Old-school board game gets top marks from teachers, parents

By Gracie Bonds Staples

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Susan Blue had heard enough about the Tri-Cross board game by the time she arrived for training last week that she already knew she wanted to start the school year at East Valley Elementary with it.

For one thing, it is relatively inexpensive; and for another, it promises good things for her students.

And so here she was, one of nearly 100 elementary and gifted teachers seated at tables stocked with the board game, ready to test their skills.

It was a heady moment. Tri-Cross, an abstract strategy game that is a mix of Stratego, checkers and chess, was recently re-introduced to the market by two Georgia Tech grads, Jeff Burns and Brian Howell, owners of Games for Competitors.

Since its introduction last year at the New York Toy Fair, Tri-Cross has received the Game of the Year award from Creative Child Magazine for Best Strategy Board Game for Families and the National Parenting Center Seal of Approval.

It’s the brainchild of Jeff Burns’ father, 61-year-old Glenn.

For as long as he can remember, Glenn Burns loved games of strategy and he passed that love on to his three sons.

Burns didn’t just love to play the game. He also loved designing games he could play with his boys and wife, Catherine.

Tri-Cross was one of them. His boys grew up playing the game and for a time Burns sold some at local stores, including Mori Luggage and Gifts and the Sword of the Phoenix in Atlanta.

But with little capital and a growing family, Burns had little time to market the game. “So I let it die,” he said.

Besides, he said, the game needed a lot of work. The game pieces of the old Tri-Cross felt cheap and the rules tended to be confusing.

So it remained on a shelf in the family’s Stone Mountain home until two years ago.

Then, Glenn said, Jeff said he “was willing to take the bull by the horns.”

With help from his friend and partner, Jeff rewrote the rules, redid the packaging and developed scratch-proof game pieces.

“The feel and look of the game is very important,” Glenn said. “It makes it more enjoyable.”

Jeff Burns said that when he first started the process in 2007, he thought of Tri-Cross the same way his father had — for the 30- to 40-year-old set and for retirees.

That changed during a meeting with his professors at Georgia Tech. Tri-Cross was the perfect educational tool, they said, because of the ease of learning and mental processes needed to play.

Jeff Burns e-mailed local school districts.

In May, DeKalb County schools expressed interest, followed by Cobb County.

Lynn Hamblett, supervisor of advanced learning for Cobb County schools, purchased Tri-Cross this summer after hearing about it from her boss.

“I wanted to try it out and see if it would do the things I thought it would,” Hamblett said.

After playing the game with her family, Hamblett was convinced Tri-Cross would encourage high level thinking skills and problem solving. And unlike computer games, it would also encourage more one-on-one interaction.

“I think it’s a wonderful way for kids to develop skills we no longer employ as much,” Hamblett said. “The game really is a fun way to encourage kids to strategize and to ponder possibilities, and that’s really the goal of the gifted program.”

Teachers snapped up nearly 300 copies at the end of the session at Piedmont Baptist Church in Marietta. It didn’t matter that they had to pay for the game out of their own pockets or that some didn’t quite understand how to play. “Is that a good strategy?” Blue asked at one point.

“It’s a good strategy,” said Howell, looking on. “You want to try to move all your pieces gradually.”

Said Blue: “I have a feeling it’s more rigorous than this.”

Tri-Cross costs $24.95 and is in several Atlanta stores including The Toy Store at Ansley Mall, Beanhead Toys in Sandy Springs and Phoenix Games in Buford, and online at www.gamesfor competitors.com.

The partners will introduce two new games in the fall, but for now the focus is on Tri-Cross.

“I love it,” Glenn Burns said. “I really do. I couldn’t come up with that game today,” he said, laughing. “Twenty-six years ago, my brain was a little bit more nimble than it is now.”