Home » Toy Articles » PRACTICING LAWYERS INVENT EXCITING NEW "STRATEGY MEETS TRIVIA" BOARD GAME IN THEIR SPARE TIME
PRACTICING LAWYERS INVENT EXCITING NEW "STRATEGY MEETS TRIVIA" BOARD GAME IN THEIR SPARE TIME
Two young Los Angeles, California attorneys have managed to accomplish their dream of creating an exciting new board game and are now trying to bring their new game, Brain Chain, to a retail store near you.
/Toy PR News/ - LOS ANGELES, CA, February 01, 2006 - Have you ever wondered if lawyers have enough spare time to do something creative, such as writing a book or designing a board game? Two young Century City lawyers have managed to accomplish the latter and are now trying to bring their new game, Brain Chain, to a retail store near you.
Brain Chain combines strategy and trivia in an exciting fast-paced family game that everyone can play. The creators are Alicia Vaz of the real estate firm of Cox, Castle and Nicholson, LLP, and Scot Blackburn, a sole practitioner, specializing in civil litigation. Vaz is a 2001 graduate of Boalt Hall and Blackburn is a 1996 graduate of Pepperdine Law School. Both are full-time lawyers who love playing games in their spare time.
Vaz and Blackburn are selling their game at a few local stores and on the internet at www.BrainChainGames.com. They are also in the process of marketing their game to national retail stores. 'We've had a lot of people express interest in the game and we're excited about the opportunities,' says founder Scot Blackburn.' Once their game takes off, will they keep practicing law? 'I love the law,' says founder Alicia Vaz, 'so I could never give it up.' But Blackburn would limit his practice to pro bono clients, 'I am really a gamer at heart and when we are successful in this, I will give up my most of my paying clients - although I would still love to work on pro bono cases . . . and for gaming clients like ourselves.'
Vaz and Blackburn came up with the idea behind Brain Chain while playing one of the leading trivia games on a flight from Los Angeles to Dallas. 'We were frustrated with the level of difficulty of the questions,' Vaz remembers, 'we couldn't believe that we were educated and well-read and were still lucky to answer a third of the questions correctly.' The attorneys realized that even when one player was able to answer several questions in a row, that player was no closer to winning unless he or she happened to randomly be on the correct space on the game board. An easy question from a difficult category or a lucky roll of the dice often decided the outcome. 'We should make our own game,' Blackburn remembers his flippant comment like it was yesterday. Vaz quickly agreed. And the rest is history . . . and science, and sports, and geography . . . ten trivia categories to be exact.
After close to two years of designing, playing, evaluating, and redesigning dozens of prototypes, they finally brought their ideal "trivia meets strategy" game to life. Vaz and Blackburn began taking their paper-mache prototypes to bars, coffee shops and parties and inviting people to play with them - and a crowd never failed to join a team and gather around the board. Inevitably, players and observers alike would begin asking when Brain Chain would be in stores and how they could purchase a copy. Encouraged by this response, the lawyers began to research what it would cost to have their game manufactured, they marshaled their money, hired question writers, an artist and a website designer. It took another year but they managed to have Brain Chain produced and began selling their new game on the internet at www.BrainChainGames.com.
You'd think a game created by two lawyers would have a law category, but not this game! 'We wanted a game that everyone could play and excel at,' says Vaz, 'so we shied away from including a law category even though that is what we know about the most.'" "Too many trivia games," adds Blackburn, "make smart people feel stupid by employing difficult and trick questions. We tried to eliminate these while still finding questions that trivia buffs would enjoy. Brain Chain has also introduced two novel categories that have really drawn their customers' attention and affection: Business and Oddball.
Most of their customers did not think they would be good at the Business category, but according to Blackburn, "our reviews indicate it gets dad and grandpa excited to play with the rest of the family and most of our customers find that it is not as difficult as you might think."
The "Oddball" questions require players to determine what three items have in common and pick out the "Oddball" -- much like the old Electric Company television show game -- except more challenging and sometimes, funnier! Here are some examples:
Question 1: Teddy Bear, Heartbreak Hotel, Hound Dog, Yesterday?
Question 2: Leonardo DiCaprio, Susan Sarandon, Kate Winslet, Billy Zane?
Question 3: Date, Malibu, Palm, Venice?
Question 4: Crash Davis, John Dunbar, Wyatt Earp, George C. Scott?
Ready for the answers? In number 1, Yesterday was not an Elvis Presley song [title], Susan Sarandon is the correct answer for number 2 because she was not in [the 1997 movie] Titanic, number 3's correct answer is Date because is not the name of a [famous] beach, and Geoge C. Scott is the correct answer in number 4 because he was not a character played by Kevin Costner.
Meanwhile, in between trials and conference calls, Vaz and Blackburn continue working to bring their game to the retail market. 'We're in contact with a lot of distributors,' says Blackburn, 'but we haven't found quite the right one yet. We're still looking for just the right way to make Brain Chain a success and have it carried by retail stores around the country.'"
Alicia Vaz is an associate at Cox, Castle and Nicholson and may be emailed at AVaz@BrainChainGames.com. Scot Blackburn runs his own firm. His email address is SBlackburn@BrainChainGames.com.
Brain Chain is available on the internet at
www.BrainChainGames.com
Brain Chain Games, Inc. is a California Corporation and the exclusive distributor of Brain Chain, the strategy-rich trivia game. Brain Chain Games, Inc. also holds and maintains all intellectual property rights in Brain Chain.
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Press Release Contact Information:
Scot Blackburn
Brain Chain Games. Inc.
President
Los Angeles, California
USA
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