By Gord Bowes, News staff

Dave Millard thinks he has the next hot board game on the market.
Outsmart, he says, is easy to play and has an addictive quality that will make it a hit.
“We think we are that game everyone will be talking about,” says the west Mountain resident.
Outsmart — which was inspired by equal parts Scattergories, Family Feud and Stump the Schwab — is a trivia-based game with a twist, says Millard. Having all the answers doesn’t guarantee a player the win, as strategic revealing of those answers is half the game.
Millard got the idea four years ago and thought it would be easy to sell customized versions to corporations. But after being turned down by the Toronto Maple Leafs and other organizations, he set his game aside for a while. He took it off the shelf a year and a half ago; he now has a number of investors and a distributor, Kroeger Games.
This is the third version of the game. The rules are similar to what Millard originally thought out, but have been refined and the name has been changed. Gone are Roundtable Trivia and Triv Wiz, names that didn’t test well with gamers and business executives.
The Outsmart name, says Millard, better fits what the game is: a combination of strategy and knowledge.
“It’s not a game where just because you know the answers, you win,” he says.
The gameplay revolves around the players rolling the die and writing down the number of answers dictated by the roll. The questions all have at least six answers — for example, how many people have been members of the Rolling Stones — and players go around the table revealing answers one at a time. Players score a point for being the first to reveal each correct answer; the one with the most points wins the round.
Millard says the game never plays out the same way twice because answers are always revealed in a different order.
The game is one that plays well around a table, inspiring conversation and debate, says Millard, but it is also a game that works well in the digital world.
With that in mind, the Outsmart creator sought out help from his alma mater. A graduate of Mohawk College’s advertising and graphic design course, Millard has enlisted the west Mountain campus’s iDeaWORKS research laboratory. Mobile and Internet versions of the game are in development, he says.
Millard was recently filmed for the W Network’s Backyard Inventors show.
The TV show will look at some of Millard’s other creations, such as the DoggieDoo Pickup Tube, a sanitary way to dispose of poop for dog owners who fear touching the mess.
He said he plans to bring back a revised DoggieDoo Pickup Tube to the market after a failed run a few years back, in which he was also turned down on Dragon’s Den.
Outsmart is available in Hamilton at Bayshore Hobbies at 789 King St. West.