A legend known for his single most addicting puzzle game Tetris, Alexey Pajitnov demonstrates how the most simple of solutions can be the most attractive of all. It's no wonder he'll be receiving the First Penguin Award at the 2007 GDCA.

Pitting him up against game designers Harvey Smith (Midway Games) and David Jaffe (God of War, Twisted Metal), the contest was called "The Game Design Challenge: The Needle and Thread Interface."

In honor of the innovative control interfaces for games today, the contest armed contestants with a needle, some thread and a piece of fabric to be used as the input device. All three designers were to conjure up a hypothetical game, which should use all three instruments as an way of input for the game.

Pajitnov's design, called Stitch & Cross, was a basic sewing racing game where two players have at each other in an effort to reach the one side of a common playing field. One player stitches horizontally, while the other stitches vertically. A player could thwart the other's efforts by crossing the opponent's stitch with his own.

Smith involved a much more elaborated version for a control interface, dividing the fabric into different patches of cloth which would represent a certain task of control. When the player poked the any patch, the corresponding command would be called - like a joystick with needles for fingers. His game concept was called The Tailor's Daughter, an action adventure game with an actual story.

Jaffe devised a game that would allow the player to manipulate the fabric into paper airplanes, which can be flown to see which travels faster or further. In the end, Pajitnov was able to steal the win from reigning champion Smith, after the audience supported him with cheers right from the beginning of his participation. The friendly contest was hosted by GameLab's Eric Zimmerman, who said:

There’s nothing stopping us from conceiving of games and from having exercises like the game design challenge. There’s nothing to stop you from making a game inspired by what you’ve seen today ... it’s up to us at the Game Developers Conference to make games better.