US3165318A - Word game apparatus comprising game boards, game pieces and a rack therefor - Google Patents

Description

1965 F J. LISSANDRELLO 3,165,318

WORD GAME APPARATUS COMPRISING GAME BOARDS, GAME PIEcEs, AND RACK THEREFOR Filed May 17, 1963 3 Sheets-Sheet l VIA F IQ INVENTOR Fkebemc n 3. AN DRELLO J n- 1965 F. J. LISSANDRELLO 3,165,318

WORD GAME APPARATUS COMPRISING GAME BOARDS, GAME PIECES, AND RACK THEREFOR Filed May 17, 1963 3 Sheets-Sheet 3 INVENTOR.

F'zeuamcs: I LISSANDRELLO HTTOQNE VS United States Patent WORD GAME APPARATUS COMPRISING GAME BOARDS, GAME PIECES AND A RACK THERE- FOR Frederick J. Lissandreilo, Eon 13423, RE. 1, Catskill, NY. Filed May 17, 1963, Ser. No. 281,184 2 Claims. (Cl. 273148) This invention relates to the general field of educational and amusement devices and more specifically, the instant invention pertains to a competitive game involving word construction.

One of the primary objects of this invention is to provide game apparatus for use by a plurality of competitors in the formulation or spelling of words through the use of letter game pieces provided by chance to each competitor or player.

Another object of this invention is to provide a unique letter game piece rack to afford means for the collective stacking of the game pieces.

A further object of this invention is to provide a plurality of game boards, each game board being divided into a plurality of compartments of such size as to receive therein a single game piece.

Still another object of this invention is to provide game boards of the type described generally above, together with means to support the same at an inclined angle relative to a horizontal supporting means.

It is a still further object of this invention to provide a game piece rack together with means permitting the stacking of the game boards therein when the latter are not in active use.

Still further, this invention has as an object thereof, the provision of compartmental game boards and a pinrality of playing pieces having alphabetical indicia disposed thereon, the pieces being adapted for positioning on the board in such order as to spell out various words.

This invention has, as still another object thereof, the provision of game apparatus of the type described which will provide education and amusement for both children and adults.

This invention contemplates, as a still further object thereof, the provision of game apparatus of the type described, the apparatus being non-complex in construction and assembly, inexpensive to manufacture and maintain, and which is durable in use.

Other and further objects of this invention will become more manifest from a consideration of the following specification when read in conjunction with the annexed drawings, in which:

FIGURE 1 is a perspective view of a game piece rack and a game board stacking device, including, in perspective, a plurality of game boards and game pieces positioned for active play, all in accordance with this invention;

FIGURE 2 is a top plan view of the game piece rack and of the game piece boards as stacked therein;

FIGURE 3 is a transverse detail, cross-sectional view,

FIGURE 3 being taken substantially on the horizontal plane of line 33 of FIGURE 2, looking in the direction of the arrows;

FIGURE 4 is a detail cross-sectional view, FIGURE 4 being taken substantially on the vertical plane of line 4-4 of FIGURE 1, looking in the direction of the arrows;

FIGURE 5 is a front perspective view of a game board together with certain game pieces disposed thereon; and

FIGURE 6 is a perspective view of one of the game pieces.

Reference numeral 10 designates, in general, game apparatus constructed in accordance with the teachings of ice this invention. The game piece and game board rack 10 is seen to comprise a substantially rectangular base plate 12 having a centrally-located substantially rectangular opening 14 formed therein. The base plate 12 may be formed of plastic material or any other suitable material, as desired.

Projecting laterally and upwardly from the base plate 12 are a plurality of upright side walls 16, 18, 2t) and 22 having a substantially rectangular configuration. As is seen in FIGURES l, 2 and 3, the side walls 16, 13, 2t) and 22 are substantially perpendicular to the base plate 12 and the adjacent ends of the side walls are preferably integrally connected therewith. Each adjacent pair of ends of the side Walls are also integrally connected and are disposed at right angles with respect to one another. As is shown, side walls 15, 18, 20 and 22 form a continuous panel designated, in general, by reference numeral 24.

Projecting laterally from each side wall 16, 18, 2d and 22;, respectively, are a plurality of T-shaped dividers 26 that are integral therewith and with the base plate 12 from which they laterally and upwardly project, and which are also integral therewith. Each of the dividers 26 includes a substantially rectangular stem 28 to the outer edge of which is integrally connected a crosshead 30. The crossheads 3t) are also of rectangular configuration.

