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Puzzle Games (Games) Entertainment Games

Breakey Elevates Key Wrestling To Artform 93

Posted by simoniker from the strong-right-hand-important-to-adolescents dept.
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.
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Breakey Elevates Key Wrestling To Artform More

Breakey Elevates Key Wrestling To Artform

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  • This is BRILLIANT (Score:5, Insightful)

    by wowbagger ( 69688 ) on Monday January 12, 2004 @11:25AM (#7953002) Homepage Journal
    Don't you see, this is BRILLIANT!

    The problem with other "collectable" games is that after a period of time, you have collected everything that's been put out. So, as a game maker, you have to keep coming up with new things to be collected, as well as making the old things. That means your inventory keeps growing, and your costs keep going up.

    With this idea, you keep making the same old things, and as the players keep playing, they USE UP their old things, and thus have to buy NEW things, but you don't have to come up with any new ideas!

    BRILLIANT! ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT!

    (/me removes tongue from cheek)

    Unless, of course, the consumers you are targeting have a longer than 5 second attention span, or any ability to remember, communicate, or discern.

    Pesky consumers.

  • Erm... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by TheSHAD0W ( 258774 ) on Monday January 12, 2004 @11:26AM (#7953008) Homepage
    I think this would be a more interesting game if you could make your own keys. Geeks around the world would be doing huge amounts of materials research trying to devise the better key. Something useful might actually come out of it.
    • except I could just cast an iron key and no one would have the hand strength to break it, no matter how much materials research they put in.

      • Re:Erm... (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Nutcase ( 86887 )
        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.

        • Re:Erm... (Score:3, Insightful)

          by lpp ( 115405 )
          and then walks away.


          Run, don't walk...ever seen what happens when little twisty bits of steel go flying under great stress? I believe that's what they call shrapnel.
      • You'd have rules about the dimensions and thicknesses allowed, classes of competition where metallic/ferric keys are or are not allowed... This thing has more angles to it than a crumpled piece of paper.
      • Depends, if that materials research includes building an ultra small and powerful inductor and wrapping it around a even smaller explosive encased in a carbon nanoglass (is that what they call it when it is like fiberglass?) shell that will detonate an EM pulse at my whim that will rip your key apart.

        Yes, yes...

      • Did I mention that my key has reinforced cutting edges? I would like to add a broken cast iron key to my collection, where shall we meet? You might want to bring a wrist brace, I've been practicing by removing lug nuts with my hands.

        -Adam
    • Yeah, unless they're also inventing the hydraulic presses to turn one key against another I think you'd pretty much hit a wall of usefulness after someone made a steel key.

  • Conkers (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Drey ( 1420 ) on Monday January 12, 2004 @11:27AM (#7953021) Homepage
    This reminds me of an old British kids game, conkers, except that conkers is played with a cheap and readily available resource -- horse chestnuts. H2G2 has an entry on it here [bbc.co.uk]. Ah, but even a game like this can face significant legal pressures [bbc.co.uk] (you don't have to be GTA). Why, conkers have even been hit with performance enhancing [newscientist.com] scandal!
    • Now call me a fool, but I always called the things we played conkers with... conkers. ;-)
    • Ah the joys of Conkers.

      Being hit on the head with the same stick you were using to knock the biggest Conkers down. Ouch!

      My personnal favourite: Hitting your enemies knuckles repeatedly with the biggest Conker in your collection. Ooops I'm sorry. Ooops I'm sorry again. So, so sorry. Ooops again. The BBC said a little about this.

      Excelent.
  • This sounds like a really stupid way to waste money. I'm glad my son is still too little to want this crap.

    Anyone willing to confess to buying these and provide an opinion?

    • Re:Anyone try this? (Score:5, Funny)

      by prator ( 71051 ) on Monday January 12, 2004 @11:52AM (#7953307)
      Fear not. There is going to be plenty of trendy, crappy stuff that your son will want when he is old enough.

      -prator
      • Fear not. There is going to be plenty of trendy, crappy stuff that your son will want when he is old enough.

        Well, better that he's young.. otherwise he might ask you to waste money on a PS2. *duck*

        Honestly.. I think this BreaKey thing is kind of cool. If anyone had read the article.. they'd know that it's a little more involved than just breaking things and tossing them. Each key potentially has a prize associated with it. Each key also has a serial number hidden by a scratch off pad. So, you go to s
    • Keep him away from anime (the Toonami variety) if you don't want him to ask for stuff like that. Crappy anime such as DBZ is like a breeding ground for crappy toys and trading card games.
  • Seriously, thats all it is, only I would guess the 'battles' don't last as long as they do in conkers (or whatever its called if it has a different name in north america)

    I know as geeks we're supposed to like stuff like this, but paying money to play conkers??

