A colorful turn

By Diane Prokop
Times Staff Writer

Is your family competitive when it comes to playing board games? The Hohenstein family qualifies, having stayed up into the wee hours of the morning many a time while playing Risk in their Frankford home, recalls patriarch Jack Hohenstein.
Two of the seven Hohenstein siblings — John and Mike — joined their father to devise a new game for you to best your bro’ — they call it Spectrum Color Sudoku.
It’s based on the Japanese cross-number puzzle that has been the rage since 2005. WiseGeek.com, a reference Internet site with answers to a lot of things, explains it this way: Sudoku is a number-placement puzzle, consisting of a 9-by-9-square grid that is divided into nine rows and nine columns, for a total of 81 small squares.
The unsolved Sudoku (Japanese abbreviation loosely meaning "single number") supplies only a few numbers in random squares. To solve the puzzle, the remaining squares must be filled in with the numbers one through nine, each appearing only once in each row, column, and 3-by-3 square.
For folks who avoid thinking about numbers at all costs, the Hohensteins have come up with just the thing — and just in time for Christmas.
"We use colors instead of numbers. It’s a good place to start. A lot of people are turned off when they look at (Sudoku number puzzles)," said Mike Hohenstein.
In his family, he said, the fascination with Sudoku began when his parents visited his sister in California and his dad became intrigued with the game.
"When he came back, we both started doing the puzzles," he said.
Hohenstein’s father, who had been a high school math and science teacher, came up with the idea of doing the puzzles using color.
A deck of 100 Spectrum puzzles is included. Players can also convert their favorite paper-and-pencil puzzle for use with the board.
Spectrum’s uniqueness doesn’t stem just from its use of color, but rather because it allows players to play solo as well as team up or go against other players with two additional game plays.
"One is a team game, a cooperative kind of team-building game (that could be) used in a classroom or as a corporate team-building exercise. The other is competitive, not solving the puzzle, but dividing up the pieces, trying to get rid of your hand of stones," Mike Hohenstein said.
Initially the colored playing pieces were much rougher-looking than the smooth stones Spectrum currently employs.
"Originally we used construction paper on the back of Scrabble pieces," Hohenstein said.
Mike and his dad created the rules for Spectrum Color Sudoku. Brother John designed and crafted the board.
"He’s always done different wood-working things," Mike said of his brother. "He’s an engineer and designed and made a bunch of wooden boards for us."
John Hohenstein crafted boards for the whole family just before Thanksgiving in 2005. It was about that time that the family began working on developing their patent for the game.
Mike Hohenstein then set out to market it, eventually licensing Spectrum Color Sudoku to Wood Expressions Inc., a California company whose vast inventory of games includes pricey chess and backgammon sets.
"It just came out on Amazon, so it’s in time for the holidays," Hohenstein said of the Internet retailer, which is selling the game for $39.90.
The family game-makers took their prototype to the International Toy Fair in New York last year and are eager to return in February with the completed game.
Mike Hohenstein has enjoyed the whole process.
"It has been great just being able to work with my dad. People always come through and have ideas, but to actually take that idea and carry it out and get to this point and complete it . . . we’re really excited to see how people take it," he said.
But there still is the big question: Which Hohenstein sibling is the Sudoku family champ?
"Everybody’s pretty good. My brother Joe is one of the better players, but we’re all pretty competitive," Mike Hohenstein said. ••
Call Frankford Games at 215-205-5609 to purchase the game locally. Spectrum Color Sudoku is also available online at www.amazon.com or www.woodexpressions.com
Reporter Diane Prokop can be reached at 215-354-3036 or dprokop@phillynews.com