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Are You Baffled?

by Laura Rosser

For Penninsula Woman

For Peninsula Woman

© 2006, Peninsula Daily News

All rights reserved



Pam Dionne loves words. The poet loves words so much that she dreams about them.

One such dream is now being shared with the nation in the form of a new board game designed for children but enjoyed by all ages.

It’s called "Baffle Gab," taken from a term used by Pam’s Canadian friend who called monotonous speeches from Parliamentarians by that term.

Pam arrived in Port Townsend seven years ago, having first visited the area on a poetry residency at Centrum in 1997. An Oregon native, she got a degree in psychology before returning to school to study cultural anthropology and minority literature.

While she worked for a brief period as a therapist before taking time off to raise a family, she also became a painter and taught poetry.

"Words are a love for me — a passion," she says.

She started an online magazine, LiterarySalt.com, in 2001, working with a number of editors who used their own work for the first issue. The magazine combined art and literature. Those editors continued to put in a lot of work — at no charge — developing five yearly issues.

Pam wanted to say "thank you" to the editors in a special, tangible way. Baffle Gab was originally her gift to them.

Pam says the idea came from a dream in which she actually saw herself and many other people playing the game together. She woke at 3 a.m. and began writing the dream’s details down for future development.

Playing on the "Salt" theme of the magazine, the first game was called "Word Salt" and came as words written on discs stored in a can. Designed for literary people, it was challenging.

She started test playing. Her friends came over to play on a regular basis. When the magazine editors first played it, Pam says, they told her she needed to do something more with the game than keep it to themselves.

So, she started the patent and trademark process — and set up more test play ventures with more and more people from the Port Townsend area taking an interest. So many families were showing up with young children, however, that Pam realized she needed to make a few adjustments to Word Salt. It needed to be easier so that many ages could play. She began work on gearing the words in the game to a fourth-grade level. That makes it difficult enough for young children to be expanding their vocabularies and mature enough for adults to enjoy playing it with their kids.

"When we started play testing the adult game, we had so much fun with the kids who showed up," Pam says.

Encouragement from friends and people in the community, particularly at Chimacum School where teachers are now using the game to build reading and writing skills, kept Pam going. She likes the fact that the game is educational.

"I really believe learning is fun," she says, noting her mother used to call her a "professional student."

Children learn best when they are playing. Their retention is higher if they are having fun while learning a new skill.

Developing Baffle Gab has been a journey of several years. Pam began testing Word Salt on friends in 2000 and started formal play testing in 2001. She began simplifying the words to target a more general audience in 2004 and did play testing for Baffle Gab in 2004 and 2005.

The name came from a combination of boredom and silliness. Pam says she was bored with "salt" after using it for the magazine and the first game. She wanted something fun. So, she "bribed" her friends with vats of homemade soup. They’d come over and play the game and Pam would feed them. After six months of "a lot of soup and lots of wine," one of her friends blurted out Baffle Gab and everyone agreed that was definitely the name of the game.

Pam’s friends have been instrumental in just about every phase of game development, from play testing to naming the game to putting her in touch with 206 Partners, Inc. which markets the game. The firm has had huge success with its uncommon approach in marketing other games including the popular Cranium.

Craig Olson, CEO of Baffle Gab LLC, was also a friend of Pam’s. She and Craig (who founded Rivals.com) and the 206 Partners gathered together to play Baffle Gab and all were sold. Like its approach at marketing its phenominally successful board game Cranium, 206 Partners is promoting the release on a limited basis. It is available exclusively at Borders book stores, on-line at www.bafflegab.com and in Port Townsend at Abracadabra, April Fool & Penny, Too, Lahani’s and Completely Puzzled.

This is just the beginning, Craig says. The company has three years of releases mapped out. The Spanish version will be coming out in 2007 and new "booster" packs will feature Baffle Gab for older people and various themes.

Baffle Gab has already won several awards from parenting and child education organizations.

In selecting words for the game, Pam notes, she kept both genders in mind. Watching the Chimacum Elementary students playing Baffle Gab proved that word selection has been successful. Including words like "pimples," "hairy" and "Tyrannosaurus Rex" means the game keeps boys’ interest.

While the game certainly works on teaching reading, writing and composition skills, Pam notes there’s a math element as well. Players receive "bone bucks" for their efforts. She says she noticed the children figured the change in their heads when exchanging the "bucks" — an added educational bonus.