Word Games with Lettered Balls

Abstract

A word-spelling game has a first set of a fixed number of balls as playing pieces, each of the balls in the first set bearing either one, two, three, four, six, eight, or twelve letters of the English alphabet, every ball in the set bearing the same number of letters. In the first set, each of the letters of the English alphabet, except two letters that each may be changed to another letter by rotation of a ball, appears once on a ball in the first set, and a player places balls side by side on a support surface, with letters on the balls all facing in a common direction, to spell words in a game.

1 . A word-spelling game, comprising:
 a first set of four or six balls as playing pieces, each of the balls in the first set bearing six or four, indicia, each indicia representing a letter of the English alphabet, respectively, every ball in the first set bearing the same number of letters, each letter spaced on the surface of the balls as to not overlap with another letter, all of the letters of the alphabet represented in the first set, wherein two of the indicia each represent two different letters of the English alphabet;   a timer; and   a support mat having a plurality of circular indentions each for supporting a single one of the balls, individual ones of the indentions at least arranged adjacent to each other in a linear array;   wherein, the first set of balls is distributed to each of a plurality of players, the timer is set and begins to count down time, and each player physically places the balls in the circular indentions in a line in order to display specific letters in a sequence, enabling the formation of a word or words in the linear array prior to the timer finishing the count down.   
     
     
         2 . The word-spelling game of  claim 1 , wherein the two letters that are represented by a single indicia are any two of M, W, N, Z, U, C, H, I, A and V. 
     
     
         3 . The word-spelling game of  claim 1  wherein the balls in the first set all have a common diameter, from 30 mm to 200 mm inclusive. 
     
     
         4 . The word-spelling game of  claim 3  wherein the balls in the first set all have a common weight, from 10 g to 450 g inclusive. 
     
     
         5 . The word-spelling game of  claim 3  wherein the letters on the balls in the first set have a common height of from 0.25 times the diameter of the balls, to 0.75 of the diameter of the balls, inclusive. 
     
     
         6 . The word-spelling game of  claim 1  further comprising one or more second sets of balls, each of the second sets being a duplicate of the first set, having the same number of balls, number of letters per ball, and letter distribution. 
     
     
         7 . The word-spelling game of  claim 6 , further comprising a third set of balls, the third set comprising one or more balls bearing four or six of the letters E, A, R, I, O and T. 
     
     
         8 . (canceled) 
     
     
         9 . The word-spelling game of  claim 1 , wherein background color for balls is a first color, and letters are in a contrasting color to the background color. 
     
     
         10 . the word-spelling game of  claim 1 , wherein balls in the first and second sets have a common background color, and balls in the third set have a different background color than in the first or second sets. 
     
     
         11 . The word-spelling game of  claim 1 , wherein the indentions in the mat are arranged on a common center-to-center distance in rows and columns. 
     
     
         12 . (canceled) 
     
     
         13 . The word-spelling game of  claim 1 , wherein all the balls in the sets have relatively soft surfaces. 
     
     
         14 . The word game of  claim 1  wherein the indentions in the support mat are circular through-holes, the support mat has a specific thickness, and the relationship of the diameter of the through-holes to the thickness is such that a ball placed over one of the through-holes is supported entirely by the peripheral edge of the through-hole without the ball touching a surface upon which the support mat rests enabling the players to physically position each of the balls to fully display a desired letter. 
     
     
         15 . The word-spelling game of  claim 1  wherein the support mat has a specific thickness, and the indentions are spherical in form without penetrating entirely through the thickness of the support mat, a radius of the spherical form of the indentions equal to a radius of the balls. 
     
     
         16 . The word-spelling game of  claim 1  wherein the arrangement of indentions is a Cartesian array having uniform rows and columns of indentions, and a number of indentions equal to or greater than 25. 
     
     
         17 . The word game of  claim 1  wherein the balls are tennis balls each having six indicia each implemented on the spherical surface of the balls. 
     
     
         18 . The word game of  claim 17  wherein the letters on the tennis balls are implemented on areas of the balls where the letters do not overlap seams of the tennis balls. 
     
     
         19 . The word-spelling game of  claim 7 , wherein the third set comprises the letters E, A, R, I, O and T each two or more times on the balls of the third set.