By Elaine Jarvik 
Deseret News staff writer 

      Brandon Morris remembers what it was like growing up in a family of six that liked to play a card game for four: The little kids got left out. 
      So the Morrises grew up and invented "Roolz: The Ultimate Card Playing Experience." It's sort of like bridge or Rook, but six people can play at one time. 
      The trick now, of course, is to get people to buy it. Ask the dozen or so Utahns who have tried to market a homemade game in the past decade: The field is littered with unsold dice and game boards, not to mention shattered dreams. Trying to produce a best seller is a game of skill and chance. 
      Undaunted, the Morris siblings — Courtney, Dustin, Brandon and Tasha — are trying to think of every marketing angle to promote their new game. They've got slick press packets and a Web site, and soon will have T-shirts and bumper stickers. They've sent letters to FAO Schwartz and Wal-Mart, and even though they've had no luck there, they're optimistic. They're hoping that word-of-mouth will do for Roolz what it did for Pictionary. 
      They're also hoping a recent piece of news will help: "Games Magazine" will be including Roolz in its "top 100 games of 1998." 
      What sets Roolz apart from other card games, say the Morrises, is that it uses a 100-card deck with six 16-card suits plus wild cards. Roolz is a bidding game, like Rook or bridge, but is more intense, they say. 
      The Morrises call their company Games of Addiction. It goes along with their slogan: "When you can't put it down, you have an Addiction."
      Utahn Mike Agrelius, who has marketed several of his own board and card games in the past decade, remembers seeing a survey a few years ago that estimated there are 3,000 new games produced each year in the United States. Out of those, 45 make a profit and three become classics. 
      Those odds are probably even worse now, says Agrelius, because the board and card game markets have "plummeted," a victim of the rising popularity of computer games. 
      David Galt, a card-game researcher and writer in New York City, guesses there are already about 800 different card games for sale in one game store or another in the United States. 
      "The chances of anyone succeeding are always slim," he says. Still, occasionally there are success stories, and Galt thinks Roolz could be one. "Their game uses some nice features. . . . It could be an alternative to bridge," says Galt, who has written two card-game books and writes for "Games Annual." He will feature Roolz in the next edition. 
      Courtney, Dustin, Brandon and Tasha invented their very first Roolz eight years ago, when they put together two regular decks of cards, then altered two of the suits with pink and blue colored markers. Over the years, they have refined the deck and the rules, and last summer pooled their money to start producing a marketable game. 
      Roolz is currently available at an odd collection of outlets: a few card stores in New York and Ann Arbor, Mich., plus the Snowbird Pharmacy and University of Utah bookstore. 
      The Morrises are now working on a solitaire version, as well as a Roolz Jr. Their cousin Scott has also produced a computer version of Roolz, which can be downloaded for free at the company's Web site, http://www.roolz.com 
      This fall, Brandon will be at Harvard getting his MBA; Dustin and wife Kaatje ("national marketing director") will be back in New York, where Dustin is in med school at Columbia University; Courtney and wife Pam, plus Tasha, will be in Salt Lake City. Scott is now working on a network version of the game so all the Morrises can play Roolz at the same time, even though they're 2,000 miles apart. 
 
 

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