Inventor hopes board game catches wave of popularity

As a child, Jeff Cicatko amused himself by inventing board games. The preoccupation prompted his dad to tell him he should do it for a living when he grew up.

Cicatko (pronounced She-COT-koe), a former Beach resident now in his mid-40s and a father of two, more or less followed his dad's advice. After a stint in the insurance business, he created a new game revolving around competitive surfing - just in time for the Christmas shopping season.

Called Waimea Wipeout, it drew its inspiration from the surfing culture surrounding Cicatko's home for the past 19 years on Oahu's North Shore in Hawaii, where breakers often reach heights of 30 to 50 feet.

He has already introduced it with surprising success to children attending elementary school in Sunset Beach, now his hometown. "The idea is to give kids something to do other than push buttons on a video game," he said via a telephone interview.

Despite an intimidating set of rules governing the game, youngsters in Hawaiian neighborhoods have taken to it. "Kids dive right in. It's really a pretty simple deal," said Cicatko. "It plays just like a surfing contest. Four guys to a heat. Each guy has 10 chances to advance, using a ten-sided die."

Top scorer - with 10 being the highest - wins. Scoring is done in decimal increments, starting at 1.1 for each successful advance. A wipeout ends a player's turn with no points on a wave.

Cicatko, who has a patent pending for the game, is opting to market it in small local Hawaiian shops and on a colorful website. Waimeawipeout.com features the photography of Brian Bielmann, who specializes in capturing big- wave surfers on the North Shore.

Cicatko also is working with outdoor gear company Patagonia to market the game.

A primary beneficiary of the game's success would be Sunset Beach Elementary School, where Cicatko's 7-year-old son is enrolled. Cicatko spends a lot of time volunteering at the school, which will get $1 from the sale of each game.

"I didn't go to Costco or surf shops," Cicatco said. "I thought we'd go to elementary schools."

According to NPD Group, the leading U.S. marketing information provider, board game sales have increased in the past few years to the $1 billion range, while the sales for toys are down. Marketing analysis of figures over the past seven decades indicate that board game sales rise in times of economic distress because the games are cheaper, can be played at home without electronics gadgets and tend to outlast faddish toys and parlor diversions.

This bodes well for Waimea Wipeout. Whether the game can reach the popularity of icons such as Monopoly, Scrabble or Trivial Pursuit remains to be seen, but Ci-catko is cautiously optimistic and willing to build his market niche slowly in hopes of establishing a market.

In the mid-'70s Cicatko's family moved to Virginia Beach, where he attended Virginia Beach Junior High and First Colonial High schools. In the process he made a tight group of friends through participation in sports and entertainment activities.

He was a scrappy point guard on the Linkhorn Mariners, a community league team that won the city championship in the late 1970s.

Cicatko is probably best remembered in Virginia Beach as a member and lead singer in Locals Only, a band that played not only at resort nightspots, but at colleges up and down the East Coast as well. The group was made up largely of North End teens who practiced in home garages and eventually cranked out CDs that were sold as far away as Bangladesh, Germany and Romania. One of their first hits, said Cicatko, was "Too Much Soda Pop."

Now out of the insurance business for a several years, Cicatko stays busy promoting his board game and returning to his music. " I play a little guitar and write songs in the studio - maybe 30 or 40 songs," he said. "Next is going to be a CD."

Bill Reed,

BchReed34@aol.com