Chopstick Tightrope: Steady Hands Not Included

Wed, 11 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Hello everyone!

Today I’m bringing you a review of one of the games I bought at SPIEL Essen this year: Chopstick Tightrope! It’s a tiny box with a lot of fun inside, so let me introduce it and tell you what I thought.

Game Overview

Chopstick Tightrope is a 2026 release for 2 or more players, ages 8+, with a playtime of 20 minutes. It was designed by Gareth Edwards and published by Gorilla Games.

Chopstick Tightrope ready to play at the Gorilla Games booth

My copy is the Essen release, bought at the Gorilla Games booth and signed by the designer. The official launch in shops is planned for 2027, so if you didn’t pass by their stand, you may have to wait a little to get your hands on it.

With Oda By at the Gorilla Games booth

Theme

Chopstick Tightrope is a party game, and the challenge is the whole theme: a rope, a pair of chopsticks, and a bunch of little meeples that really don’t want to stay where you put them.

How to Win

The first player to reach 15 points wins the game.

Components

The material is really nice. The box itself becomes the board, and you stretch an elastic rope across it: that’s where all the action happens. The meeples come in several shapes: blue sumos, fish, lucky cats, Mount Fuji pieces, little houses, cubes and rectangles. And of course, the chopsticks!

Gameplay

On your turn, you draw a card and try to reproduce the pattern shown on it by placing meeples on the rope. Sounds easy? The catch is that you can’t use your hands: everything is done with chopsticks!

A steady hand is everything (and I don’t have one)

The cards are worth from 1 to 5 points, all shuffled together. The 1-point cards usually ask for just one or two meeples, while the 5-point cards are the hardest ones, with meeples stacked on top of each other.

If you manage to reproduce the pattern, you keep the card and score its points. If a meeple falls, your turn is over: you turn the card face down, and it counts as a negative point.

The meeples you place stay on the rope, so space gets tighter and tighter as the game goes on. And guess what happens when there’s no room left? You have to stack them on top of the ones already there! You already do it with some of the harder patterns, but this time it’s different: even placing a single meeple becomes a real challenge. And if anything falls at that moment, you flip the card for a negative point. Then the whole rope is cleared, and everything goes back in the box to start again.

Stacking sumos: this is where it gets tricky

There are also three special cards that add a little chaos. They’re shuffled into the deck with the pattern cards: if you draw one, you keep it and draw another card to get your pattern.

Clean the Tightrope: lets you empty the rope (everything goes back in the box) before attempting any card.
Freeze: play it before any player’s turn to make them miss it.
Force Second Card: play it on another player after their first card, forcing them to play another one. This can be good for you or for them: if they succeed, they win the points of both cards, but if they fail, they have to turn both cards face down, even the one they had already completed, for a total of −2 points.

There’s no time limit, but nothing stops you from adding one as a house rule if you want to put some extra pressure on the table!

Solo Mode

There’s no solo mode, as the game is for 2 players and up. That said, I can easily imagine practising on my own and trying to reach 15 points. Why not?

My Experience

I’ve played three full games with my boyfriend: I won two and he won one. On top of that, we did lots of tests and little rounds we never finished, just for fun!

We had so many laughs, especially when you draw a card with a tricky structure, the rope is almost full, and you have to be extra careful. I don’t have a steady hand, and chopsticks are not my speciality at all, so it’s not that easy for me. But that’s exactly what makes it so enjoyable: you work on your dexterity, train your chopstick skills, and have a really good time together.

Some moments were unforgettable. In one game, I had the perfect card to finish: an easy 2-point card. But the rope was full, and when I placed my fish, everything collapsed! My boyfriend had his own moment of glory too: he decided to place a sumo on top of a Mount Fuji piece, and he succeeded. But that sumo wasn’t very steady, and when he placed the next piece, everything fell. It was great! And the special cards played their part: he once played a Force Second Card on me, I managed to complete it, and that’s when he lost the game.

The end of one of our games, with our scored cards on each side

I’ll definitely try it with more players soon, so I can share this wonderful game with more people.

My Rating

At 2 players, I give Chopstick Tightrope a 9/10. It’s fun, and it doesn’t require a functional brain, so you can play it when you’re tired and you’ll come out of it feeling lighter and more relaxed.

Just keep in mind that it really is only a party game: you need to be in the mood to laugh. After a few plays, the games feel quite similar, but they’re still funny if you’re in the right mood. If you’re feeling grumpy, avoid it!

Final Thoughts

Chopstick Tightrope is a small game, but a really rich one. If you like dexterity and party games, this one is for you!

Your Turn

Are you a chopstick master, or would you be dropping meeples like me? Have you tried any dexterity games you’d recommend?

Come share your comments on Mastodon, Facebook, and BoardGameGeek.

Chopstick Tightrope on BoardGameGeek

Dexterity on Marta's BG Corner