![noah-silliman-107988.jpg](https://steemitimages.com/DQmRvfEQoC9MUBMXe25du9BsTLP69NdAwmARmXNR3FAgbxW/noah-silliman-107988.jpg)

This contest is like no other: just think creatively, play with words, and you’re eligible to win!

The contest’s goal is to promote creative thinking on Steemit. 

The contest’s sponsor is Whaleshares, a community of creative Steemians founded by @officialfuzzy. 

## The prize pool: 12 prizes, $270 total worth

I'd like to give a chance to win to as many participants as possible, that’s why there are 12 prizes in this contest:

* First Place: **100 BEYONDBIT tokens** (worth about $60 in post payout as of today). You can use these tokens to get a whale vote on a post — I wrote a detailed post on how to do it [here](https://steemit.com/whaleshares/@vitkolesnik/how-to-get-a-100-whale-vote-on-your-post-use-whaleshares-a-steemgig-contest-entry). 
* Places 2-10: **30 BEYONDBIT tokens each** (worth about $20 in post payout as of today). I will select the winners for places 1-10 subjectively basing on the criteria listed below. 
* Place 11: **40 BEYONDBIT tokens** and it’s **The Random Prize**! The winner for this prize will be chosen randomly from all qualified entries. Those participants who will resteem this post during first 3 days since the announcement will get twice as big a chance to win this prize.
* Place 12: **40 BEYONDBIT tokens** and it’s **The People's Choice Award**! This prize is for the entry with the biggest number of upvotes (no bot upvotes please).

The contest is open **for seven days or until the 100th entry**, whichever comes first. In a week I will choose the winners and send the prizes. 

Now, turn your attention to get what does the game consist in and how to create a winning entry.

## The game 

![robert-collins-333411.jpg](https://steemitimages.com/DQmVNMAZjiq8wEqam95jC9ixhkawspa7iLCKWb3xmgxCmQP/robert-collins-333411.jpg)

The game to play is called Catena. It’s a word association game to which I added a few rules to make it more interesting.

The game consists in connecting two unrelated words into a chain of related words (called catena) using the minimal number of intermediary words so that all the words in the resulting chain were related.

Examples:

*the words to connect*: **ticket, thought**
*catena*: **ticket — road — book — thought**

*the words to connect*: **dream, sun**
*catena*: **dream — awakening — breakfast — pancake — sun**

As easy as that. 

So what catenas qualify and how to create a winning catena?

## The game rules

1. *Only nouns can be used*, single-word nouns will be given preference.
2. To win, a catena should be *short* (3 to 5 words), *witty* (relationships between neighbor words shouldn't be too plain) and *coherent* (those relationships should be strong enough). A word play is welcome (i.e. the same word can be used in two different meanings).
3. Two kinds of connection are preferred: *by context* and *by analogy*.
    - **A connection by contest** is based on typical real life situations connecting words, for example: road — book.
    - **A connection by analogy** is based on perceived similarity, for example: pancake — sun. There could be analogies by form or structure (snail — galactic), metaphors and symbols (obstacle — wall), or even multiple analogies (for example, both pancake and sun are round, yellow, hot and appear in the morning). :)
4. Other types of connections *are given less weight* because they would make the game too easy. Here are some examples of connections to avoid:
    - **Rational, scientific-style** connections based on logic, categories, opposites, sequence and cause-effect, composition, synonyms. Examples: man — mammal (categories); man — woman (opposites); winter — spring (sequence), beer — water (composition) etc. The reason why I exclude this type of thinking from the game is that it makes it too easy: anything could be easily connected using categories, the extreme example of this would be using the word “something” to connect any unrelated words.
    - **Purely personal** connections based on empiric experience: for example, movie — tea because yesterday I was drinking tea while watching a movie.
    - **Subculture-based** connections taken from films, books, memes, slang etc. (Steemit subculture associations are allowed as we all share them but are not given priority).

