Brandoodles is a simple and fun board game.  The primary object is to guess popular brand names seen in stores nationwide in a hangman-esque manner by asking if there are certain letters in the name.  Correct letters get filled in on the game display board and wins the player another turn and some points; miss a letter and play moves to the next player.

Brandoodles Live!

The game is the brain child of Errol S. Doris, and it was he who came to Production Plus with the idea of making it a live action game for the 2007 Toy and Game Fair, held November 17th and 18th at the Renaissance Hotel and Expo Center in Schaumburg, Illinois.   Alex Jacobs, video engineer for Production Plus, stepped up to the task.

“Errol wanted the look and feel of the live action game to be a lot like the home game,” said Alex, “so we tried to engineer it with that in mind.”  Players in the home version write the letters into the display board with a marker; Alex mimicked that by connecting a Wacom tablet to a projector.  With the help of a customized template to keep him within the boxes he wrote the letters in as the contestants played the game.

A closer look at our contestant platform and game board.

This task is easy to describe, but a few moments chatting with Alex soon revealed that there was more to it than met the eye.  “The graphic was actually produced by running two separate computers to a Folsom ScreenPro Switcher,” he said.  “One computer sent the image of the game board to the monitor, the other was the one I was using with the Wacom tablet.  Then, using luminescence keying (lumakey), we merged the two images together.”  The lumakey process is similar to chromakey, or “greenscreening” done for movies that require special effects and backdrops.  Lumakey works only in black and white, though, dropping out levels of luminescence rather than color.  “It’s not entirely dissimilar to the way special effects are done for Star Wars,” said Alex.  “Two actors pretend to fight in front of a big green screen.  Then, the green color gets dropped out and the background it inserted.”  In this case, Alex wrote in dark grey onto a black background in Photoshop.  Then, the switcher would drop the black and send only the dark grey out to the monitor.  The grey was so dark that it looked like black on the screen.  “It was a little tricky to get everything to line up,” allows Alex.  “I had to go through three or four computers and graphics cards before I found the combination that would work the best.”

Further live action excitement was delivered by adding sound effects, music, and dramatic lighting.  Through using a device called an Instant Replay, Production Plus sound man John Muzyka was able to soundtrack the game live. Watch a little bit of the game being played to get an idea of what it was like.

The game was the centerpiece and the hit of the 2007 fair.  “Everyone had a great time,” grins Alex, “even the stormtroopers.”  Providing the major competition for the attentions of the fair attendees were a squadron of Imperial Stormtroopers from the Midwest battalion of the 501st Legion of the Imperial Army – a Star Wars costuming organization that prides themselves on the accuracy and excellence of their costume replications.  A few of their costumed members even came over to play Brandoodles.

Failure is not an option for these Imperial troops - even at this game.

All in all, the 2007 Toy Fair was a great success.  Production Plus looks forward working on more interesting and exciting projects like this one in the future.