Hi,
I recently started thinking about producing one or more of the games ive created over the years, and i started reading the forums here and a few other forums/resources to find out how to go about it.
Of course i was actually looking for supplies of materials to put the game/games together, but i hit a worrying brick wall that is THE PATENT.
Ive got some nice ideas (we all have lots of those dont we?), some of which i think may be at least mildly different, some ive not heard of at all.
My worry is creating a game that conflicts with a patent or copyright that i had no idea existed, i get the impression there are tons of patents in regard to board games.
Yes i could probably hunt down a way of searching for patents (not sure how yet) but how do you trawl through the billions of patents that exist (for all kinds of things) to locate something that may or may not conflict with your idea/game mechanic, if you didnt know it existed in the first place?
Is this a pitfall in general with board game creation? am i gambling every time i produce something that i might get sued for all my worldy possessions because i didnt know a patent existed?
Really just those 2?
part of one of my game includes the use of counters that stack up - ie each player's cash
i was thinking the obvious thing was to use poker chips for this, coloured based on their use.
I got the impression that maybe poker chips themselves were a patented object?
I must admit im pretty green when it comes to this sort of thing, and since i was considering self publishing for the start its obviously a worry
A stack of cards that one is picked from when an event happens, and certain cards that are taken from a pack each turn for each player - these arent patented mechanics?
As for simultaneous turns, the game i was looking at has all of the players declare their actions at the beginning, in whatever order of the player who declares first (not important), until everyone has declared. then the players follow a certain order to play through all their turns
strangely enough a counter was going to be passed from player to player to show whose go it currently is but there is no element of players getting more turns becuase they pass it onto another player quicker (there is only one counter - a bit like a talking stick)