The stems 28 on each side Wall 16, 18, 2t) and 22 are parallel to one another, and the crossheads 30 thereof are perpendicular to the stems 28 and are aligned with one another in longitudinally-spaced relation.

Each of the side walls 16, 18, 20 and 22, at their longitudinally-spaced opposed ends, is integrally connected with a substantially L-shaped retainer plate 31 that is also integral with the base plate 12 at the lower end thereof from which it upwardly projects. Each retainer plate 31 includes an upright substantially rectangular leg portion 32 which is parallel to the immediately adjacent stem 28, and a foot portion 34 extends toward and is aligned with the immediately adjacent crosshead 30.

Each adjacent pair of dividers 26 and each adjacent divider 26 and retainer plate 31 form therebetween conipartments 36 having open front faces and upper ends, and each compartment 36 serves as a rack for one or more playing or game pieces 38.

Each of the playing or game pieces 38 is substantially rectangular in configuration and has imprinted, embossed, or otherwise afiixed to oneor opposite sides thereof, alphabetical characters, as is indicated by reference numeral 49. Preferably, but not necessarily, the same alphabetical character is carried on the opposed sides of each playing piece 38.

It will be noted that twenty-eight compartments 36 have been provided on the game board, and in each of the compartments 36, respectively, is stacked sixteen playing or game pieces 38 with the game pieces 38 in each rack hav ing imprinted thereon one of the twenty-six letters of the alphabet. This utilizes twenty-six of the compartments 36. One of the remaining of the compartments 36 has stacked or racked therein another set of sixteen playing or game pieces 38 having only the letter A thereon, and the last of the compartments 36 has stacked or racked therein sixteen of the playing or games pieces 38 having the letter E thereon. Thus, there is provided a total of four-hundred-forty-eight playing or game pieces 38 of which thirty-two carry the letter A and the same num ber bear the letter E.

The apparatus 10 includes a plurality of substantially hollow rectangular game boards 42 formed of a plastic or of other desirable materials, each of the game boards 42 comprising a substantially rectangular base wall 44 which has one side (back side) provided with an inwardly-extending, substantially hollow rectangular pocket 4-6 defined by a first pair of oppositely-disposed spaced area-31s lel legs 66*, 52 which terminate at their respective upper ends in diverging aligned arms 64, as. The arms s4, 66 are received for pivotal movement within substantially hollow and oppositely-disposed pockets 6%, 7% (see FIGURE 2) formed in the side walls 43, 59 adjacent the upper side wall 52. The bights 53 normally rest upon a playing support surface '72 such as, for example, a card table (not shown) when the standards 55 have been withdrawn from their respective pockets 4s and the boards 42 are disposed in playing position in the manner illustrated in FIGURE 1.

Each of the playing boards 42 has provided on reverse or front side thereof a continuous integrallyformed. peripheral flange 74, and the front side of th base wall .4 is also provided with a plurality of laterallyprojecting, intersecting, horizontal and vertical divider strips '76, 73 having a substantially rectangular configuration and which are integrally connected with one another at right angles with respect to each other to provide a plurality of substantially rectangular compartments designated, in general, by reference numeral 81), having such dimensions as to loosely receive one of the rectangular playing or game pieces 35 therein with the alpha betical characters thereof facing outwardly.

As is shown in FIGURES l and 5, the game board 42;,

through its dividers 76, 73 is partitioned into a plurality of horizontal and vertical rows of six of the compartments Gil giving rise, in checkerboard fashion to a total of th' ty-six playing compartments 3%. For purposes to be described, the outer edge of the flange 74 which extends downwardly from the upper left-hand corner of the game board 42 as viewed in FIGURES land 5 is colored for 21 length of five of the compartments 8'9, the colored edge being designated atWlA. The horizontal divider strip MA has its outer edge also colored and extends horizontally acrossfive of the compartments 8% The vertical divider strip 78A also spans five of the com-.

,partrnents 8t and the horizontal portion of the flange 74- at the upper end of theleft-hand portion thereof is also colored as denoted at 748 and extends horizontally across ifive of the compartments 89, Thus, it is seen that the colored portions of the flange Maud of the divider strips 75, 73 encompass and outline a playing board having a total of twenty-five of the compartments 8%.

When the game boards 42 are not in use, the standards 56 thereof are pivoted into their respective pockets 4-6 and the game boards are then inserted within'the cavity 82 (see FIGURE 1) defined by the continuous panel 24 and the base plate 12 with the front faces of the playing boards 42 preferably facing downwardly.

