Sock wars - Truce

Socks wars officially ended today. The original plan if there was more than one survivor was the first to kill Yarn Monkey would win but there is an amazingly 79 participants alive. I think this was more than anyone thought there was going to be - more than I thought. Instead of getting 79 pairs of socks, people will kill Yarn Monkey with a post card and kill their last target with current socks.

I think there was postal delays - people were eager to get their socks out, but if they died, it might take them a couple of days until they got to the post office to mail their socks in progress on to their assassin. Some socks got sent across the Atlantic a couple of times. All of this contributes to the slow down in the momentum of the game. I think in the first week over 200 people were killed, in the two weeks maybe 20. The concept of the game was fun, and there was a lot of work done by the organizers. I think though that for another game something needs to be changed. Maybe there were too many people (and too many deserters -56), too quick of a pattern, several people knit the socks in one night. I don't know if a fewer people with a more complicated pattern on thinner yarn would do the trick. I am torn with the idea of an end date - part of me believes the end date is important as the game has slowed down, part believes there shouldn't be an end date to an Assassin game - the last person standing is the winner. I know I got frustrated early on dealing with a deserter and didn't finish my socks as soon as I could since I didn't know where I would be mailing them.

It will be interesting to see what happens during Head Games which was started by a few participants in Sock Wars - it is going with the same premise but with hats instead of socks. Another sock battle game is Sock Madness - which is a race against one other competitor with sock patterns that increase in difficulty. It looks like it could be a lot of fun but I am going to sit it out since I know I am not a fast knitter.

Stashed with: sock-wars