Every year GDC hosts the Game Design Challenge, which takes a handful of the best game designers around and challenges them to come up with an enticing game concept according to a set theme. This year's theme? The Needle and Thread Interface. Creating a game that uses a needle and thread as the interface for the gameplay in some fashion. The contestants? God of War dev and all-around potty mouth David Jaffe, the father of Tetris Alexey Pajitnov, and finally last year's winner for the Nobel Peace Prize themed challenge, Harvey Smith.

I had just gotten out of another meeting late, so it was dark when I got into the packed meeting room, and after finally finding some floor space all the way on the other side of the room, I settled down to watch greatness at work. I tell who was up first immediately, but then the windows update popped up. "Fucking thing." Ah, first up, David Jaffe!

Jaffe's design involved using a thread and a needle to create paper airplanes, which then could be tested, entered in competitions, etc. Elements included better function for better stitching, adding on weapons and the like. The game was envisioned as more of a social thing, with a community for sharing design ideas and leaderboards. Not exactly what I pictured when I heard the challenge theme, but I can't complain lest Jaffe completely fuck me up. Hedoes so love the f-word.

Next came Alexey Pajitnov, who couldn't seem to operate a Power Point presentation but received extra points because he created got-damn Tetris. He envisioned a game where two players faced off on a flat battleground, both trying to stitch their way to the goal. Each player would either take turns or battle it out in real time, and if one player crossed over the other's line his opponent would have to start over. A simple concept, but one that would take full advantage of the theoretical controller, plus the guy is just so damn charming, with his over-explantions and funny accent. Oh that Alexey.

Finally came last year's champion Harvey Smith, who certainly had the most amusing presentation. As he said "I knew this was going to be a really difficult", the slide on the screen read "This is batshit crazy." He also spent far too much time conceptualizing the controller, which was integral to how his game worked. He quoted Miyamoto, who said to think about the controller from day one, and came up with a sort of lapboard designed like an eskimo snowshoe. He then detailed an RPG adventure (no surprise there) featuring a little girl who travelled the world with a magical sewing needle and her sentient stuffed animal to try and save her father from evil (portrayed in the presentation by Bush and Cheney.) Throughout her adventure she would encounter sewing based challenges, and battles would be fought by her stuffed animal, who would be upgradeable by sewing on more cloth won in battle. A great concept, but as someone in the audience later pointed out, it only used the controller in a limited fashion, with the majority of gameplay being suited for a regular controller.

After the presentation came a brief Q&A session, in which we learned that Pajitnov once made his own pants, hated the idea of letting players design levels, and that Jaffe was ticked because, "Harvey got to go out and get plastic for his fucking idea."

The winners were chosen by applause at the end of the session, and I don't care what designer you are (outside of Miyamoto), when you go up against the father of Tetris, you're going down. Jaffe came in third, Smith second, and pants-crafter Alexey Pajitnov went home with the prize...a gold-colored knitting needle. It was interesting to see the different designs these three talented designers came up with given the same set of guidelines...an exclusive look inside the minds of three of gaming's greatest. Michael Fahey

Contact information for this author is not available.