If you've been on Hive for longer than five years, you may remember these strange games called amidakuji. @boxcarblue ran a series of give amidakuji contests for a long while, then I took it over from him and ran it for awhile as well. Recently @livinguktaiwan posted a contest that reminded me of them. I can't explain why her contest reminded me of amidakuji, but well, the mind works in strange ways.

Anyway, I started considering reviving the contest. I don't know if I will. They actually took me a while to make. There are webapps that can make them quickly, but I liked making them look a little nicer and that took time. So I don't know. I might restart doing them, I might not. Still thinking.

But while I debate that that, I thought we might look at what exactly it is. It's on my mind after all, so I might as well get it out of my mind and onto paper. Er, well onto the screen and onto Hive. You know what I mean. Some of you may remember them from Hive's early years, and some may know them from elsewhere, but many of you may have no idea, so this could be of interest to you.

Sound good? Let's jump in.

Amidakuji

Every time I talk to my folks and listen as they try to pronounce Japanese words, I am reminded that the pronunciation rules differ from English enough to confuse a lot of people. You'd be amazed how badly even foreigners who live in Japan can pronounce Japanese words. So to begin with, it is pronounced something like Ah-me-dah-coo-gee.

It means "Amida's lottery". Amida is the cosmic Buddha in Mahayana Buddhism and the main guy in Pure Land Buddhism, which is one of the most popular sects in Japan. If you've seen a photo of the Great Buddha of Kamakura, that's Amida. To make it simple, often the title is changed to "Ghost Leg" in English.

Let's use one of my old old amidakuji images from long ago. I don't know why I saved these on my computer. Then again, I always save my posts and images, that's why. Here you go. Puzzle over it for a few minutes and see if you can guess how it works.

In Japan

The game is super popular in Japan, and is very likely to be used in a number of different situations that need a random decision.

Offices sometimes use it to assign jobs to office workers. I've seen this use in action many times when I worked at Japanese workplaces. There is always a 1:1 correspondence between the top and bottom numbers, so no job will be assigned twice. Employees may be asked to draw in some lines between the columns, making the game seem even more random.

If you play video games, it shows up a lot. Or at least it used to in old games. It was in one of the Mega Man games and one of the Mario games.

You may not understand that exactly yet, but we'll go into how it works in a minute.

How to Play

The game board itself may look confusing at first, but the rules are actually very simple. You pick a number (or letter) at the top then you follow that line down. Anytime there is a branching path to another line, you must take it. Keep doing this all the way down until you get to the end of the line.

If that sounds confusing, here is a great image from Wikipedia showing how it works.

Try it yourself

If you want to try it out yourself to get more of a feel for the game, there is a slick version playable on the web here. Well, it's not ideal. This game works from the bottom up, but it will give you some idea. Go give it a shot!

If that just confuses you more can watch a video here:

Coming Soon?

Like I said, I'm still thinking about if I will start up these contests or not again. If I can figure out a faster way of making the puzzles while still maintaining the quality I want, I might. Thinking thinking. If you want to play before then, there are a handful of smartphone apps for it, and if you search around you might find some java apps online. Or make your own! Just draw a few lines then draw random lines connecting them, then try to guess what line top leads to what line bottom.

This might be a fun game for my fam in The Alliance as well as my pals in the Mancave. If I restart them I'll probably give away Hive SBI equal to whatever the liquid payout of the post is. Maybe I can find some sponsors to increase the pot as well, we'll see.

Contests are fun and they help get people involved and also spread the Hive wealth a bit (not that I have much to share) but I also don't want to do too many and clog my account with them. Maybe just once a month if I do restart it.

Thoughts? Does the idea of Amidakuji contests excite anyone, or do I hear a resounding meh?

Anyway, regardless of if I decide to start it again or not, enjoy the info!

❦

David LaSpina is an American photographer and translator lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time and searching for the perfect haiku.