    • Those who play it still call it conkers, at least in my area (Toronto, Ontario, Canada).

      Mind you, it just isn't an interesting enough game to keep going against all the various other games and toys competing for a kid's attention these days... I know the brief revival the game experienced at my school (about 15 years ago) lasted less than a week before it drifted back into obscurity.

  • Kinda like the spoon game (Score:3, Insightful)

    by chaidawg ( 170956 ) on Monday January 12, 2004 @11:42AM (#7953189)
    In high school we played what we called the spoon game. You take a regular white plastic spoon and bend down the last .5-1 inch of the handle. You would then lever up the handle and let it come smashing down on the bowl of your competitors spoon (which they are holding by the handle). Goal of the game: break off the entire bowl of your opponents spoon... be careful not to break your own when levering back for a shot.

  • Pencil fights (Score:5, Funny)

    by KirkH ( 148427 ) on Monday January 12, 2004 @11:49AM (#7953273)
    Reminds me of the pencil fights [hairydog.net] we used to have on the bus going to and from elementary school. I wrote with a lot a half-pencils back in those days...until I started buying those huge 1/2 inch diameter pencils!
    • I remember back when I used to split the pencil open, replace the back 7/8 of the lead with a piece of coat hanger, reglue, repaint, and then sharpen.

      Solid as steel and nearly impossible to break.(including by all those "cheaters" who tried to karate-chop it)
    • Reminds me of the pencil fights we used to have on the bus going to and from elementary school.

      Wimp. We played "thump": one kid puts his hands together arched into a diamond shape (as seen from the side), so that there is an air pocket between them... then the other bends his middle finger behind his thumb, and snaps it forward onto the other kid's hands, with the air pocket making a loud noise, and the force of the hit causing extreme pain. You take turns until one quits. Now that's a game!

  • Similar to Conkers (Score:4, Interesting)

    by robbway ( 200983 ) on Monday January 12, 2004 @11:49AM (#7953277) Journal
    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.
    • I'm not sure what a collection of broken keys gets you since you clearly can't reuse them as spoils of war.
      (Most of) the keys have scratch-off numbers which can be entered on the BreaKeys web site.

      • Re:Similar to Conkers (Score:4, Informative)

        by Smidge204 ( 605297 ) on Monday January 12, 2004 @12:22PM (#7953640) Journal
        (Most of) the keys have scratch-off numbers which can be entered on the BreaKeys web site.

        Which, in turn, acts as a raffle ticket of sorts to get prizes. The "breaking" part is just a gimmick to add some element of interactivity and make it seem less like a lottery than it actually is :)

        Kinda like Pogs, but without the chance to win anything. It'll probably die just as fast, though. (If you don't know what Pogs are, that's because they lasted a whole month before disappearing overnight. A fad at it's finest!)
        =Smidge=
        • Pogs did fine for many many decades. Then they became much less popular when milk bottles started being made out of plastic.

          You are referring, I would imagine, to the commercial variant where they made shiny colorful and/or holographic mock-bottlecaps.

          Incidently, this is not new - marbles was originally played with smooth stones, and many many decades (centuries?) ago enterprising sales people created glass marbles, just the same way that the pog makers created colorful versions of the original game piec

        • "Kinda like Pogs, but without the chance to win anything. It'll probably die just as fast, though. (If you don't know what Pogs are, that's because they lasted a whole month before disappearing overnight. A fad at it's finest!)"

          But that fad was at least creative. The pogs all had cool images on them, you could even make your own, and the slammers showed such variety and design technique it was astounding. Comparing these two games is like comparing apples to oranges.

  • so how does this work? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by fireduck ( 197000 ) on Monday January 12, 2004 @11:51AM (#7953291)
    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...

  • Slick marketing ploy (Score:4, Insightful)

    by thelenm ( 213782 ) <mthelen@gmai l . com> on Monday January 12, 2004 @11:52AM (#7953304) Homepage Journal
    Whoever came up with this idea is a genius. As long as kids stay interested, you have an endless stream of revenue since the whole point of buying your product is to go out and destroy it (and then of course, buy more). The only real danger is that kids will get bored or run out of money, and go back to breaking each other's pencils like they used to do when I rode the bus.
    • The real danger is that some kid will get cut up with the sharp shards of broken plastic. Lawsuit city!

    • Marketing... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by JMZero ( 449047 )
      ...is probably somewhat close to what these might end up actually being used for.

