Two years ago, Upper Falls resident Max Gelbert was home from Syracuse University for the winter break when Deb, a lifelong family friend, came by for a visit and showed him a stack of handmade playing cards. She was playing around with a new concept for a word game. Max’s first reaction was “no thanks,” since he’d never been very good at Scrabble and games of that ilk. She said, “No, this is something totally different. It’s very fast and is all about short simple 3- and 4-letter words.” They began playing, and he was quickly hooked. Says Max, “It sort of reminded me of a word-based version of Spit, a card game I grew up with. Its very fast and tends to be uproarious playing – bam, bam, bam!”
Over the past two years, the two friends slowly fine-tuned the rules and details of the game and then decided to bring it to market as a real game. They designed the logo, the slick packaging, the cards themselves, and the website (PlaySpellio.com).
They worked with manufacturing companies to manufacture the cards and the very slick carrying case with a wrist strap. Last ,January they were ready to go and launched the game.
From his testing the game over many months with all different sorts of people, Max knew that adults overwhelming loved it. One unanswered question though was how young could you be and still be able to enjoy it?
Max took Spellio to Mason Rice School to talk to one of his favorite teachers from elementary school. He was hoping to get a sense of the youngest age that kids could be expected to be able to play. They took a group of 2nd graders, told them the rules, and in minutes they were hooting, slapping cards down, and having a blast. Max said he left the game with them and has heard from the teacher that the kids always love to get a chance to play it.
Spellio is available for $19.95 at PlaySpellio.com. Fig City News readers can get free shipping (usually $4.95) by entering UpperFalls as the discount code on the checkout screen.
