1. Technical Field of the Invention
This invention generally relates to construction toys, construction toy bricks, construction toy blocks, construction toy games, board games, sport board games and American Football board games.
2. Description of the Background Art
According to various history sources, games predate written history and are considered a vital part of humans' social evolution. The competition inherent in participating in, or in playing, games has fascinated people since they realized survival was indeed a competition. This basic premise has evolved over time. In today's society, many every day common events, as well as very peculiar manufactured situations have formed the underlying basis for various games. This is demonstrated by the ever-growing popularity of television game shows, including reality-based game programs.
Historical records show that a board game which appeared similar to checkers was found in the ruins of the city of “Ur” (today's Iraq) and was dated to about 3000 B.C. As we know it today, the game of checkers dates back to 1400 B.C. Other popular board games such a Monopoly® and Scrabble® were brought to the public in the 20th century (1933 and 1948 respectively).
American society's fascination with board games resides, at least in part, on the fact that most successful board games seek to imitate human experience within a fantastic setting. The most commercially successful board games allow the player(s) to step outside of their every day lives into a fantasy world while playing the game. A similar principle controls the fascination of many people with sports, especially professional sports. Sport figures, such as American Football players and their accomplishments in the field, represent to many their own unfulfilled fantasies.
The immense popularity of American Football in the U.S. combined with well known and extensively documented game rules, make it an ideal sport to form the basis of a successful board game. Games that simulate various aspects of American Football are well known and have been disclosed numerous times. Today's technology has allowed a great proliferation of various forms of computerized American Football games playable in personal computers or hand-held devices. Those games, by requiring auxiliary electronics, screens, monitors, batteries, electrical hookups or other devices are not encompassed by this invention, which is concerned with a completely mechanical arrangement with simple magnetic components.
Gonzales U.S. Pat. No. 5,332,215, Charles U.S. Pat. No. 5,451,050, Godwin U.S. Pat. No. 4,173,346 and Conti U.S. Pat. No. 3,888,485 are rather limited examples of the type of American Football board game to which the present invention pertains. None of the examples found while reviewing the prior art involve construction toys.
Many construction toy-based inventions have been disclosed and marketed. The most common variety of construction toys comprises a plurality of brick elements having protrusions and recesses to allow connection with one another. Over the years, multiple variations of this theme have been disclosed. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,545,070 by Liu, discloses a construction toy set wherein once connected with each other, block elements can be turned relative to one another by swivel connectors. In another example of the development of construction toy technology, U.S. Pat. No. 6,086,444 by Glickman discloses a block-type construction toy wherein the protrusions and recesses are negatively tapered providing for a tactile sensible snap action which provides a secure assembly.
By being assembled substantially using construction bricks and figures that can be attached to construction bricks, and in light of its novel and useful features, as it is disclosed herein, the game of this invention opens up a vast array of doors to the user not available in the prior art. The game of this invention provides flexibility of play and settings, educational value, strategic possibilities and stimulation of cognitive and coordination skills far superior to any other game disclosed in the prior art.
In light of the inherent disadvantages and lack of flexibility in the known American Football board game apparatus of the prior art, the present invention provides a construction toy American Football board-type game in which the player uses a game board and accessories laid out with all the features one would find in a real American Football field. The construction toy bricks and pieces of this invention comprise figures representing the different teams, players, referees, spectators, cameramen, and various accessories typically found in a football field such as goal posts, balls, removable face masks, and the construction toy bricks and other components necessary to assemble an American Football stadium comprising bleachers, a sky box, a score box, a camera assembly and two goal posts. The player figures can be engaged to a construction toy base which in turn sits on the playing board. Alternative embodiments of the invention allow the user to use a limited portion of the game board to play simplified versions of the full game, such as a football throwing game or a football kicking game.
A prime objective of this invention is to provide a board American Football game arrangement in which construction toy bricks of numerous colors, shapes and sizes can be used to assemble a simulated football stadium to be placed adjacent to the emblazoned game board.
