Introduction

More from QT GAMES: After designing Minotaur Madness and tinkering around with several other designs, I decided to create a game with mainstream appeal - not a party game, but something with short rules, fast play, solid graphics and a nice Wow Factor. The result was Color Confusion, a game I am very excited about and will pursue commercially. As with all QT Games, Color Confusion sports characters living in a somewhat crazy and detailed world. While I didn't write short stories about the world of Confusion like I did with Minotaur Madness, Confusion has a colorful cast of characters and supporting personalities, and I may yet tell some of their tales - perhaps as cartoon shorts!

A family fantasy boardgame for 2-4 players, the original Color Confusion boardgame included about a dozen monsters with some zany combat techniques. The game board sported four adventure areas that promised treasure, but also threatened to slow the players down as they raced toward their goal. There are less monsters now and the rules have been tightened, making the game a faster play, and I think ... more fun. The graphics have been improved as I have evolved as an artist. When I attended GAMA many years ago, everybody was hiping "tactile sensation" - people just love to touch things, roll dice, use cards, and Color Confusion had all this. While it's lost a little in the tactile department in order to push the game into a more marketable position, it's still a pleaser in that department. The concepts are fun and begging for a cartoon based on the world of Color Confusion. While I may at some point do a comic strip (or flash strip) based on this world, that will have to wait until I finish polishing the rules. My goal has been getting gameplay resoloved in under an hour. So far its right at about 75 minutes, but no one's really complaining. Overall, the response to the game has been very favorable and I have a feeling my latest update will go over even better. Keep an eye on this page for the latest news on Color Confusion!

Did anybody "important" ever see Color Confusion?

Yes! I took the game to Gen Con one year and ran demos of the game. Several companies asked me to send them a prototype - among them Chessex, a dice maker who was, like TSR, toying around with doing boardgames. Turned out they were very much just "toying around." The Chessex rep. that asked me to submit the game left the company, and Color Confusion languished on a shelf until I inquired about it several months later. Someone found it and returned it unopened. Like my earlier games, Color Confusion is cartoony, but full color and the graphics were solid. Like Chessex, yet another company rep invited me to send in Color Confusion for playtesting, but switched companies, without following up. Another employee found the game and returned it, explaining when I inquired why it was never opened, "It looked cartoony. We don't do kids games here." (They must have been talking about my box art, because it was unopened).Well, it certainly is cartoony, but the game is for ages 8 to adult, with the average playtester age over 30. Oh well, their loss!

Two guys in suits who perhaps thought they were "important", hounded me the whole time I was at Gen Con, trying to get me to sell them the actual prototype for $100, but they wouldn't tell me what company they were with, if any, or why they wanted it. Needless to say, I politely sent them on their way. On the last day of Gencon, I spotted one of them alone, and on a whim, asked why they wanted Color Confusion, and he told me exactly what I expected - they were hoping to put it on the market. He said they go around to conventions and try to buy games they think will sell well. He told me this with a straight face and unashamedly. Wow. Nice guys ...

One person who just loved the game was LESTER SMITH, who was at Gen Con and allowed me to demo the game for him using their demo pavillion. A huge crowd gathered and it was all very exciting. Mr. Smith offered to write a review of the game should I decide to self publish, something I wasn't too keen on at the time. He said that his company was fully entrenched in Lejendary Journeys, Gary Gygax's role-playing game, and wasn't looking to do any fantasy boardgames. Still, his enthusiasm encouraged me. Shortly thereafter, Mr. Smith designed a game called DRAGON DICE for TSR, which while quite different than Color Confusion, used very similar game pieces. Unfortunately, my game pieces, like the ones in Dragon Dice, were expensive to make and have since been dumped. I am by no means suggesting that Mr. Smith (a great guy by the way) was trying to steal my idea. Ideas are funny things - they are just floating around. Five times so far, (four were games) I've discovered inventions very similar to my own either on the market or advertised as "coming soon". I've heard this isn't unusual in the game business, and I'm not surprised. In fact, it's because this isn't unusual, that many game companies won't even look at your game without you signing a form stating that they may come up with a game that is similar to yours, but you won't get any money, because it is just a coincidence. Like I said, ideas are funny things. Still, I can't help but wonder if Color Confusion had an impact on the dice games industry ...

TSR took a peak at Color Confusion several years ago, but they returned it after a brief review, thanking me for the submission, but stating it "doesn't fit our current marketing direction." I'd heard that before, and I wasn't expecting much from them since they'd struggled to make money off boardgames in the past. A few companies gave me some good advice - redesign the game pieces - a part of the game that really excited a number of companies, but required expensive molds (i.e. significant upfront money). A couple of companies showed interest, but said they couldn't afford to make the molds for the game pieces.

I've since redesigned certain elements of the game and yes, the game pieces. Color Confusion is now very market worthy, but I will playtest it some more before approaching companies. I only wish the companies I demoed this game for at Gen Con would have seen this latest version!