In the crowded Toy Chest checkout line in Ridgefield on a busy weekend night in mid-December, a clerk observed a customer curiously examining a clear tube of dice.
“Tenzi,” the clerk said as he rang up an order. “Good game. Couple of guys in Greenwich came up with it.”
Those guys ”“ Steve Mark and Kevin Carroll, who happen to be experienced advertising industry veterans ”“ are testing how far their marketing savvy can take their new creation, a game in which players race rolling 10 dice to get the same number.
In arriving at perhaps one of the simplest games one can conceive, they are hoping they have rolled boxcars.
“By far the one comment we hear over and over again from moms is that they like the simplicity of the game,” Mark said. “It doesn”™t take two hours to play.”
When it comes to toys and games, Fairfield County”™s perhaps best claim to fame is as the place where Scrabble got its start. But other big brands have been born here, from Melissa & Doug in Norwalk to Wiffle ball in Shelton.
As simple as Tenzi sounds, it took more than a few hours to conjure. Onetime colleagues with North Castle Partners Advertising Inc. of Stamford, Mark and Carroll reconnected a few years back after bumping into each other while getting their Christmas trees for the holidays.
After discovering a mutual interest in inventing games, they began comparing notes. Coming up with the idea for Tenzi, they began taking it around the local toy store circuit. At HobbyTown USA in Fairfield, a manager gave them a minute to explain the game ”“ and agreed to take a shipment after two customers bought the game in the next instant.
Mark said it was not difficult to get inventory and packaging.
“In this day and age, with a couple clicks of the computer suddenly you have 5,000 dice arriving at your house,” he said.
When asked about financial backing, Mark said, “As far as angel investment, we really haven”™t considered that up till now. We are bootstrapping it. It”™s surprising the success we”™ve had in such a short time and with relatively little investment.”
The company sells the game on its website for $14.95 and via an expanding network of toy retailers. Getting onto the shelves of big-box stores like Walmart and Toys “R” Us is another matter.
“We have thought about it,” Carroll said. “We want to make sure we get everything in a row and start knocking on those doors at some point.”
The Toy Industry Association”™s annual Toy Fair opens a lot of doors in the industry. Scheduled for this February in New York City, the trade group is taking votes on its website for the “toy of the year.” This year”™s TOTY nominees in the gaming category are packed with a few new twists on powerhouse brands like LEGO and UNO ”“ as well as the gaming app sensation Angry Birds, converted to a table-top game dubbed Angry Birds Knock on Wood.
Will Tenzi ever knock on the door of TOTY immortality?
“I can”™t say where it”™s going to end up,” Mark said. “Hopefully it”™s simple enough it can catch on and become a little bit of a phenomenon.”
