EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/PRrbH.png)
Here is the game in all of its glory.
The story of the game starts Freshman year, in what was essentially engineering class. Everyone had a lot of free time in the class, and there was a computer at every desk. The perfect combination for video games right? There was of course a no video games policy, but the desks were arranged in rows. The teacher had to walk up and down the rows to check all of the computers, so we had a lookout who would tell the gamers when to alt-tab.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/YE0WT.png)
This is what our room looked like.
We experimented with a few different games at first. There was some "Worlds Hardest Game", but we soon got bored of that. There some Starcraft, but the constant alt tabbing ruined any multiplayer. Stickfigure Badminton became our staple game. It was simple and easy to learn, so everyone could play. The games were fast, so an alt-tab rarely ruined the fun. And most importantly it was a difficult game to master, as we were soon to find out.
Period 4 and Period 5
There were two different periods of this engineering class, and two different styles of play developed. Period 4, the first class to play the game, developed a style based around returning shots. They play very good defense, and then wait for their opponent to slip up. Period 5 developed a more aggressive style, based on setting up and executing spikes. Spikes take a lot of skill to pull off in the game (it took a few days before we even realized they were possible) and they were very difficult to return.
After probably a month of playing in class, the styles clashed in the computer lab at lunch. At first, many of the Period 4 players were taken by surprise by the spikes of the Period 5 players. But very soon they got the hang of them, and incorporated counter spikes into their defensive style. The Period 4 style became the standard way to play.
By the spring of freshman year, we were all pretty good at the game. Nobody was missing easy shots, and there were maybe a dozen people who played competitively almost every day. The standard style looked like it was not going to change.
The first Stick-Bonjwa
Rich became the first and only Bonjwa in Stickfigure badminton. Rich started dominating with three improvements to the game. Before, everyone ran to the back of the court to serve. Rich developed a technique that let him spike off of this first shot in a way that was unreturnable. His second advantagewas a new style based off of rapid jumping that led to many more spikes than Period 5 style could have hoped for. His third advantage was that he was just better than the rest of us. He had faster reflexes and better game sense. It wasn't a question whether or not you could beat Rich, you couldn't. The game became how many points could you take off him before you lost. Three points (games are to 7) would make you the best player in the school, second to Rich of course.
Tournament 1
At this point I decided to set up a tournament. 17 people played, and I put up a $5 prize for the winner. We played the tournament over a few weeks at lunch. During this time everyone else started to pick up on Rich's style. Rich still one the tournament, but it was close towards the end. I actually found the challonge bracket for the first tournament: http://challonge.com/stickfigure
70 games
The last major thing to happen freshman year was a best of 139 series between myself and Akash. The winner got 50 cents. We had to play pretty often to finish the series, and we eneded up playing 10 games on the last day of school. The final score was pretty close, he won 70 to 65. Over that time we developed a new style that became standard. Called the double hit, the technique is to run up to the net and try to spike, and then immediately fall back to clear the birdie if you missed the initial spike.
Too much work
We had another tournament sophomore year, but everyone quickly realized that we had too much work to do to be spending our lunches playing a video game. Playing died down, but we agreed we would have another tournament after college apps senior year.
Now
It is senior year now. We currently have 46 people signed up for the final tournament. That is about 70% of our grade. The prize for the tournament is coming out of my $500 for esports fund, although most is being saved for college esports. There has also been a new meta game development called back-spiking. There is a very difficult to make spike that can be preformed from the back of the court. It threatens to disrupt the double-hit technique, although so far no one has been able to preform it with consistency.
Our tournament is starting January 16th. I'm not sure why I wrote this blog, but it seems like something TL would be interested in?
