# Chomp — don't eat the poisoned square

- From: Chomp, a game by David Gale
- Players: 2 players
- Time: 5 min a game
- Made by: David Gale, described in 1973

Made with boardgameBuilder 0.14.4. To design from it, open boardgameBuilder and choose Open game: its blocks go on the canvas, and the feelings are left for you to pick.

A chocolate bar of squares, with the bottom-left square poisoned. Each bite takes a square and everything above and to the right of it. Whoever has to take the poisoned square loses.

## What it shows a designer

The first player can always win, yet on most bars nobody knows how. It shows the difference between knowing a strategy exists and finding it, which is often where play lives.

## What you need

- paper with a rectangle of squares, 5 by 6
- a pen

## How to play

1. **The bar.** Draw a rectangle of 5 rows by 6 columns. Mark the bottom-left square as poison.
2. **A bite.** Take turns choosing any remaining square. Cross it out, along with every square above it and to its right.
3. **Lose.** Whoever crosses out the poisoned square loses.
4. **Again.** Play a few times, and try a 2 by 6 bar to look for a pattern.

## After playing, talk about

- Is going first better here? Why?
- Did you find a shape you wanted to leave your opponent?
- What did the 2 by 6 bar show you?

## Where the rules are written down

- https://pi.math.cornell.edu/~mec/2003-2004/graphtheory/chomp/howtoplaychomp.html
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chomp

## Its blocks

- Victory condition: one loser
- Chance or skill: mostly skill
- Theme: abstract
- Information visibility: full information
- Timing: take turns

## Saved state

boardgameBuilder reads this part back when the file is opened.

```json
{"mechanics": {"victory-condition": "one-loser", "chance-skill": "mostly-skill", "information": "full-information", "theme": "abstract", "timing": ["take-turns"]}, "chosenFeelings": [], "previousMechanics": {}, "previousFeelings": [], "turnNumber": 0, "locked": false, "turnHistory": [], "answers": {}, "tests": {}}
```