by Sam Eccleston
Where do toys come from? Sure, there's the factory, but what about the ideas? According to a few first-time toy inventors at this year's Toy Fair 2010, it's a mixture of persistence and passion.
Michael McGinnis spent much of this year's Toy Fair 2010 signing autographs and talking to reporters about his creation, the Perplexus. He fielded questions about the toy's intricate construction, the difference between a maze and a labyrinth, and how his work as a sculptor and art teacher gave birth to one of the Fair's hottest toys.
The Perplexus is almost as hard to stop playing with as it is to describe. It's an intricate set of paths, swirls and traps set in a sphere. Players turn the sphere backward and forward to navigate a ball bearing to the end of the trail. It's a mind-bending trip through hours of fun, and McGinnis has been developing it since he was in high school.
"The first one was made out of balsa wood," the unassuming McGinnis says as he calls up a picture of the proto-Perplexus. "I made it in art class in high school." Before the Perplexus' current run as one of the buzz toys at this year's fair, McGinnis spent decades tinkering with the idea. But he was already a sculpting teacher at Santa Rosa Junior College by the time he was able to hook up with a company that could produce it.
Now, toy fans are going crazy for the brain-teasing toy. One collector commissioned a large-scale Perplexus with a different, even more challenging set of routes through the maze. "Hang on a second," he says during his interview. "My nephew's outside. He's an artist, and he really wants to see this."
Family and friends are an essential part of the creative process for Clay Hibbert and Joe Parrish, the creators behind Hookum, a new group game. Hibbert explained the origins of the game by saying, "This friend of ours rented this lake house, and another occupant had screwed a hook into a wall. They tied a ring on a string over the hook."
Hookum takes that idea, which has its roots in a Bahamian game called bimini ring, and makes it great for group play. Hibbert and Parrish's version puts four hooks and rings on a collapsible plastic frame, and allows groups of people to play all at once. The focus of the game is pure fun. "We don't want to put rules in, because it's too fun finding out what games people make up," Hibbert explained.
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