Tribond

"Tribond" is a popular board game distributed by Mattel. It asks the question - "What do these three things have in common?" Players try to guess the "common bond" between the three clues. It follows in the tradition of "Trivial Pursuit", "Outburst" and other popular adult boardgames that require a wide range of knowledge but "Tribond" requires some problem solving ability as well.

History

"Tribond" was invented by Tim Walsh, Dave Yearick, and Ed Muccini. The idea first came to them in 1987 while they were students at Colgate University.Fact|date=July 2007 The inspiration came when they learned that John Haney and Ed Werner, who invented "Trivial Pursuit", had also attended Colgate. They wanted to invent a game that provided an intellectual challenge but also had a broader appeal than games of straight trivia questions that had been very popular in the 80's.Fact|date=July 2007 Within two years, they had their first prototype of "Tribond" and were ready to market the game.

Initial marketing for the game was difficult. Parker Brothers, Mattel, Tyco and several other game companies all turned "Tribond" down.Fact|date=July 2007 At the time they were working with Patch products to manufacture the game. Tim Walsh talked them into hiring him on as a marketing manager to sell "Tribond". With some clever promoting techniques they were able to sell around 150,000 copies of "Tribond" in 1993. By 1996 "Tribond" had sold over a million copies.Fact|date=July 2007

Since its release, there have been four major releases of "Tribond":

*"Tribond" (Original) (1993)
*"Tribond Diamond Edition" (1998)
*"The Best of Tribond" (2001)
*"Tribond 2005"

The Game

The main feature of the game is the "Tribond" "Threezer". This word was invented by the maker of "Tribond" to describe the three word clues the players must analyze and determine what all three have in common. Some of the threezers are not difficult while others are quite challenging. The threezers originally came in four different categories listed below.

*Entertainment
*Sports and Recreation
*Academics
*Miscellaneous

With the "Tribond 2005" release, the Miscellaneous category was removed and some new categories added. Listed below are the 2005 categories.

*Entertainment
*Academics
*Wordplay
*Loose Connections
*Sports

"Tribond" can be played by individual players or teams. Each game comes with 12 game pieces, three for each team. The gameboard is unusual, being triangular and has three start and finish tracks that go around each corner of the board with 17 spaces for each track. All players place each of their three game pieces on the starting points for each track. Two dice are used, one being a regular, numbered die and the other a category die. A player rolls the dice and one of the opposing players will read to them the threezer for the category they rolled. If they are able to guess the common bond they will advance one of their game pieces the number of spaces rolled on the numbered die and continue playing until they answer incorrectly. This rule changed with in the 2005 version to 'one question, one turn'. Unless the player lands on a challenge square, it is the next teams turn regardless of whether or not they answered correctly.

If the player lands on a green challenge square they can 'challenge' another player who's ahead of them in one of the three tracks. In the first version of "Tribond", the card would identify which of the four categories would be the challenge treezer. Starting with the 2005 Edition each card lists an additional challenge threezer along with the other categories. A third player will read the challenge threezer to the challenger and the player he challenged. Whoever shouts out the correct answer first wins the challenge. If the challenger wins, he gets to swap places on the board with the other player. The only reward for the other player if they win the challenge, is they get to keep their spot. Challenging is not always practical. If the player is ahead on all three tracks, which may be the case if the game is just starting or the player is having a really good game, there is no point in offering a challenge to another player.

The first player or team to move all their game pieces around the tracks wins the game.

External links

* [http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa081097.htm?terms=tribond Interview with Tim Walsh] at about.com
*bgg|1962|"Tribond"