Robin Doolin LeCates, I won the 2012 central Kentucky region Bucks for Bright Ideas contest and was going to have my game board turned into an app. for download, but I sorta ruined it by sorta suggesting to my sponsor that he was in cahoots with the Messenger-Inquirer and was trying to suppress my game idea. : Board game invention proposal that won me the 2012 central region Kentucky Bucks for Bright Ideas contest: 1. What is your idea? (Describe the product or service proposed.) What are its primary features and benefits? 2. If your product or service is marketed, who would be the customers? What products or services are they now using that your idea will replace? 3. Why would your prospective customers need or want to purchase your product or service? 4. Describe the needs, as you see them, to get your product or service into the market, or available to potential customers. 5. Who will be the competitors if your product or service goes to market? 6. If your product or service goes to market, can it be defended from duplication by competitors with a patent, copyright or other device? Answers to questions 1 thru 6 1.My idea is of a boardgame that makes use of a square array of dice,in their own little cubicle cell within the gameboard itself, to act as the agents of path creation from one opponents corner to the other opponent(s) corner in a random fashion by shaking or tumbling all the dice together and looking for a path where one die is connected to another where their cubicle cells are touching. There are four corners of the board and up to four players can play. Each player is designated a colored game piece and three cards of the same color as the color of their game piece.The objective is to start at your corner and randomly shuffle the dice in their cells and to try and find a path from your corner to an opponents corner by looking for a path created from the randomly shaken dice and that have the same numbers showing and connecting with each other thru the walls of their cubicle cells(either diagonally or side-by-side, as long as they are touching). Once at an opponents corner you can collect one of their colored cards. When that opponents cards have been collected by every other player, that person loses. In the same token, the one opponent who collects everyone elses card wins.You can only collect one card from each opponent. At the most there is four places: winner, second place, third place, and last place. But, to keep things interesting, you can win back your cards by visiting any opponents corner who has your card and either preferring to take one of their colored cards or your own. You may try the strategy of taking one of their cards if youre winning or if you are losing you may choose to take back your own card. The top of the gameboard has a rotating platform made of clear plastic,with a checkerboard-like array of squares printed on it, that the game pieces rest in. If you land on one of the colored die cells in the gameboard then you can rotate the platform to get nearer an opponents corner or to drive an opponent away from your corner (since all the pieces stay in their squares as the platform rotates). This also calls for strategy and a balance of the pros and cons of rotating the platform. Like, for example, in a close game you may be a few squares away from your opponents corner but he/she may be one square away from yours. And in a close game all he/she has to do is capture one of your cards to win. A good strategy would be to rotate the platform even though you are so close to capturing one of his/her cards. The platform can only turn in either of four rotation points to fully align with the dice in the cubicle cells below it. The only prototype I have built (see attached picture) is of a board that youd have to remove the clear plastic platform and put off to the side with the pieces staying on, and shake the board by hand to randomly toss the dice, before replacing the platform each time. Shaking the board by hand is too exausting and doesnt really toss the dice as randomly as I assume an electronic tumbler of some sort would. By shaking you are just slamming the dice back and forth between the plastic cover and the floor of the cubicle cells, an electronic tumbler would be more efficient at randomly shuffling the dice and create more diversity in the shuffle thereby increasing the chance of coming up with pathways of similar dice numbers. The platform itself would be fixed to the top of the board with a central rotating axis to rotate on. An agreed upon number of times one person can shuffle or electronically tumble the dice is made at the outset. If the last opponents tumble doesnt make a path for his or herself, the next opponent in line can choose to use the previous opponents path, if it makes a path for theirselves or he/she can shuffle or tumble again if there is no path to take. My girlfriend suggested that this boardgame could be converted into a computer game and, I believe, a random number generator program for numbers 1 thru 6 could be used for each cubicle cell die. But I like the idea of a real solid boardgame that you can play on a table or on the floor. I have three suggestions for the name of this game: It can either be called Complexity,Six Degrees of Seperation, or my girlfriends suggestion; Dicey-Dice. Either one of them aptly applies to the game but I guess Id have to see if any of the names are already taken by a game and I believe Complexity and Six Degrees of Seperation sound familiar. 2. I imagine any who loves boardgames would like my concept. And its novelty is that it uses dice itself as the board. Other games use dice only to determine the placement of game pieces on a board by rolling outside the board itself. The concept I have is that the dice are all shaken together and in a round-about way also determine the placement of game pieces but by being part of the boards pathways themselves when shuffled and not just to roll a single die. Ive never seen a game that uses this concept. 3. Mass-production would be key. It was hard to build the cubicle cell grid which I made out of cardboard. I imagine that plastic may be used to pour into a mold to create the grid more easily. The dice could be bought from a manufacturer of dice; this would be the only piece of the game that does not have to be made in shop. I imagine that the boardgame container itself (not the top clear plastic cover or the clear plastic platform) to be made of wood with a nice finish. 4. I think it would have to be marketed to toy stores and game dealers. In virtual form, it could be sold as a download on the internet or sold in stores as a video game. 5. I imagine boardgames ( in real form) and video games (in virtual form) would be my competitors. But more precisely, it would be games of skill, not games of violence or adventure or other types of virtual reality games. Its sort of like chess which involves strategy. 6. I dont have a patent on it, but I imagine that it could be defended by any device since, at least to me, it is totally original and came from my own mind.
Posted on: Tue, 18 Nov 2014 02:28:01 +0000
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