The game apparatus lit, when set up in playing positions, as shown in FIGURE 1, contemplates competition between three competitors, but the game may, be played with from two to five players. The object of the game is to spell out as many words horizontally and vertically as possible through. the judicious placement of three or more successive ones of the playing or game piecesread ing from left to right, or top to bottom, as viewed in FIGURES 1 and 5. One of the game boards shown in FIGURE 1 illustrates the arrangement of playing or game pieces 38 in'the horizontal and vertical rows of compartments dd embraced within the square bounded by the colored edges 74A, 74B, 76A and 78A, or, optionally, there is also shown in FIGURE 1 a game board 42 having playing or game pieces 38 arranged in horia zontal and vertical compartments bounded by the flange 64 and which, in the arrangement shown, spell two siziletter words. Under either system of play, to score, a player attempts to arrange his playing or game pieces 33 in such manner that three consecutive letters in each horizontal or vertical'row of compartments 8% form a word, and subsequent game or playing pieces 38 may b added thereto in successive plays to form words having four, five, or six letters therein,all depending upon the selected game.

Thus, in a five-letter game, as illustrated at the lefthand side of FIGURE 1, the first three horizontal lines reading from top to bottom spell the words THIRD, RADIO, and AVIEW, and the final horizontal line reads KNOLL. The term ,CENEE doesnot form a known word and hence, cannot bescorechper se, but since it includes the consecutive letters NEEfit may be scored as a three-letter word. i a

Reading downwardly and frornleft tolright, it is seen that this game board is arranged to spell out the words TRACK, HAVEN, andFBSWELJ The expressions IDINO and REBEL- do not form known words consisting of five letters and'hence, cannot be: scored. However, since the second, third and fourth; letters of the expression IDING form the three letter word DIN, this word may be scored. As will be seen, the final three letters of the expression Rll-EEL?" form the known three-letter word BEL, and as suchymay also be scored. f T

Also shown in FIGURE )1 is a game board42 set up for six-letter competition. As illustratedtherein, the upper horizontal row of compartments are provided with playing or game pieces 33 so arranged anddisposed as to spell the word STROLL, and the pieces 38 disposed in the vertical compartments St? at the'left-hand side of the game board 'dfi'spcll the six-letter word SIRING.

To play the'instant game; andassuming that'thegarnc racks and boards have been set up on a suitable support surface 72 in the manner illustrated in FIGURE 1 with all of the playingor game pieces disposed in-their respective compartments :36, preferably, a plurality of the game pieces 33 being arrangedin each of the game racks or compartmentsil e and having but'a single alphabetical character, a first player will remove a plurality of game or playing pieces 33. Assuming that four competitors are engaged in playing the-game, each'playe-r, in succession, will select founiden'tical alphabeticalrcharacters or playing pieces 38 *fronrtheir respective racks 36 and will keep one, while passing the others, singly, to his opponents. Each player then, in turn Willplace the dealt playingor game pieces 38 arbitrarily in a selected one of the compartments fall, Al llfil the piece has been disposed within one of the compartments so, the position thereof cannot be changed in subsequent plays. The playing or; game pieces 38 are continued to be dealt by each player in turn until, it the five-letter game is being played, each player has received and placed in thecornpartments so of the game board 42 as bounded by the colored boundary'strips, twenty-five of the, gameaorplay ing pieces 38. If the game is to be that of'the, six-letter type, then of course, each player will-bedealtthirty-six separate pieces. a

When all of the compartments lit} for the five or sixletter'gameshave been filled withthe gamepieces 38 by each player, the'points accruedvby each player are scored-as follows: 7 y r l a 1 V In the five-letter word game each word; of five letters is scored '10 points. Each four-letter word scores 5 points, and each three-letterword is valued at 3 points. Thus, andtreferring to'the game board asshown in FIG- URE 1 setup for thefive-lettenword game, the word THIRD gives the player 10 points, as do; the word RADIO, and fKNOLLF the word AVIEW scores 5 points, and the word CENEE is rated at, 3 points.

