Amusement devices: games – Board games – pieces – or boards therefor – Piece moves over board having pattern
Patent
1985-04-08
1987-04-21
Pinkham, Richard C.
Amusement devices: games
Board games, pieces, or boards therefor
Piece moves over board having pattern
273288, 273282, 273287, A63F 300
Patent
active
046590862
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
This invention relates to apparatus for playing a game.
The present invention provides apparatus for playing a game comprising a board and at least one piece that is a concave polyhedron and has a plurality of vertices that coincide with the vertices of a notional regular polyhedron the faces of which polyhedron are capable of tessellating a plane surface.
Although it would be possible to play a game using only one playing piece of the aforesaid form it is preferred if the apparatus comprises at least two of the said pieces to enable two or more players to play a game using the apparatus.
To ensure that the said playing pieces can sit on the board by virtue of three or more of the said vertices being in contact with the board and without any other contact between the playing piece and the board it is of advantage if the piece nowhere projects outside the volume bounded by the said notional polyhedron.
The board is preferably marked out with polygons adjoining one another side-to-side and at least some of the polygons on the board are of identical size and shape to the mirror images of respective ones of the faces of the said notional polyhedron, the polygons being so arranged on the board and the notional polyhedron being such that the piece can be rolled without slipping on the board with at least two vertices in contact with the board at all times in such a manner that whenever three or more vertices of the piece are in contact with the board a face of the notional polyhedron coincides with a polygon of the board.
The polygons of the board preferably form a repeating pattern.
Advantageously, the playing piece is a regular concave polyhedron. It may then be a great dodecahedron or a great icosahedron, but preferably it is a small stellated dodecahedron as hereinafter defined.
Throughout this Specification the term "small stellated dodecahedron" denotes the concave polyhedron commonly known as such and reputed first to have been devised by Johann Kepler, which has twelve interpenetrating faces each in the form of a pentagram, and twenty vertices each in the form of a pentagonal pyramid, and the edges of which are the diagonals of a notional convex icosahedron, other than those diagonals which, when the icosahedron is regular, are diameters of a notional circumscribed sphere.
The arrangement may be such that when the piece is rolled on a tessellated board in accordance with the invention not all of the faces of the notional polyhedron can coincide with polygons of the board, or not all of the polygons can coincide with faces of the notional polyhedron, or both.
Advantageously, each of the playing pieces is provided with a plurality of facets having distinctive identifiable characteristics. The identifiable characteristics may be in the form of markings such as symbols or numbers but preferably they are provided by areas of selected colours. It is particularly preferred if each of the facets is a different colour. If the playing piece is in the form of a regular concave polyhedron such as a small stellated dodecahedron then each of the said facets is preferably a face of the polyhedron.
If the board is marked out as a tessellation of the said faces of the notional polyhedron, the playing piece can sit on the board with each of its vertices in contact with the board being arranged at a respective vertex of one of the tessellae--which may, for example, be in the form of a triangle--on the board. To prevent movement or disturbance of the playing piece when positioned on the board it is preferred if the vertices of the tessallae are provided with a recess or hole for receiving a vertex of the playing piece. If the notional polyhedron is a regular polyhedron, the board is preferably marked out with the corresponding regular tessellation.
Because some of the faces of the playing piece, when in position on the board, will be obscured from view it is preferred if the playing board has a mirrored surface.
The apparatus may include other playing pieces ("secondary pieces") different from the aforesaid playing piece or
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patent: 286352 (1883-10-01), Ward
patent: 1552354 (1925-09-01), Stanage
patent: 2199719 (1940-05-01), Brothers
patent: 3642286 (1972-02-01), Moore
patent: 3779554 (1973-12-01), Brix
patent: 3887190 (1975-06-01), Ameri
Pinkham Richard C.
Schneider Matthew L.
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