## How to participate

![luca-upper-97759.jpg](https://steemitimages.com/DQmQr7BdXYwoYir5dZ496qqx7s8AKdAnq3Ae9JMtgqAZJY8/luca-upper-97759.jpg)

Publish **1 to 5 catenas** in a comment to this post. The catenas should be made with these word pairs (you can choose one or more pairs):

* Money, Bell
* Fish, Nun
* Nail, Rainbow

The more catenas you publish, the higher is your chance to create a really witty one. 

Check the others’ entries first before posting — if the same catenas will be published by different authors, only the first one will be qualified.

Please submit all your entries **in one comment** together with **your bitshares account name** — you will need it to receive the prizes. If you don’t yet have a Bitshares wallet, [create one here](https://bitshares.openledger.info/?r=browniedistro) — there are plenty of contests and giveaways offering Bitshares-powered tokens, so you will surely make use of it later.

Now it’s your turn!

![angelo-pantazis-299693.jpg](https://steemitimages.com/DQmW2c8AeYofrZvNp9tjAHyyr9M1MLTg6e2y8sYyPsYMaoY/angelo-pantazis-299693.jpg)

## More Catena examples

If you want to better understand what catena types are conforming to the rules, here are some more examples:

*the words to connect*: mother, atom
*catena 1*: mother — warmth — energy — atom
*catena 2*: mother — earth — core — nucleus — atom

*the words to connect*: gate, guitar
*catena 1*: gate — key — music — guitar
*catena 2*: gate — garage — band — guitar

## Catena uses

Now, when you learn how to play this game, you may start asking yourself what is its use  besides pure entertainment? Indeed, there are many catena uses!

* *For everyone*: to develop creativity.
* *For artists*: to stimulate imagination. 
* *For creatives*: to use in brainstorming.
* *For language teachers and learners*: to remember connected words better.
* *For mentors and coaches*: to diagnose a trainee’s thinking style.
* *For cultural exchange and adaptation*: to better understand another culture.

Rule sets (i.e. allowed / disallowed connection types) could be changed depending on the goal. For example, it’s possible (though very difficult) to use analogies only. It will lead to very long catenas with a lot of interesting images.

## Background

Catena is based on the word association game which exists in many forms in many countries. Surprisingly, the game’s name means “Chain” in Latin and is borrowed from Descartes — «Catena Mundi»,  a term he used for a mysterious chain connecting all things in the world. Sounds familiar? ;)

<center>
![chain.gif](https://steemitimages.com/DQmbcDJKfRNfQEnujBYg1XPiMEtdTg4WfsWoDN22PyeRJVM/chain.gif)
</center>

## More about the sponsor

The vision of Whaleshares community and BeyondBitcoin Hangout Series is to give people a voice to speak about their favorite projects in the blockchain tech space. We need to enable more people and incentivize more crypto savvy content creators to be part of the community, help build and benefit from in a synergistic union.

[Join the community](https://discord.gg/T56Pjj9) in our fast growing 24/7 Discord server offering many channels from general talk to post promotion to more contests!

### And now, it’s time for some of the most pleasant activities — playing and creating! Enjoy, have fun, and I am eager to see your entries!

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#### Credits

* A big thanks to @maxy-hopkins for proofreading the text. Max is a young traveler who joined steemit recently in order to share his journey. He post regularly on a variety of topics, but at the heart of the conversation is his adventure.
* Image 1 by [Noah Silliman](https://unsplash.com/photos/-UUGr3txNuc)
* Image 2 by [Robert Collins](https://unsplash.com/photos/tvc5imO5pXk)
* Image 3 by [Luca Upper](https://unsplash.com/photos/Z-4kOr93RCI)
* Image 4 by [Angelo Pantazis](https://unsplash.com/photos/jJasnbSfiSY)
* Image 5 by [James Thacher](http://www.jamesthacher.com/)

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<div class="pull-left"><img src="https://steemitimages.com/DQmcDnLNL8eNbJJfqtH2joJmWjRUv2KnXUq8NdPu924fRzy/3-vit2.jpg" /></div>I'm a blogger, web designer, entrepreneur, world citizen and a father to eight. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to follow me at @vitkolesnik.