"Marek Reavis" wrote: So, Edg, what toys have sparked from your fire? Playful minds want to know.
Marek, Geeze, I've got hundreds of ideas, and most of them cannot be detailed herein because they've not gotten to retail and might turn a profit for me or my kin down the line. But, let me tease ya. In my box of secrets, I've got: 1. A non-electric gizmo that stores up to a dozen photographs -- each of which is instantly viewable by a mere slight shift of the hand holding the device. 2. I've got a device that is merely two sheets of plastic with meaningless smudges on them, but overlay them, and a photo appears....a neat secret decoder thingy that also might have serious security uses. 3. Geo-Quest Card Game that teaches about geography and animals. 4. Aha -- a card game that a four year old can play with almost the same skill that an adult would have -- as much fun for mom and dad as the kid. 5. A game that makes doing samyama fun. 6. Artificial intelligence programming concept that I haven't seen bandied in the literature yet, which would have many game applications. 7. A game in which the players are involved in a mad frenzy -- a melee in which all players are playing all the time with their hands grabbing and discarding objects in rapid fire fashion that requires that each player watches what the other players are doing more than what they are doing. 8. A maddening updating of the game of hide and seek where all the players are running around like mad and then suddenly freezing for a few seconds and then running like mad again. One player just stands there and smirks. 9. Wind chimes for inside -- that work on the slight air currents found indoors. 10. A construction set that has many pieces that are all identical but from which many objects can be created -- but each object is like a jigsaw puzzle and must be "solved" in order to be constructed. 11. A game that only can be played by folks who truly are in love because it is so sweet and intimate -- non-sexual but it cannot be played if any non-lover is observing. 12. A game like Scrabble and Risk combined -- gotta spell, gotta conquer, but a ten year old might beat an adult. 13. A stamped plastic object that one looks at until one sees famous faces in it.....several. 14. A 3D playing board with grooves that allows game pieces to be slid around in a territorial competition for dominion. 15. Eight strips of paper which can be woven into a pot-holder sized mesh that yields a geometric shape -- Hundreds of shapes to achieve, each shape a puzzle to figure out how to achieve it using the same strips. 16. A three piece puzzle device into which three images can be programmed. Tens of thousands of ways for the three pieces to be combined, but only three of those orientations yields an image. Patented. 17. A jigsaw puzzle with pieces that are photos of everyday objects which have been cut-out along their outlines. These pieces then are used to create a large image by interlocking with each other ala Escher-esque tessellation. Lions and tigers and bears and washing machines and bikes and telephones and ANYTHING are used to create a photo-realistic image by snuggling with each other. 18. A jigsaw puzzle in which all the pieces are not used unless one has completely solved the puzzle, but if there are pieces left over, doesn't matter because the image is still formed. The amount of pieces left over is inversely proportional to one's I.Q. 19. A card game in which one determines one's I.Q. while in competition with others doing so also. 20. Boo -- a haunted house treasure search game. If you see a ghost, you're in trouble, if another player sees your ghost, he's getting closer to winning. Ideas that got to retail are: Bite Lite -- a small fuzzy creature that bites onto a child's pajama lapel and hangs on with tiny monster teeth -- a child's friend who also has a tiny flashlight attached for revealing if there truly are monsters in a dark bedroom. Celebrity Notebook Game -- players try to be actors who by tone of voice deliver their lines such that a precise "target meaning" is created. The other players must guess the meanings. The more the audience is correct, the more points for the actor. Hex a Box -- a few puzzle pieces that can form a certain pattern, but there's millions of wrong ways to put the pieces together. Omni Jigsaw puzzle -- a set of jigsaw puzzle pieces that can form not merely one image but any image. The retail version of it had seven images that could be made from the pieces, but in reality, any image could be created by them. Users would buy separate instructions for additional images. Whew, that's enough. Don't get me started bragging about all the Internet services I've imagined that are just laying around -- hundreds of them just waiting for passion, time and money. I've got two human powered vehicle concepts collecting dust too. Then there's all the video games I've imagined. There's several dozen 900 phone line ideas somewhere in a folder -- but the 900 line business is dead. Ideas -- dime a dozen. Success -- sweat, risk, time, and lots of luck needed. I might as well toss in my great American novel while I'm at it. Have written only one chapter -- a decade ago -- sigh. It's about the birth of God. Edg
