GB2294407A - Spelling/answering board game - Google Patents

Abstract

Players move through their individual player grids (B) by answering, or answering and spelling the answers, to specific-length answer questions. These answers increase from being up to five letters in length at the bottom of the player's grid, through six, seven, eight and nine letters as the grid progresses upwards, to a final ten-plus answer on the final question to enable that particular counter to clear the board to the holding area. The requirement to answer, or answer and spell the answer, depends on the random throw of a die or dice, whereby an odd total thrown requires both answering and spelling the answer, and an even total thrown requires answering only. The letter value of the question is governed by the movement of a second marker around the peripheral track (A). <IMAGE>

Description

SPELLINGJANSWERING BOARD GAME This invention relates to a board game whose winning is achieved by the chance-determined telling, or telling and spelling, of specific-length answers to pre-set questions. The questions are classified by answer length only, not by subject matter or category.

Conventional question-based board games generally require only the answer to be given to a question; there is no option to spell the answer instead of or as well as giving the answer orally, nor are the questions specifically set so that their answers contain a defined number of characters.

According to the present invention, there is provided a game board designed for up to six players, the winning player being the first to move his or her playing pieces off the board through a bottleneck grid by either answering, or answering and spelling, the answers to the preset specific-length questions supplied.

A specific embodiment of the invention will now be described by way of example with reference to the accompanying drawings in which: Figure 1 shows the overall layout of the game board.

Format: a hexagonal board comprising a double-width circumference (Figure 1. A.) of different coloured squares (total of six colours, plus white, randomly mixed), with six cone-shaped bottleneck grid sections (Figure 1. B.) running inwards from this double circumference into the centre of the board. Outside the immediate area of the board are six holding zones of five boxes each (Figure 1. C.) which are used to store playing pieces which have cleared the board.

Figure 2 shows an individual player's bottleneck grid.

Figure 3 shows a typical question card, question side up.

Figure 4 shows the same question card, answer side up.

Game Setup Maximum six players. Each player places five counters at the base of his/her bottleneck grid (Figure 1. B.), and a playing piece on any of the six corners of the double circumference of coloured squares (Figure 1.

A.).

Objective The objective of the game is for players to clear their five counters through the decreasing bottleneck grid onto the centre of the board, and thence to their own holding zones (Figure 1. C.). The first player to achieve all five counters onto his/her holding grid is the winner.

Meaning of the player's bottleneck grid Each player starts the game with five counters on the base line of his/her grid. To move from this 5-box line to the neighbouring 4-box line the player must answer, or answer and spell the answer, to a question whose answer is specifically set at no more than five letters long.

To move from the 4-box line to the neighbouring 3-box line the player must answer, or answer and spell the answer, to a question whose answer is exactly six letters long.

To move from the 3-box line to the neighbouring 2-box line the player must answer, or answer and spell the answer, to a question whose answer is exactly seven letters long.

To move from the 2-box line to the neighbouring 1-box line the player must answer, or answer and spell the answer, to a question whose answer is exactly eight letters long.

To move from the 1-box line to the neighbouring centrepiece of the game board the player must answer, or answer and spell the answer, to a question whose answer is exactly nine letters long.

To move from the centrepiece to the player's holding zone (Figure 1.

C.) the player must answer, or answer and spell the answer, to a question whose answer is ten or more letters long.

Playing One or two dice are used. A player throws the die/dice and moves the corresponding number of black circles within the double circumference of squares (Figure 1. A.) The player then chooses to answer a question relating to one of the four coloured squares surrounding his black spot, where the colours relate to questions with specific-length answers. The player can only answer a particularly coloured question if he has a counter already on that particular colour on his/her bottleneck grid, and also has a free space to move to on the next line on the grid.

The person to that player 's right then asks the relevant length answer question from the next question card in the pack (Figure 3). This player then checks the answer against the correct length answer on the reverse of the question card (Figure 4).

If the question has been answered correctly, the player moves the relevant counter to the next line on his/her grid, and continues playing until he/she either gets an answer wrong, or does not have a counter available on a particular colour, or has a counter available but there is no available space on the next grid line up to move into.

Tell or tell and spell If the total of the die/dice thrown is an odd number (3,5,7,9 etc), then the player must both answer the question and also spell the answer.

If the total of the die/dice thrown is an even number (2,4,6,8 etc) then the player merely answers the question and does not have to spell the answer.

Board colours There are six colours on the board. Each line of the player's bottleneck grid (Figure 1. B., and Figure 2) is a specific colour corresponding to the length of the answers. These are currently, but not irrevocably: Up to 5 letters Orange 6 letters Green 7 letters Brown 8 letters Yellow 9 letters Red 10+ letters Blue The double circumference of squares (Figure 1. A.), in addition to an equal and randomly placed selection of these six different colours, also contains some white squares, which are joker squares whose colour the player can designate.

Question cards The front of each question card (Figure 3) shows one question relating to each of the colours on the player 's grid (a total of 6 questions). The reverse of each question card (Figure 4) shows the answers to the six questions on the front. The numbers to the left of both the questions and the answers relate to the number of letters in the answers.

Claims (6)

1. A board game whose winning is based on either answering, or answering and spelling the answers, to various general knowledge specific-length answer questions.

2. A board game as claimed in Claim 1 where questions are grouped, not by subject matter, but solely by the number of letters in their answers.

3. A board game as claimed in Claim 2 where the requirement to simply have to answer, or both answer and spell the answer to a question, is determined by the throw of a die or dice.

4. A board game as claimed in Claim 3 where the method of play requires moving counters through a pyramid-shaped grid where the number of squares decreases with progress.

5. A board game as claimed in all preceding claims where the winner is the first person to clear all five of his/her counters from the board.

6. A board game substantially as described herein with reference to Figures 1 - 4 of the accompanying drawings.