Holiday shoppers take home Lumps of Coal

GREENCASTLE -- While holiday shoppers hunt for that "must-have" gift this year, many are taking home lumps of coal.

Why?

Because toy stores, like Bright Futures, have a new family game that makes giving someone coal in their stocking a great holiday gift.

It's called Lumps, the Elf Coal Game, a fast-paced family dice game that contains dice in the shape of charcoal and comes packaged in a Christmas stocking.

Winner of Creative Child Magazine's preferred choice award, Lumps, the Elf Coal Game has been a break out success. Many retailers across the United States are having a hard time keeping it on their shelves. Selling for $7.95, Bright Futures, 12 E. Washington St., has a limited quantity of the game left on its shelves.

"Lumps, the Elf Coal Game is a lot of fun to play," said Jan Hodges, owner of Bright Futures. "The way it is packaged makes it a great stocking stuffer."

The goal of the game is to be the first player to score 100 points. To score points, roll pairs of the same number. Roll a pair of 3s, score three points; a pair of 6s scores six points. Each turn includes three rolls to try to score as many points as possible.

What makes game play unique is it uses four different types of dice, each with a different highest number and there are few dice with high numbers. Does a player play it safe and hold a pair of 4s, or chance it and try for a higher pair? The endless possibilities make Lumps exciting and addictive.

"Lumps is fun for both kids and their parents," said Greg Hughes, inventor of Lumps, the Elf Coal Game and co-founder of Continuum Games. "That's the approach we take with all of our games. We want our games to help bring families together, especially around the holidays."

To add to the fun, there is a legend behind the game's origin. The legend is Lumps, the Elf Coal Game was created by Santa's elves.

Children around the world were so good over the past few years; Santa had not handed out very many lumps of coal. Stockpiles of coal started to build up at the North Pole.

To make use of the excess coal; Santa's elves decided to create an exciting new game that uses lumps of coal of all shapes and sizes. The game is so much fun, for the first time ever, children are excited to get lumps of coal in their stocking.

"Specialty stores thrive on finding products that are new and unique," said Hodges. "We have success with games like Lumps because we play them and can help explain to our customers what makes them fun."

"It's a long shot for a small husband-and-wife company to make a new game on their own and break into the toy industry," said Hughes. "But that's how things happened for the creators of Slinky. We have been lucky to have support from specialty toy store owners across the U.S. who have really gotten behind Lumps, the Elf Coal Game."