Storytelling Strategy Board Game Method of Playing and Apparatus
A storytelling strategy board game, method of playing and apparatus, of placing tokens printed with alphabetic characters, numbers, symbols or images on groups of colored squares that occur pseudo-randomly on one of a large number of possible game boards assembled from game board segments, with the players telling a story based on the tokens they play.
This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 61/584,227 filed Jan. 7, 2012.
STATEMENT REGARDING FEDERALLY SPONSORED RESEARCH OR DEVELOPMENTNot Applicable; no government monies were used in the development of this product or its patent.
REFERENCE TO SEQUENCE LISTING, A TABLE, OR A COMPUTER PROGRAM LISTING COMPACT DISK APPENDIXNot Applicable
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTIONThe present invention is in the technical field of board games. More particularly, the present invention is in the technical field of strategy board games. More particularly, the present invention is in the technical field of storytelling strategy board games.
BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTIONThe present invention is a storytelling strategy board game for two to four persons which combines a storytelling requirement with a strategy board game. The game board is assembled from nine flat board segments. Each board segment is printed on both sides with pseudo-random arrangements of colored squares. Each side has sixteen colored squares, consisting of four squares each of the four game colors—red, yellow, green, blue—arranged in a four by four matrix. The board segments can be combined four at a time or nine at a time into a game board. When selecting and arranging the board segments to create a game board, the segments may be rotated or flipped over, allowing the creation of a large number of different game boards. The game board as assembled from the game board segments will have color groups consisting of one or more adjacent squares of the same color, which may all be on the same game board segment or may in some cases include squares from two or more adjacent game board segments. Players are assigned one of the four game colors and on each turn must place tokens on all the squares of a color group of the player's color. The color group must be adjacent to squares already occupied with tokens placed by other players, except at the beginning and in certain cases where that is not possible. The tokens are flat game pieces printed on one side with colors, numbers, letters, symbols or images and are used to tell a story as the tokens are placed on the board.
Referring now to the invention in more detail, in
In the upper left, the reverse of segment A rotated 90 degrees counter-clockwise
In the upper right, the front of segment I not rotated
In the lower left, the front of segment G rotated 90 degrees clockwise
In the lower right, the reverse of segment C rotated 90 degrees clockwise
In
In further detail, still referring to the current invention, the colored squares need to be of sufficiently large size to make it practical to place tokens on the squares, but not so large as to make the resulting game board too large, such as about one and one half inches square. The game board segments need to be of sufficient thickness to be rigid and to allow the segments to easily be placed abutting side by side to form a larger board without overlapping, such as about one-quarter inch thick. The construction details of the invention as shown in
Referring further to the invention in more detail, there are shown in
The game tokens need to be of sufficiently large size to be handled easily but small enough to fit over the squares of the game board without going outside the boundaries of the square, such as about one and one-quarter inches in diameter, and of sufficient thickness to be rigid but not too thick to be difficult to handle, for example about one-eighth inch thick. The construction details of the invention as shown in
Referring now to the invention shown in
The advantages of the present invention include, without limitation, the increased entertainment value of the following features: the large number of variations of the game board possible by combining the game board segments in different arrangements which keeps the game fresh and new even when played many times; the mental challenge of anticipating which of multiple choices among the groups of squares of the player's color will maximize the chances of winning the game; the mental challenge of creating a story where different players take turns continuing the story; the mental challenge of having to think about both the board strategy and the story continuation in the same game.
Rules of the Game1 “Adjacent” squares are squares on the board that are side by side, either left and right or up and down. Adjacent squares of the same color form a color group. A single square which is not adjacent to another square of the same color is also a color group consisting of just one square.
2. To begin play, the color tokens are picked out and shuffled face down and the players each select one color token. The color token selected becomes that player's game color. Game color determines the order of play—red, then yellow, then green, then blue. If fewer than 4 players are playing, not all the game colors will be used and the unused color tokens will be set aside and not used.
3 The player who is last in order selects and arranges the game board segments as he/she chooses.
4 The player who is first in order shuffles the remaining tokens face down and the players take turns in order selecting 11 tokens each if using an 8 by 8 board, or 21 tokens each if using a 12 by 12 board, and place them face up in front of themselves together with their color token.
