Featured on this page:

RatRun  Causeway  Shuffle Chess  5 Lines  Quizmaster

RatRun: 

RatRun was a game I devised some ten years ago. Buoyed by the results of some limited research, I created RatRun in an effort to rekindle the spirit of the family fun games of the 1970's. This was the period that saw games such as Mouse Trap, Frustration, Kerplunk, Buckaroo and many others appear and I believe this was the high point for this type of game. Many that have followed however, have never really had the popularity of the early offerings and the most likely reasons are the rise of the computer game and the fall in the number of people that want to play games as a family. I felt that RatRun could perhaps reverse the decline in the fortunes for this type of game and a prototype was built in the late 90's and a patent granted three years later. Aimed at both children and adults, the game has been refined over the years to a point where it has become an enjoyable, fun and sometimes challenging game to play. The unique gameplay allows all ages to compete on level terms while keeping the tension going until the very end.

Causeway:

Fantasy based game in which players build causeways in a bid to reach a castle in the middle of a swamp. Join up with other players causeways and issue challenges which can see opponents cast into the swamp.

Shuffle Chess:

At first glance, this chessboard looks like any other. However, look closer and you will see that each square (except four) has a transparent tile over it. These tiles can be shuffled around the board along with any playing pieces sitting on these tiles. This adds a whole new dimension to any game played on the board.

5Lines:

I produced 5 Lines when games such as Pictionary were popular. Where 5 Lines differs from these games is that in 5 Lines, players pick a card on which is written the object they must draw. They then have to draw this object using just five of the allowed lines. The time from taking a card to their team guessing the object is taken. The team with the lowest total time at the end of the game wins.

Quizmaster:

A few years ago, I was part of a team in a Pub Quiz. I realised that many other teams were using mobile phones to look up answers on the internet, which is not really in the spirit of the game. I thought that a "fastest finger" type format could be applied to such quizzes, which would make cheating all the more difficult. However, having a button on each table would entail a hazardous amount of interconnecting wiring. That's when I had the idea for the wireless system featured here which I call "Quizmaster". Each table is given a base station and the quizmaster a master unit. Each base contains a radio transmitter and the master unit houses a multichannel receiver. Hitting any base will send a signal to the master unit which will indicate which base was hit. However, if multiple bases are hit, the master unit will only indicate the first base hit. Thus that team can be asked a question. A button on the master unit allows the quizmaster to step through the bases in the order they were activated if required. The prototype featured here has only four channels. A production version would have many more.