.
Hiwassee Dam – Meet Tom Spencer, a U.S. Army veteran, former helicopter pilot, family man, Big Brother and inventor.
Born in 1948 in Kentucky and semi-retired, as a child he always enjoyed playing games. As a result, Spencer has created his own card game for others to enjoy.
With the help of his son, Todd Spencer, who was instrumental in propelling the endeavor forward financially, the game was brought to completion.
“Our goal was to create and sell family friendly card and board games that would bring families together in fun and exciting activities, getting them away from their phone and computer screens,” Spencer said.
The card game comes with a rules booklet and complete details. The TrikPlay deck is made up of 52 cards, 13 each of red, blue, yellow and black, plus four Triksters.
The game consists of up to six players and lasts about 45 minutes. The objective of TrikPlay is to take exactly the number of “triks” you bid during each of four rounds of play.
A trik consists of each player playing one card, with the winning card taking that trik. The winning card is either the highest ranking card of the color led, the highest power color card, which is played only if the player doesn’t have the color led, or a Trikster.
Triksters can be played anytime and beat every other card except a subsequent Trikster. The Triksters provide an exciting surprise element to the game. With bonuses for accurate bidding, TrikPlay can been won even if a player has no high cards or trickster cards.
Spencer hopes others enjoy playing the game of luck and strategy as much as those who’ve already played the game. In a world of technology overload, it brings back a sense of simplistic togetherness.
“We’ve had really good feedback. We’ve sold a few hundred games at this point, most of which was during a test marketing program,” he said.
Spencer has been married for 48 years, with four grown sons and seven grandchildren. His hobbies include tennis, traveling, hiking and playing board and card games.
He also plans on creating more games in the future. TrikPlay can be purchased for $9.97 on Amazon or by scanning the QR Code.