Return to revision history

Wikitext

HTML

WEDNESDAY 4 MARCH 1970 63rd day - 302 days to come

Felicia called at the office. Arnold Shapiro will be there tomorrow at 10:30. I will join them at 11 and Felicia will take us to lunch. I'll bring SPELLBINDER and WHAT'S IT WORTH TO YOU?

Alex Randolph called and apologized for hanging up on me. He was ex- pecting someone just at that time. He told me of his successes so far. Parker is definitely taking TOTOPLAY and will put it out in a plastic model for the mass market and a luxury wooden set. They are considering ROUND THE CLOCK and WAR LORDS. Hank Simmons is considering DAEDALUS and POT (which I be- lieve is the word game previously called TOO BAD). 3M is quite interested in GOOD KNIGHT. I [crossed out] told Alex that Bill Caruson was thinking of putting out a CHESS set in a bookshelf game; they have rcd. a number of requests. They are con- sidering also adding Alex' MAD MATE in the same package. Creative Playthings is considering OFF COURSE. I told Alex that I expected to see him next year with another batch of games. He said that what he brought this year was 2 year's work. Tom Atwater was out and I asked Alex to have him call me. He didn't . In the evening I called Alex again. He had spoken to Tom about finding a foundation for me. No specific reaction yet. Tom will be in New York on non-game business Friday and Alex gave me a New York number to reach him in Concord tomorrow. Thought of a new idea for FITTING AND PROPER - finallized it that is since I had the idea before. Use an 8 x 8 array of holes, and 36 pegs, and 16 pcs. of the shape as shown. 4 of them have [drawing of L-shaped piece composed of 4 squares] 3 holes, the 4 possible arrangements. The other 12 have 2 holes, 2 each of the 6 possible arrangements. The 16 pcs. can easily be placed upon the array. Then pegs can be placed matching the holes in the pcs. After the pcs. are removed the puzzle is to replace them. Several layouts can be supplied with the set, consisting of holes in a cardboard square for locating the pegs. As a game the pegs are set for a layout, or they can be placed at random, even if a solution is not possible. Players in turn choose any unplayed piece and place it in a proper position. Last to play wins. A variation is for each player to take 8 pieces, 6 of one 2-hole set and 2 of the 4 hole pieces - chosen by one player dividing them and the other chosing the two he wants. In the variation if a player can continue playing after the opponent is finished he rcs. extra points.

Rcd. a FOCUS order from the old SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN article.

Thought that the name for the new FITTING AND PROPER could be CONSTANT CHALLENGE.