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Breakey Elevates Key Wrestling To Artform
Jesse writes "My local games store has been running tournaments for one of the stranger non-video games to come out recently. Breakey is a 'collectable key game' made by Upper Deck. That's right - collect keys and compete with your friends to see who has the stongest key! This is accomplished by inserting two plastic keys into each other, and twisting until someone's key breaks. That person loses. Oh, and the winner keeps all the broken keys." Unsurprisingly, it appears that critics such as online comic Full Frontal Nerdity are already poking fun at the concept.
Since I'm from North America (USA, specifically), I feel qualified to give the current similar games. We break the wishbones of turkeys and chickens to see who ends up with the bigger piece. Around Easter, we also play Conkers with the ends of hard-boiled Easter eggs (hint: the narrow end is stronger ;) ).
All versions of the game seem to be very permanent. I'm not sure what a collection of broken keys gets you since you clearly can't reuse them as spoils of war. Plus, you can break your own keys.
There's a lot of this collectible stuff going around. I've recently (and stupidly) bought Beanz (from Australia, now in USA). They're fun if you have a racing track, though. And that silly three-ball on a string yo-yo contraption that reminds you that cats chase string, too.
One collectible that has proven to be very fun is Top Trumps (from the UK, now in USA). Limited play, but requires you know your cards to win this variant of "War." Simple enough for most ages to comprehend.
is it anything like breaking the wishbone of a chicken? as i seem to recall from my childhood, whoever used the least force when pulling on it, tended to end up with the bigger piece. hence, neither person would really pull on it and it never breaks...
Do the rules exclude building a key turning engine too? I could see it becoming the kind of thing where you set it up, each player hits their button, and then walks away.
I wonder if there is any strategy to the turning as far as easing off and coming back, etc... or if it's just twist as hard as you can.
I Am Not A Materials Scientist... but doesn't plastic's structure take permenent damage from deformation on this level? Even the strongest plastic key takes damage from each other key it destroys, so eventually it too will die.
Thus, there is no strongest plastic key; they will all be destroyed in short order. In fact, while you might superstitiously keep your "superkey" that broke 20 others, statistically speaking the ideal strategy (in terms of maximal wins) is to use a key precisely once and throw it away. Your superkey is more and more likely to break on each try.
If I'm wrong please correct me, or if you know the terminology please let me know.
This is perhaps the single most pointless fad ever, and elitist comments to the contrary, I would expect that the general public, even the young kids general public, is too smart to be interested in this as more then a passing fad.
My store received a bag of 100 in a promo kit. One key in the bag would break every other key.....that is, until someone came up with the idea of taking an (unbroken but weak key) and putting glue in it to strengthen it. You can guess the rest. The glued key would break the uber key. I suspect it would come down to whoever could come up with the best, untraceable cheat.
I am having trouble imagining any store that can actually make money from this stuff and yes, I remember the POG craze of '95.
-The Anonymous Bastard from Hell-