This invention relates to apparatus for playing a game. In one embodiment the apparatus includes a game board. The game can be played solely for entertainment, or can be used as a promotional game associated with shops, particularly grocery supermarkets.

According to the invention, there is provided apparatus for playing a game, the apparatus comprising one or more substrates, printed representations on the substrates of fragments of packaging material of a size which makes them capable of identification by those familiar with the packaging material as a whole, and means for recording the identification of fragments by players of the game.

In a second aspect, the invention also provides apparatus for playing a game, the apparatus comprising a game board forming a substrate, a plurality of printed representations on the substrate of fragments of packaging material; and means associated with each printed fragment by means of which a piece of packaging material can be secured to the substrate, after identification of the fragment, at the position where the printed fragment lies.

The substrate may be one or more pieces of paper or card. The pieces may be of a paper-based material or of a plastics-based material. It is most likely that the pieces will be flat, but it is within the scope of the invention for them to be of a three-dimensional shape.

The means for securing pieces of packaging material to the substrate may comprise a moisture activated adhesive or a pressure sensitive adhesive. In the case of a pressure sensitive adhesive, the adhesive may be protected by a

backing layer until it is to be used. Alternatively the means for securing may be cuts or slots made through the material of the substrate so that the packaging material can be held in the slots or cuts. The substrate may be of a double thickness construction so that pockets can be formed behind the printed representations in which fragments of packaging material can be securely received.

The board may also have space on it for a player's name and address to be written and other space for promotional material of the game promoter.

The board will be used to play a game in the following way.

A shopper entering a supermarket will be given a game board on which a number, for example 25, of fragments of packaging materials of different products will be printed. The printing may be in black and white. The fragments will be chosen so that they can, after some investigation, be matched up with the packages from which they are derived, on the shelves of a supermarket. Thus, the fragments may contain one or two letters from a name, but will not include a whole product name. The fragment may additionally or alternatively include a part of a logo or other pictorial or other visually distinctive element from packaging.

The shopper then has to identify the product from which the printed fragment is taken, purchase that product and then cut out the equivalent fragment from the products packaging and attach it to the game board at the position where the printed fragment appears.

When the shopper has identified all the products and has

attached samples of their packaging to each printed representation on the board, the completed card can be returned to the promoter who will offer some prize. The prize may for example be reductions on further purchases at the store.

In a third aspect, the invention provides apparatus for playing a game, the apparatus comprising a plurality of cards, printed representations on one side of each card of fragments of packaging material of a size which makes them capable of identification by those familiar with the packaging material as a whole, the name of the product from which the fragment is derived on the other side, and means for each player to store separately cards identified by that player, to record how many fragments have been identified by that player.

The game is played by one player taking a card from a stack and presenting the face of the card with the fragment to one of the other players, for that player to identify. If that player successfully identifies the fragment, he keeps the card. If he does not, then the next player is given the opportunity to identify the fragment and so on around all the players (except the one who originally took the card who will have seen the right answer on the back of the card) .

The cards may have 'clues' printed on their reverse side, and the clues can be 'purchased' by the player trying to identify a particular fragment. Each player may have a predetermined quantity of money to purchase clues, and must make best use of this money during the course of the game to maximise the number of cards identified.

The apparatus can include money tokens or can include a

bank card on which each player's expenditure during that game is noted. This bank card can be a wipe-clean card which can be cleaned and reused for subsequent games. The card can have separate printed account lines for each player.

The winner of the game will then be the person who has acquired the most cards by correctly identifying fragments on cards.

The game can end when all the cards in a set have been presented to the players, or when all players have used up all their money. The game can however continue with cards being presented a second time to those players who still have money, as they may decide strategically not to purchase clues on a particular card first time around, and to save their money for a later round.

The invention will now be further described, by way of example, with reference to the accompany drawing, in which:

Figure 1 is a perspective view of a game board in accordance with a first embodiment of the invention,-

Figures 2 and 3 show details of two alternative attachment means for use with the board of Figure 1;

Figure 4 shows a perspective view of a set of cards for use as part of a second embodiment of the invention;

Figures 5 and 6 show opposite faces of a typical card from the set of Figure 4; and

Figure 7 shows a bank card for use as part of the second embodiment of the invention.

The board of Figure 1 comprises a substrate 10 capable of accepting printing. The substrate may be thin or thick paper, thin or thick card, plastics sheet or other materials.

As shown, the substrate 10 has a four by four grid 12 printed thereon, and in each square of the sixteen squares in the grid there is printed a representation 14 of a fragment of a product package.

The fragments 14a, 14b, 14c, 14d and 14e show some examples. The printing may be in black and white , to make it more difficult to identify the actual product packages, or may be in colour.