Another objective of this invention is to allow the user of the American Football game board of the invention to choose among several alternative game playing moves. A dice is used to determine the game parameters such as the alternate play opportunities and the extent to which the ball can be advanced. The game of this invention comprises a manual which provides the user with all the rules of the game involving player movement, running, kicking, scoring and time limits. The game of this invention also comprises a construction instruction booklet that shows all the different construction brick pieces, assembly instructions to engage the pieces to build an American Football stadium and accessories.
Another objective of this invention is to provide a construction toy American Football game with rules which are designed to approximate the rules of conventional American Football, within the particular game setting.
Another objective of this invention is to provide player figures that can be engaged to the playing field to form offensive and defensive lines. A player figure so designated being able to have a play football attached to it as illustrated herein below, to advance the play football across the playing field via a throwing means comprising a mechanically-actuated arm equipped with a mechanism that allows the user to pull the arm back, hold it in place and urge it in a direction and angle chosen by the user. Another player figure being able to kick the playing ball or to score “field goals” via a kicking means comprising a mechanically-actuated leg equipped with a mechanism that allows the user to pull the leg back, hold it in place and urge it in a direction and angle chosen by the user. The quarterback and kicker figure can be angled by changing the relative angles of the torso and legs to regulate the angle and distance of the throw or kick.
Still another objective of this invention is to provide a plurality of player figures designated as receivers and defenders which are fitted with receiving means in order to catch the playing ball being thrown by the throwing player figure or being kicked by the kicking or punting player figure. The receiving means can be incorporated into the receiver or defender player figures or can be a removable shoulder protection pack adapted to those figures.
Finally, an objective of this invention is to provide a playing ball equipped with means to attach itself to the receiving means. The ball's means to attach itself comprise a magnetic metal core of opposite polarity from the catching means, such magnetic metal core being covered with an appropriate magnetic conducting material.
The present invention resides not in any one of the specific structures and objectives set forth herein above per se, but rather in the combination of all of the invention's features for the functions specified. There are additional features of the inventions that will be specified hereinafter and/or illustrated by the drawings attached hereto. Those skilled in the art to which the invention pertains will appreciate the flexibility offered by the present invention in that the conception upon which this application is based, may be utilized as the foundation for designing and building other structures, arrangements, methods and systems for carrying out the multiple purposes of the present invention. It is therefore important that this disclosure be regarded as including such equivalent arrangements insofar as they do not depart from the scope and spirit of the invention as disclosed herein.
With reference now to the drawings, and initially to
Primary to those elements is the game board 1, which as shown, comprises an American Football playing field game board 1a drawn or printed on a foldable cardboard or any other flexible surface. In its preferred illustrated form, the playing field comprises multicolor drawings with spaces to place a stadium, goal posts and multiple playing figures as game pieces as illustrated in
As shown in
As shown in
The playing board of the invention is complimented by the provision of upstanding goal posts 1b, and sufficient construction toy bricks and parts for the user to build an American Football Stadium comprising bleachers, 1c, spectator boxes with spectator
In order to make the game of the invention as realistic as possible, certain player figures are provided with mechanisms and tools which allow the game's user to reproduce the function that a football player in the specific playing position would perform. As illustrated in
As illustrated in
The playing ball of the invention is equipped with means to attach itself to the shoulder protection pack receiving means as illustrated in
As shown in
The game of the invention is typically played between two teams. Each team must try to score the most points to win the game. Points can be gained in three different ways: (1) Scoring a touchdown which is achieved by having the receiver player catch the ball in the game board's end zone of the opponent's team to score 6 points; (2) Kicking a field goal which is achieved by having the kicker figure kick the ball between the opponent's goal post, passing over the lower bar to score 3 points; and (3) Kicking the ball (as in point 2) after scoring a touchdown (as in point 1) to score an extra 1 point.
