Patent Application
20110062664
This invention relates to the field of games, and more particularly board games.
Several travel board games have been put forth by the prior art. They include:
U.S. Pat. No. 4,961,582 to “Geographical Travel Game” is directed to a travel game of western Europe which focuses on the sites of interest in various European cities.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,139,266, to “World Tour Board Game” is directed to a travel game which utilizes a bean bag toss to accumulate funds to finance the trip.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,932,666 to Corle, entitled “Method of Playing a Travel Board Game” is directed to a travel board game which covers the United States.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,121,549, to Levine, entitled “World Geography and Culture Based Game and Method.” This game comprises question cards for each country which pertain to the culture of that country. If answered correctly, the player wins a “stamp”. The first player to get stamps to all countries, wins.
Although several travel games have been put forth by the prior art, none of the prior art games are directed to or include infectious diseases of particular countries, their prevention and treatments.
This invention provides a board game wherein the board represents a map of the world and each of several countries are visited by the players. The countries are identified by infectious diseases, and the players are challenged to identify the appropriate treatment.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a travel game wherein the players are challenged to avoid or treat infectious diseases found in particular countries of the world.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a teaching tool for players to learn about and challenge their knowledge of infectious diseases of the world and appropriate treatments therefor.
To play the game. each player is initially given twenty dollars of play money and at least 10 treatment cards and 4 travelers. All treatment cards are dealt at the beginning of the game. Travelers can be represented by plastic animals, or other tokens.
The game board consists of a world map with selected countries having assigned numbers. The first player is determined by any means.
To begin play, the first player rolls the dice and places her travelers on the map on any country or combination of countries with numbers totaling the number rolled. Each country has a number. Beginning the count with country number one, the player places her travelers on the board. The player can put more than one traveler on a country at one time. For example, if a player rolls a twelve, she can put one of her travelers on country number 12, or she can put one traveler on country 4, two travelers on country 3, and one traveler on country 2. One can also land all of their players on the same country, but they risk loosing all of their players thus forfeiting their game.
The player draws a card corresponding to the country landed on for each traveler. The player must answer the question correctly to continue to the next traveler. All answers are contained in an “answer book.” If the player answers questions correctly for each of her 3 travelers (without the aid of treatment, wild or vaccine cards), he or she can take one more turn. On the other hand, if a question is answered incorrectly, the traveler contracts the disease and the player must draw from the stack of “Wild cards” or from the stack of “Vaccine cards.” If the player has an appropriate Treatment card, the player may use one of his or her “Treatment cards.” If a player does not have the appropriate Treatment card, Treatment cards can be traded or bought from other players. The traveler is unable to leave that country until an appropriate solution or treatment is achieved. The first player continues in this way for all four of his or her travelers. The play then continues to the second player. The player who succeeds in bringing all 4 of their travelers around the world first, wins. There are a total of 23 countries. Traveling around the world consists of visiting or moving past all of the countries.
One of the players starts the game with an infectious disease, as noted on one of the treatment cards. This card can be passed off to another player's traveler by landing on a country where that traveler has landed. The newly infected traveler must go to the nearest hospital. Going to the hospital means missing one turn for that traveler. After missing a turn, the traveler then returns to the game and can now pass off their disease to another traveler.
The game board is a representation of a map of the world showing numbers on the countries to be visited. The hospitals are designated by the letter “H”.
The Answer Book is attached hereto as Appendix “A” and is entitled “Answer Key.”
Although this invention has been described with respect to specific embodiments, it is not intended to be limited thereto and various modifications including interactive and stand alone computer versions, which will become apparent to the person of ordinary skill in the art are intended to fall within the spirit and scope of the invention as described herein taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and the appended claims.
17: CHAD. Is malaria a concern in Chad
19: ANGOLA. Is malaria a concern in Angola
Tick-borne encephalitis
16: NIGER. I need protection against yellow fever and malaria
18: SUDAN. Is malaria a concern
21: All of the above
22: JAPAN. I have something affecting my brain.
None of the above
Erik the Viking decided to name it as such to attract more settlers
Tick-borne encephalitis
17: 17: CHAD. Is malaria a concern in Chad
19: ANGOLA. Is malaria a concern in Angola
16: NIGER. Preventative medicine needed.
Yellow Fever vaccine and malaria prophalaxis
18: SUDAN. Is malaria a concern
All of the above
Yellow Fever