5 The player who is first in order places tokens on all the squares of any group of his/her color, then begins telling a story inspired by the tokens he/she has played. The story should begin “Once upon a time . . . ”.
6 The player next in order must place tokens on a group of his/her color that is adjacent to squares that have already been played, and must continue the story as inspired by the tokens he/she has played on that turn. All the squares in the group must be used. If the player has fewer tokens remaining than the number of squares in a group, the player cannot play to that group.
7 If the player has no eligible groups of his/her color available to play to, the player must pass, except that if no players have any groups they can play to, the player may play to any group of his/her color for which he/she has sufficient tokens even if it is not adjacent to squares already played.
8 Each player continues in turn in a similar manner in the order determined by his/her color, repeating the order as necessary.
9 The color token must be played last and the color must be used in some way in the conclusion of the story. The winner is the player who first plays all of his/her tokens including the color token and completes the story. The winner should say, “The end.”
10 How the tokens are used in creating the story is up to the imagination of the player. For example, an alphabetic character could be the first letter of a word or of the name of a person or place, or anything else suggested by the letter. A numeral could be a person's age, a number of people, things, days, weeks, months, years, or anything else suggested by the number. You don't need to be too literal. Use puns and homonyms! Let your imagination run wild to find the meaning of the in the story!
As an example of how the game is played, consider that two players are playing. The four color tokens are separated from the other tokens and are shuffled face down. Each player then selects one of the color tokens. Let's say that one player selects the green color token and the other player selects the red color token. The green player is last in order so selects game board segments and arranges them into a game board. Assume that the green player has selected and arranged four game board segments as shown in
Once upon a time, on a lovely day in April, a bird was singing in a tree in Paris.
The green player then has a choice of playing to one of the two single-square green color groups adjacent to that at square [8,1] or square [8,3], and might place the A token on square [8,1], continuing the story by saying,
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- A young French woman named Adrienne was walking along the street and stopped to listen to the bird.
After that, the game board would appear as shown inFIG. 147 . It's red's turn, but red has no color groups adjacent to squares already played, and so must pass. Green can then play to square [8,3] and may for example place the gift token on that square, continuing the story by saying, - Adrienne was on her way to buy a gift for her mother's birthday, and the bird song made her remember how much her mother likes music.
The game board would then appear as shown inFIG. 148 . Now it's red's turn. Red has no color groups adjacent to squares already played to, but neither does green. In that case, red is free to play to any open red color group on the game board. Red may want to avoid playing to the red color group at squares [6,1] and [6,2], because those squares are adjacent to two green color groups having a total of six green squares, giving green an advantage. Red may instead play to the red color group at squares [4,6] and [4,7], because there are no green squares adjacent to those squares. If red plays the car and the P tokens to those squares, red may continue the story by saying,
- A young French woman named Adrienne was walking along the street and stopped to listen to the bird.
Just then Adrienne's friend Pierre drove up beside her and offered to give her a lift.
It's now green's turn, and green has no green color groups adjacent to the squares already played, but neither does red. In that case, green can play to any unoccupied green color group on the board. Green may play to the green color group at squares [4,2], [4,3], [5,3], [5,4], playing the E, G, pagoda and saw tokens and continuing the story by saying,
-
- “Thank you, Pierre!” said Adrienne. “I'm going to the Gustav Eiffel Music Emporium to buy a musical present for my mother. What do you think she would like better, Chinese music, or a musical saw?”
The board would then appear as shown inFIG. 149 . It's red's turn, and red may notice that playing to square [3,3] and then [4,4] with no green squares adjacent to them would allow red to continue playing to the red color group and [6,4] and [6,5] before green will be able to take a turn. Red may for example play the boat token to square [3,3], the Statue of Liberty token to square [3,4], and the snowflake and laughing tokens to squares [6,4] and [6,5], and continue the story saying, - “My mother took a cruise to New York City last winter and heard a man playing musical saw in the subway”, said Pierre. “She said it sounded like a sick cow,” he continued, which made Adrienne laugh.