The game can be played in two different ways. A user of the invention can play the game by the time method, which requires the user to set a time (e.g. 60 minutes) in which to play the game and have a time measuring device ready to time and check when the game is over. Using this method the winning team is the one with the most points after the agreed upon time is up. Alternatively, the user of the invention can use the point's method. Under this method, the users preset a number of points to score (e.g. 18). The team who gains that number of points first is the winner.
A typical kit of the game of the invention contains all the elements needed to play the football game in a very realistic manner. The elements in a typical game kit comprise: a game board, two quarterback figures; two kicker figures; multiple core-magnetized game balls; four receiver figures (used for offense and defense, equipped with magnetized removable shoulder packs); fourteen defense/offense figures (not equipped with magnetized shoulder packs); one dice for advancing the offensive running figures; one 10-yard marking device; building instructions for the construction of a football stadium; and construction toy bricks used to build the football stadium.
The best way to grasp the unique and realistic characteristics of the present invention is to describe some typical plays in light of the rules of the game. The game can be played by two users or two teams of users. Play is initiated by rolling the dice. Each of the two users rolls the dice once. The user with the highest score plays first. The dice has positive and negative numbers. If both users roll a negative number then the highest negative number is the winner. For example “−5” wins over “−10”. Any positive number always wins over a negative number. The user playing first will be playing on offense. The offensive user must line up its players across its own 35-yard line facing the opponent's goal. The offensive user must place its quarterback
The offensive user must decide whether it wants its quarterback to run, throw or kick a field goal, and it must announce to the other user what it wants to do. If the quarterback is to throw, then the offensive user can place its two receivers anywhere down field as shown in
In order to advance on the game board, the offensive user must then use the quarterback figure to throw the ball to one of the receiver figures as illustrated in
If the ball is not caught then the steps described above can be repeated up to a total of three times. In order to continue playing offense, the offensive user must cause the line of scrimmage to be moved forward at least 10 yards during the three attempts or downs. If it does not the defensive user takes over on offense, 35 yards towards its own goal from the last line of scrimmage. Subsequently, the now offensive user has all the options and is subject to all the rules described above for offense.
An interception takes place when a pass from the quarterback figure misses the receiver and is caught by a defensive figure. The user that was playing on defense when an interception took place automatically takes over possession of the ball and becomes the offensive team at the point of interception (new line of scrimmage). The user that was playing on offense becomes the defensive team.
If the offensive user decides that the quarterback figure will run instead of throwing, this is done by way of rolling the dice. The line of scrimmage moves in accordance with the number of yards shown on the dice (e.g. if the dice shows a “+10” the line moves 10 yards towards the defensive user's goal, but if the dice shows a “−5” the line moves 5 yards back towards the offensive user's own goal. If a “0” is rolled the line does not move at all. Each roll of the dice counts as one down.
Each time the line advances 10 yards in, then the offensive user automatically restarts with a fresh set of three available downs.
Touchdowns (worth 6 points) can be scored by the offensive user if its receiver figure catches the ball in the defensive user's end zone, as shown in
The line of scrimmage is defined as an imaginary line between the offensive and defensive figures. The game of the invention is equipped with a yard marker which the users can place at the original line of scrimmage and should only be moved when 10 or more yards are gained within three downs. The new imaginary line between the offensive and defensive figures then becomes the new line of scrimmage where the game users should place the yard marker.
I hereby claim the benefit under Title 35, United States Code Section 119(e) of any United States Provisional Application(s) listed below: Application No. 60/336,543Filing Date: Oct. 25, 2001.
Number | Name | Date | Kind |
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593512 | Hahalane | Nov 1897 | A |
1145955 | Wittstein | Jul 1915 | A |
1954838 | Woolsey et al. | Apr 1934 | A |
3091459 | Lindman | May 1963 | A |
Number | Date | Country | |
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60336543 | Oct 2001 | US |