won’t be stopping any time soon.

Here’s the scoop on Jason’s entry which was submitted as a short list of game rules (which we have bulleted here below) – he even proposed a title:

  • “Chop Stick Agility” or “Nimble Chop Sticks” is a dexterity game where you draw a card with a challenge and complete it for points before time runs out. The chopsticks are numbered 1 to 20. Can you finagle the finesse to finish first or will you falter and fumble in failure?
  • Examples of challenges:
  • Start with all chopsticks laid out flat. Stack chop sticks in one stack, up to 20 high, with one hand. (1 point per chopstick in the highest stack)
  • Without lifting chopsticks, order them from 1 to 20. (15 points)
  • Flip the rest of the deck of cards over the long way while only touching with one chopstick while maintaining the stack of cards. (25 points)
  • Roll and then stack 5 dice using one chop stick in each hand. (Points are equal to the sum of numbers facing up if stack of 5 is completed)
  • The table votes if completion is disputed, ties broken with even and odds using numbered chopsticks (even total is success).
  • When one player reaches 100 points, that is the final round until all players have completed an equal number of turns.
  • The highest score is the winner.
  • Ties are settled in a sudden death round (with special challenges) where players compete to complete the challenge first.

Let’s see if I got the gist of it, How Can You Use Chopsticks in a Game?

1). You can manipulate and stack chopsticks just as you would children’s building blocks or, as adults, dominoes.
2). Chopsticks can be used, well, kinda like chopsticks: to pick things up and move them around.
3). Since the chopsticks are numbered (smart move numbering them) they can be used to cast a vote.

Great job, Jason. Thank you for your entry.

And enjoy your WIN!

– – –

We’ll pick up the “Maintaining Game Balance for a Variable Number of Players” thread that we started last week in our next post when we look at a little math that just might help. But don’t worry, it’s nothing you couldn’t work out with pad and pencil. And, as I said before, you don’t have to be Einstein, you just have to have a big eraser. Or at least, I do. : )