The substrate 10 also has a border space 16 on which any desired printing can be placed, and a space at 18 where the person playing the game can insert their name and address or other details.

The game requires that the player actually obtains a sample of packaging which matches the printed fragment 14. A piece of the product packaging which matches the fragment is then secured to the substrate 10 above the printed fragment 14.

A number of different mechanisms can be used for securing the piece of actual packaging to the substrate 10, and two alternatives are shown in Figures 2 and 3.

Figure 2 shows a printed representation 14 of a packaging fragment 14 with an actual piece 20 from the corresponding

product package held in place by inserting corners of the piece 20 through arcuate slits 22 formed through the thickness of the substrate 10. It will be appreciated that, when the board is manufactured, and before it is used, the slits 22 will be punched but not opened out so that the board will remain in a flat condition. The user can however open up these slits to enable a piece of the actual packaging to be inserted and retained.

Figure 3 shows a situation where a printed representation 14 of a packaging fragment has two strips 24 of pressure sensitive adhesive placed on the printed representation. These strips are preferably covered with a backing sheet when the board is ready for use, and the backing sheet can be removed when the game player is ready to stick a packaging piece 20 to the board.

The strips 24 should be small enough so that they do not obscure the printed representation 14 to any significant extent.

The invention is in no way limited to these two possibilities for securing a packaging fragment to the board, and other alternative mechanisms are mentioned below, by way of example.

The board may be supplied with self-adhesive material which is initially separate from the board, so that the player takes one piece of the supplied material to attach each packaging piece to the board.

In another embodiment, the whole surface of the board may be covered with a "moisten to activate" adhesive so that the user can just apply moisture to each square of the grid 12 when the packaging piece is to be attached.

The board may alternatively be entirely covered with a transparent pressure sensitive adhesive with a transparent backing layer which is die-cut to allow the backing sheet to be lifted off individually from individual squares of the grid 12.

In yet another alternative, the board may be of laminated construction, with the front, printed face having apertures and the rear face covering the aperture so that a pocket is formed between the front and rear faces in which packaging pieces can be retained.

If the board is moulded from a plastics material, it may be possible to incorporate moulded-in clips or to use separately provided, even paper clips in order to clip packaging pieces to the board.

The game board described here is particularly suitable for use as a promotional game connected with shopping, wherein the packaging fragments are all taken from packages to be found in a particular shop.

The board layout does not have to be in the form of a grid or indeed of a regular array at all. The board can be printed in any desired manner; for example the overall layout of the board may be similar in outline shape to that of a shopping trolley, with the printed representations being printed within the outline of the shopping trolley. If desired, the external contour of the board can be shaped to convey any suitable visual message.

Figure 4 shows a box 30 containing a set of individual cards 32. Each card 32 has a front face 32a with a picture 34 on it, this picture representing a fragment from a package for a consumer product, for example a

grocery product. The fragment will normally be printed onto the face of face 32a of the card, and normally no wording will be included in the fragment, although there may be an individual letter or letters included in the fragment.

Figure 6 shows the reverse side 32b of the card. A line of print 36 at the bottom of the card gives the name of the product from which the fragment 34 is taken.. At the top of the card, under numbers 1, 2 and 3 are written clues which can be offered to the person trying to identify the fragment 34 to help them in their identification. Typically obtaining clue 1 can cost the person trying to identify the fragment £1, and provides a low level of assistance, clue 2 costs £2 and provides a higher level of assistance and clue 3 costs £3 and provides a great deal of assistance.

Figure 7 shows a bank card 38 set up for use by a game played by four players. There is a track 40 for each player, and each time a player "buys" clues, the appropriate number of units are marked off on their track 40. It will be seen from Figure 7 that the different players have spent different amounts on clues at a particular stage in the game.

The game will normally be played by one player being the question master and the banker. The banker will, in turn, take cards from the end of the set 32 and show to the first player the side 32a of the card with the fragment 34. That player will try to guess the name of the product to which the fragment 34 relates. If the player can identify the product immediately, he or she takes that card and keeps it. If they are not able to identify the fragment they can ask for a difficult, moderate or easy

clue and in that case the banker will charge their account (by putting an X on their account track 40) the appropriate price.

It will be clear that any cost units can be used, as desired.

If the first player is still unable to identify the fragment, the same process is continued with the next player, and so on.

When a fragment has been identified and the card has been passed to the player who makes the correct identification, the next card is taken out and is presented to the next player in sequence.

All the embodiments of this invention make use of the common theme of identifying fragments of packaging and relating them to specific packaged products. A player wins by successfully identifying as many of the fragments as possible.