The game board would then appear as shown inFIG. 150 . It's green's turn, and green must play to the only green color group adjacent to occupied squares, at squares [6,6] and [6,7], perhaps using the I and crazy tokens and continuing the story by saying,
- “Thank you, Pierre!” said Adrienne. “I'm going to the Gustav Eiffel Music Emporium to buy a musical present for my mother. What do you think she would like better, Chinese music, or a musical saw?”
“Oh Pierre,” said Adrienne, “when I'm with you I feel like such an idiot. You make me crazy!” The game board would then appear as shown in
“You're the one for me, Adrienne,” said Pierre. “You're my favorite.”
Green would play the truck and star tokens and say,
-
- “Oh Pierre, that's a truckload of nonsense,” replied Adrienne. “You're a star when it comes to flattery.”
Red would play the red color token and might finish the story by saying,
- “Oh Pierre, that's a truckload of nonsense,” replied Adrienne. “You're a star when it comes to flattery.”
“Adrienne,” said Pierre, “you embarrass me! I'm as red as a beet!” The end.
The final board position is shown as
In broad embodiment, the present invention is a strategy game of players taking turns placing tokens on groups of colored squares that occur pseudo-randomly on one of a large number of possible game boards assembled from game board segments. As an enhancement to the strategy game, the tokens are printed with alphabetic characters, numerals or images that are used to tell a story.
Scope and Spirit of the InventionWhile the foregoing written description of the invention enables one of ordinary skill to make and use the invention, those of ordinary skill will understand and appreciate the existence of variations, combinations, and equivalents of the specific embodiment, method, and examples herein. The invention should therefore not be limited by the above described embodiment, method, and examples, but should include all embodiments and methods within the scope and spirit of the invention.
Claims
1. A method of playing a game, comprising the steps of,
- providing a number of flat game board segments printed with a pseudo-random arrangement of squares of different colors on one or both sides;
- providing a number of game tokens;
- assigning a color to each player by some random means such as shuffling flat tokens face down that have different colors on one side and the players drawing from them;
- determining the order of play by some means such as according to the color drawn by the player;
- arranging the game board segments into a game board by selecting, flipping and/or rotating the game board segments and laying them side by side;
- providing a certain number of game tokens for each player;
- taking turns placing game tokens on groups of adjacent unoccupied colored squares of the player's color adjacent to occupied squares, or passing the turn if no such squares are available; or on any unoccupied group of the player's color if no players have any unoccupied squares adjacent to occupied squares;
- continuing until one player has used all his/her tokens, which player is the winner.
2. A game apparatus consisting of,
- a number of flat game board segments printed on one or both sides with a pseudo-random arrangement of squares of different colors such that they can be arranged in various orientations producing a number of possible game boards consisting of groups of adjacent squares of the same color;
- a number of game tokens that may be played to groups of colored squares of the player's assigned color.
3. A method of playing a game, comprising the steps of,
- providing a number of flat game board segments printed with a pseudo-random arrangement of squares of different colors on one or both sides;
- providing a number of flat game tokens, printed on one side with alphabetic characters, numbers, symbols or images;
- assigning a color to each player by shuffling flat tokens face down that have different colors on one side and the players selecting from them;
- determining the order of play according to the color drawn by the player;
- arranging the game board segments into a game board by selecting, flipping and/or rotating game board segments and laying them side by side;
- shuffling game tokens face down and each player drawing a certain number of game tokens;
- taking turns placing game tokens on groups of adjacent unoccupied colored squares of the player's color adjacent to occupied squares, or passing the turn if no such squares are available; or on any unoccupied group of the player's color if no players have any unoccupied squares adjacent to occupied squares;
- telling a continuing story inspired by the alphabetic characters, numbers, symbols or images on the tokens;
- continuing until one player has used all his/her tokens, which player is the winner.
4. A game apparatus consisting of,
- a number of flat game board segments printed on one or both sides with a pseudo-random arrangement of squares of different colors such that they can be arranged in various orientations producing a number of possible game boards consisting of groups of adjacent squares of the same color;
- a number of flat game tokens, printed on one side with alphabetic characters, numbers, symbols and images.
Type: Application
Filed: Oct 18, 2012
Publication Date: Jul 11, 2013
Inventor: Steven Jon Halasz (Montclair, NJ)
Application Number: 13/655,411