Graveyard or open source?

I sometimes think of my ever growing collection of cricket board games as something of a cricket game graveyard.

Rarely do games get reprinted and those that do are mostly aimed at kids. So Test Match and all its variants are probably going to get re-printed for ever more.

Most games get printed once, sell out in their initial run or, more likely, fill the garage of the person who invented the thing in the first place :-)

Notable exceptions are of course the Owzat range of Lambourne games, which has been going strong since the early 80s, Wicketz, although that is now defunct, and hopefully, in the near future, Mr Collier’s fine effort.

So what happens to all these games? The answer, of course, is they become landfill or cupboard fill. They also become web fill, as this site can attest to.

So here’s my idea: I’m going to over the course of the next year try to do two things. One is to reprint as a PDF a classic old game called Stumpz. Regular readers will know this is one of my favourites. It’s simple and can be reproduced faily easily, although without the lovely tactile pieces of the 1930s versions which you can occassionally buy for a pretty penny from eBay (see above). I can only imagine that the copyright for the game is now owned by games giant Hasbro and sits somewhere in its huge “dead game” warehouse.

Secondly, I have recently discovered a game that I think could be, with some tweaking, made into an excellent cricket game. It’s a little simliar to the classic International Cricket, but takes into account field settings (the only small issue I have with IC). I’m determined to track down the owner of the game and see if they might allow me to republish it. Stay tuned for more news.

Both of these options feel more likely than me ever finishing the game I’ve been tweaking for a decade and, besides, with Nigel’s game coming sometime “soon” I’m more interested in helping him make his better.

So, first things first.  A letter to the publisher of the more recent game I’ve found, and a search online for any info I can find on the legality of what I’d like to do with Stumpz. Any advice from those who understand such things would be appreciated.

Image source: Wikipedia, (c) Mike Knapton, 2008.