T 16 6 e he words whic, appear when the game bomd For the word TRACK he will score 10 points, as he will for the words HAVEN and DOWEL. For the word DIN in the expression IDINO, and EEL in the expression RIEEL, he scores 3 points each. Thus, the player has scored a total of 74 points.

i A little different scoring is employed when playing the six-letter game. Since it is a little more difficult to conceive of six-letter words, and taking into consideration the fact that the playing or game pieces 38 are arbitrarily placed on the game boards 42 as the same are dealt to the individual players, each six-letter word is given a score value of 20 points. Thus, referring to FIGURE 1, the board set up for the six-letter word contest spells, horizontally, the Word STROLL and vertically, the word SPRING. The fortuitous placement of these letters as dealt to the player has enabled this player,

base plate having a central opening formed therein and a continuous panel projecting laterally from a side thereof and cooperating with said base plate to form a cavity,

a plurality of substantially rectangular game boards I of said cavity, a plurality of' spaced divider means proin eleven plays, to score a total of 40 points, each sixthe five-letter Word game or the six-letter word game has been completed, the game or playing pieces are emptied from the playing boards 42 and each letter is returned to its respective compartment in the rack.

A complete game is composed of rounds. A round has been defined above, and there must be, in each game, at least one or more rounds corresponding to the number of players. -Thus, if there are two opponents, the

game will include two rounds, or more, with three players, three rounds-or more, with four players, four rounds or more, and with five players, five rounds or more.

This system enables each player to be the first in dealing out the letters and totbe the first in play. To play first has a definite advantage because in all cases the first player will get one'more play than the others, except when there are five players.

When all of the rounds have been played, all scores are totaled, and the winner is decided. Thus, one player who may lag behind in the earlier rounds, may be the eventual ,WiHIlI if he finishes strong. 1

Having described and illustrated one embodiment of this invention in detail, it will be understood that the same is offered merelyby'way of example, and that this 1. A game apparatus comprising, in combination, a

jecting laterally from said panel and away from said cavityand upwardly'from said base plate, said divider 1 means cooperating with said panel and said base plate of constantly abutting said panel and said divider means.

2. A game apparatus comprising, in combination, a game .piece and game board rack, said game board rack including a normally horizontal substantially rectangular base plate having a central opening formed therein and a continuous panel projecting from a side thereof to form a substantially rectangular cavity, a plurality of sub stantially rectangular game boards stacked Within said cavity, said game boards each having dimensions substantially equal to the length and width of said cavity, a plurality of spaced divider means projecting laterally from said panel in a direction away from said cavity and upwardly from said base plate, said dividers, said panel and'said base plate forminga plurality of substantially rectangular game piece-receiving compartments having v of said compartments.

game piece and game board rack, said game board rack including a normally horizontal substantially rectangular open upper ends and opening toward the outer periphcry of said base plate, each of said divider means comprising a substantially rectangular panel extending from said base plateto substantially the upper peripheral edge of'said panel and from said panel to the outer peripheral edge of said base plate, a substantially rectangular crosshead fixedly secured to the outer edge of each of said divider panels and saidbase plate, each of said crossheads extending partially across each of the open sides of a pair of adjacent compartments and a plurality of playing pieces each having a substantially rectangular configuration and stacked 'in said compartments intaceto-face relation, said playing pieces having substantially the same length and width as corresponding dimensions References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 28,733 Brooks Julieta, 1860 3,073,601 .Baillo' Jan. 1s, 1963 I DELBERT B. LOWE, Primary Examiner.

Claims (1)

1. A GAME APPARATUS COMPRISING, IN COMBINATION, A GAME PIECE AND GAME BOARD RACK, SAID GAME BOARD RACK INCLUDING A NORMALLY HORIZONTAL SUBSTANTIALLY RECTANGULAR BASE PLATE HAVING A CENTRAL OPENING FORMED THEREIN AND A CONTINUOUS PANEL PROJECTING LATERALLY FROM A SIDE THEREOF AND COOPERATING WITH SAID BASE PLATE TO FORM A CAVITY, A PLURALITY OF SUBSTANTIALLY RECTANGULAR GAME BOARDS STACKED WITHIN SAID CAVITY, SAID GAME BOARDS BEING SUPPORTED ON SAID BASE PLATE, SAID GAME BOARDS EACH HAVING DIMENSIONS SUBSTANTIALLY EQUAL TO THE LENGTH AND WIDTH OF SAID CAVITY, A PLURALITY OF SPACED DIVIDER MEANS PROJECTING LATERALLY FROM SAID PANEL AND AWAY FROM SAID CAVITY AND UPWARDLY FROM SAID BASE PLATE, SAID DIVIDER MEANS COOPERATING WITH SAID PANEL AND SAID BASE PLATE TO FORM A PLURALITY OF SUBSTANTIALLY RECTANGULAR GAME

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