Variably scored skill game

A skill game for home or promotional use in stores or in fast food restaurants that provides a player with a degree of self-determination and provides an inducement to perspective customers. The score is dependent on the player's skill and his confidence in his answer. This game provides a variable scoring system where each additional clue which is revealed reduces the score of a correct answer.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION 
The present invention is directed to a game, particularly a game of skill. 
While the game is applicable to use as a contest between two or more 
players, it is most advantageously employed as a promotional game in the 
field of consumer sales. 
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
Contest games have often been used in the retail sales area, and in a 
variety of ways. Games are used, for example, in the fast food industry as 
an inducement to perspective customers to patronize a particular 
establishment or chain of establishments. In such a use, the prizes 
awarded are generally the products purveyed by the particular 
establishment, as well as, or in addition to, cash, trips, or other 
merchandise. 
One application of the invention is for promotional purposes. The most 
important aspect of a promotional game is control of the prize winner. The 
promoter must be guaranteed that there will be only one ultimate winner. 
In the prior art, the primary method of assuring that there would be a 
single ultimate winner was to incorporate chance. Thus, in the prior art, 
a manufacturer would produce a limited number of winning pieces and a much 
larger number of losing pieces. 
Games have frequently been used in the promotion of consumer products, 
either to increase the sales of a particular brand because of the 
inducement provided by the prizes available through successful completion 
of the game, or as a means to introduce a new product. For example, U.S. 
Pat. No. 4,756,532 to Kamille describes a game with a playing surface 
having two fields of play. The first field of play provides a plurality of 
multiple choice questions, each of the choices being identified by a 
symbol. The second field of play combines the symbols identified in the 
first field of play to provide an answer to a question or inquiry there. 
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
An object of the invention is to provide a multiplayer skill game in which 
the player is faced with a choice as to where the game ends, wherein 
winning is dependent on a player's skill, and the score is dependent on 
the player's confidence level. 
Another object is incorporating a scoring system by which the prize winners 
of a promotional game can be limited. 
The invention includes: 
A game with a playing surface having one or more playing fields. One of the 
playing fields has a player response area. For each playing surface, there 
exists a designated elicited response. One or more clues are printed on 
the playing surface, and the clues are each related to the elicited 
response in some way. 
The inventive method includes: 
A method of playing a game including reading a clue on a playing surface 
and marking a response that is analytically determined to parallel an 
elicited response. 
An alternative embodiment includes: 
A skill game with multiple playing surfaces, each having one or more fields 
of play, a player response area, one or more clues, an elicited response, 
and a scoring system.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS 
Referring to the accompanying drawings, wherein like reference numerals 
designate identical or corresponding parts throughout the several views 
and more particularly in FIG. 1, a playing surface or card 12 is provided 
with a single field of play including a player response area 13 with a 
number of letter spaces 6 which corresponds exactly to a the number of 
letters required to spell an elicited response. The card also has printed 
on its face four clues 1-4 to that elicited response; each clue is covered 
with a removable concealing material. 
The game as illustrated in FIGS. 1-6 is a game of skill with an element of 
discretionary risk, but without a factor of chance or predetermination. A 
player takes up a game piece as shown in FIG. 1 and immediately is given 
an indication of the elicited response. The correct response will contain 
the same number of letters as the number of spaces 6 provided in the 
player response area 13. In FIG. 2 a clue has been revealed by removing 
the concealing material to provide the player with both a word prompt 7 
and a letter prompt 8. Therefore, the player might mark an answer into the 
player response area 13 knowing that; the elicited response has some 
relation to the word prompt 7 and contains the letter prompt 8 somewhere 
amongst its letters. Alternatively, the player may reveal another clue. 
The player is faced with a choice of entering a response based on the 
information already presented by the first clue 4 or, the player may 
reveal a second clue as shown in FIG. 3, however, each clue that is 
revealed reduces the point value of this card so it is to the player's 
advantage to make a determination as soon in the game process as possible. 
FIG. 3 shows a game card 12 wherein two clues have been revealed, again a 
player must make a decision whether to enter a response or reduce the 
point value of the card and reveal further clues as shown in FIGS. 4 and 
5. Finally, in FIG. 6 the player enters a response 9 which the player 
hopes will parallel the elicited response based on the relation of the 
word prompts 7 and letter prompts 8 and the space prompt 6. In an 
alternate embodiment, the number of clues can be extended to match the 
number of letters in the response so that at some point the entire 
response is revealed with the game piece still maintaining some point 
value. Again, referring to FIG. 1 as a player collects more and more game 
pieces he may choose to guess at a response based on the number of spaces 
6 provided, thus not requiring a first clue 4 to be revealed. 
FIG. 7 shows an alternate embodiment, including a free letter 11 either 
instead of the space prompt 6. In another alternate embodiment, both a 
free letter and space prompt could be used. FIG. 7 also provides a printed 
category 10 to help the player to focus on a particular subject area. FIG. 
8 shows clues 1-3 revealed and a response 9 written in by a player. 
The word prompts 7 can be either descriptive words, synonyms, neumonics 
that trigger an association or counter-association to a player or 
predetermination of a winner by random selection or, as show in FIG. 8 
above, the clues can make up a sentence to described an elicited response. 
Another alternative embodiment is shown in FIGS. 9-12 wherein a category 
designation 10 is covered by a removable concealing material, and the 
clues 1-5 are individual inquiries each with a player response area 6. In 
this embodiment of the game, the player can reveal and answer the 
inquiries sequentially or randomly. This embodiment is scored based on the 
number of correct answers. As in the above embodiments, there is no score 
if any response is incorrect. 
Another alternative embodiment includes a scoring system which incorporates 
the suits, face characters and numbers of an ordinary card deck. 
Another alternative embodiment includes a scoring system which allows the 
player to collect a set such as the fifty states wherein each of the 
questions represents a state and up to five states are available on each 
card. 
This invention has successfully eliminated chance, while maintaining a 
factor of self-determination that puts the fate of the player under his 
own control as opposed to being subject to a random event. This ability to 
effectively wager on one's skill without being subject to chance is a 
great advance over the prior art. The scoring system includes the 
provision that only correct responses receive any score and the score for 
each game piece is dependent on the number of clues that have been 
revealed in whole or in part. An ultimate winner is assured by providing 
that the largest point total wins. Ties can be broken or the prize 
divided. Alternate embodiments could include picture clues in addition to 
or in place of word prompts and letter prompts. 
In game surfaces the present invention are to be employed in a promotional 
type of game, and obviously, they will be single use type of playing 
surfaces; i.e., the playing surfaces submitted to some agency who collects 
and tabulates the scores. On the other hand, if the playing surface or 
cards are to be used in a contestant-type of game, it may be desirable to 
form the cards of washable type surface, so that, once the answers and 
scores are tabulated, the answers can be wiped off of a card and the card 
reused. Obviously, whichever type of game the playing surfaces or cards 
are employed in, there will be a plurality of such cards, each containing 
different questions and clues and the degree of difficulty can be varied. 
Obviously, many modifications and variations of the present invention are 
possible in light of the above teachings. It is therefore to be understood 
that within the scope of the intended claims the invention may be 
practiced other than as specifically described.