      I can see these as "convention novelties" wherein the people in attendance are each given one/some, and a prize is given to the person who collects the most losing keys. Convention running people are often fond of games/thingees that invite interactions (especially in narrower industries).

      I could see this working, but the keys themselves would have to be very cheap - and would have to be available in logo'ed form.

    • Re:Slick marketing ploy (Score:5, Funny)

      by MarkGriz ( 520778 ) on Monday January 12, 2004 @01:33PM (#7954368)
      The nice thing about it is that it prepares kids for the future. When their disposable income increases, they will inevitably get involved in BreaKomputer. This is where you and your friends spend obscene amounts of money on the latest PC hardware. Whoever has the fastest framerate on UT wins. Then Doom3 is released, rendering the slowest PC in the group unusable, forcing it to be replaced with even faster hardware. This person is then declared the new winner.

      This process repeats endlessly until Bill Gates and Michael Dell rule the world (one takes the northern hemisphere, the other the southern).
      Except Antarctia - this is where all Linux users and penguins are forced to live.

  • Key Envy (Score:5, Funny)

    by djNocturne ( 94307 ) on Monday January 12, 2004 @11:59AM (#7953394)
    Unless they start producing these things in the shape of imaginary animals, this concept will dry up and blow away a few hours from now. Kids like pokemon because of the creature angle. If you were to replace the creatues with, say, all of the US presidents, leaving everything else the same, the pokemon phenomenon would have been a non-event.

    Also, since I *know* at least half of the slashdot crowd initially read the headline the same way I did, I'll be the first to make the obvious "When I first read that ..." comment: When I first read that, I thought we were talking about crypto keys. You know, collect keys, see who's is stronger, etc. Now *that* I could dig:

    "Hey honey, went down to the comic store and bought some new BreaKey cards. I have a good feeling about this new 256-bit DES Charmander key I got. Let's battle! ... Oops, I guess I should have waited until it evolved into an AES Charizard."

    • Heh heh... i remember back in teh day they used to have this thing called a "barcode battler" - it was basically a barcode scanner that would create creatures/superheroes based on numbers in the bar code. my kid wanted one sooo badly... it's nice to see that children haven't changed that much ;)

    • Re:Key Envy (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 12, 2004 @12:08PM (#7953496)
      Kids like pokemon because of the creature angle. If you were to replace the creatues with, say, all of the US presidents, leaving everything else the same, the pokemon phenomenon would have been a non-event.

      William H. Taft, I choose you!
  • Is that I have very little Idea exactly what this is, no pricing, no info on game play, nothing. all because the annoying breakey website is nothing but a holder for some browser plugin that I don't have installed. I assume its flash or somesuch.

    Don't you just love that proliferation of un-user friendly, un-usable websites? -
    • You really aren't missing much... Just a 3D rendering of two lame looking plastic keys hooking together, twisting and breaking. They don't even make the damned keys look interesting. Just one flat color.

      Who wants to bet these stupid things were supposed to do something, but came out wrong, and some marketing twit said "Wait! Don't throw those out!"

  • I prefer pencil breaking. less corporate whoring (Score:3, Insightful)

    by *weasel ( 174362 ) on Monday January 12, 2004 @12:03PM (#7953431)
    less corporate whoring == better non-game

    non-games that will always be more fun than corporate alternatives:
    pencil breaks
    the twisted straw flicking game
    folded-paper football

    there's also the hand-slapping thing ('fingertips' or some such shit)... but it seemed there shoulda been some sorta scoring based on difficulty.
  • ...come up with this crap? Somewhere in the world, someone took home a paycheck because they created a game where you break pieces of plastic. I can't figure out if this person is brilliant or a complete idiot.
    • He's brilliant, because he convinced someone else to pay him to come up with shit for brains ideas. If ONLY I was brilliant enough to peddle crap like this, I would rule the world.
      Now, to be sure, this man works for COMPLETE ASSNUTS, which speaks for his brilliance as well. Only the highly intelligent could find a good-paying job working for complete idiots who believe everything they're told.
      I am entirely jealous of the man who came up with this completely asinine idea. It will fail horribly, but he wi

  • Um, yeah? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Hard_Code ( 49548 ) on Monday January 12, 2004 @12:44PM (#7953860)
    Yeah! The game I've been waiting for! I've always wondered: "Me, is there a game that fulfills my need to break things, and then keep the broken pieces of that thing?" and I've always had to answer "No, Me, there isn't, you will just have to continue buying and breaking plastic silverware."

    I hope this spawns a whole new genre of pointless games:

    __Breakey: Crowbar Vs. Car__
    __Breakey: Baseball Bat Vs. Seedy Convenience Store Window__
    __Breakey: Install New Drivers Vs. Stable System___
    __Breakey: Ethnic Slur Vs. Your Nose__

    and finally:

    __Breakey: Slashdot Reader Vs. Serious Human Relationship__

  • IANAMS, but... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Jerf ( 17166 ) on Monday January 12, 2004 @12:47PM (#7953897) Journal
    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.
    • If it ever became popular (don't hold your breath) I wouldn't be surprised that people would start making metals ones painted to look like the plastic ones or make them out of super hard plastics. Just think, a plastic key arms race and neighborhoods full of kids with massive forearms.

      Maybe even websites claiming to know the cheat codes for them. "To get god mode with your key..."
    • Thus, there is no strongest plastic key; they will all be destroyed in short order.

      And it isn't that the point of this key activity (really, it's too lame to be called a game. I know there's been flames at some recent Ask /. questions [slashdot.org], but this story proves you could take a dump on a Frisbee and get it posted. But I digress.)

      The breaking of keys is designed to re-enforce the irrelevence of the individual; only the corporations matter [imdb.com]. In the long run, no one wins, but the masses are so distracted by

  • There were a couple of loud "barkers" hawking the game and lots of loud music. Their "booth" consisted of a platform for the reps to stand on, a loud sound system, and 3 huge vats of these keys, which were free. The way they generated interest was that they gave away prizes for people who won a certain number of "battles".

    Being 34 and taller than most of the others in the crowd, I had a interesting perspective on the buzz that was generated. IMHO, the kids were there to see what all the fuss was about,
  • I saw the whole Breakey concept shown off at Origins [originsgames.com] last year. The response was pretty much unanimous: This is a game?

    I watched them demonstrate the things for about 15 minutes. Each time they enticed someone to try it out, it was the same. Insert keys, twist, something breaks. The demonstrater looks as the confused customer with a self-contented look on his face. The customer almost always replies (whether he won or not), "What am I missing? That's not fun."

    To it's credit, there really is a little
    • Jeezus, I've been doing this for years every Thanksgiving. You take the wishbone from the turkey, each grab an end and pull. At least it is free (you already bought the turkey), you get a nice dinner with it, and the winner gets a wish for their trouble.

      I'll take the bird anytime.
  • They were handing these out at one of the CONs I went to last year.

    I have to say, to a person, we couldn't figure out WHY anyone would want to pay money to play this game, when the first thing you'd do it to try and destroy 'em.

    I'm actually surprised they're still out there trying to pedal these things to the market.

  • Sounds a lot like... (Score:3, Funny)

    by WebGangsta ( 717475 ) on Monday January 12, 2004 @03:10PM (#7955360)
    Battle of the M&M's [microsquish.com].

    You know, identify the strongest M&M in the bag, then mail it back to the M&M/Mars company for breeding purposes.

  • My key is unbreakable (Score:3, Funny)

    by SamSim ( 630795 ) on Monday January 12, 2004 @04:26PM (#7955971) Homepage Journal
    4096 bits. Bring it on
  • If you beat someone in Magic: The Gathering, you should be able to take their deck and tear is up in front of them. That would be killer. :-)
    • I think it's been done. In any case, if you didn't know, Magic originally called for both players to wager a random card from their deck on the outcome of the game; this was called the "ante".

      Chris Mattern

    • There is a (very) unsanctioned tournament type where any card that goes to the "graveyard" is torn up, winner takes the losers remaining cards and builds the deck for the next round from the two sets of cards.

      This is called Ironman Grandmaster.

      I played it once. Quite fun. Strategy was interesting to say the least.

  • Reminds me of POGs... or Crazy Bones... or just about any other useless piece of cardboard/plastic that companies charge $10 for and get rich for a few months off of.
  • Obviously a gateway drug leading up to a Fabrege egg habit. [everything2.org]
  • First, there was pencilfighting. That was a game where you take turns whacking each other's pencils with your own pencil until only one pencil emerged victorious.
    Then, there was Spork, which was exactly the same thing, but with plastic sporks, and the object was to knock off all four of your opponent's tines before he broke off all four of yours.
    Both of these are played by schoolchildren out of total boredom, with materials that they already don't care about and get for free.
    I can't see anyone shellin

  • Yes, We've already played it. (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    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 Ano
  • I can see it now.

    Player1> "Kwikset, I call you!"

    Player2> "Masterlock, I call you!"

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