Consumer Hands-On Evaluation

	Nothing is more powerful than hands-on experience by a consumer with a product when it is under evaluation. Based upon that fact we put a number of products we currently are slated to evaluate at the mercy of consumers in a hands-on evaluation where anything goes. The information to follow will explore the responses from the participants in our spontaneous hands-on consumer evaluation of the products available for their review.

	Outside The Box was available for consumers at the Anaheim Hilton™ and Disneyland™ along with a variety of other products for consumer hands-on evaluation. To spice the experience up, The Toy Man® and his staff gave away over 1,000 non-Disney products at Disneyland including one copy of Outside The Box. The excitement for our consumer hands-on evaluation participants seemed endless as we all had the enjoyable experience of watching guests of the Anaheim Hilton™ and Disneyland™ resort parks playing Outside The Box.

	The products were in abundance in this latest visit to the Anaheim, CA area for our consumer hands-on evaluation and product give-aways.  Outside The Box was of course one of them.  For some of the participants the experience was while they were waiting for family to come to the lobby of the hotel, while for others it was while waiting for family members to come off of a ride at Disneyland or California Adventures.  When you consider the size of the game box with Outside The Box, this was a very unique event.  Plenty of people were inquiring about the game which drew far more immediate attention in comparison to the balance of products we had available for the event.  For everyone this was the experience of a lifetime, even for our staff! At the Disneyland™ parks it was such a delightful experience as we saw so many people so anxious to continue in their playing Outside The Box, knowing that at any moment their family members or friends were soon to arrive and it would be time for them leave for the next ride. This was an entirely new breed of excitement for these people.  Even the manager of the Guest Relations and his staff at one of the Disneyland resort parks were excited with Outside The Box!  In reading our feedback forms and reviewing our videos from the consumer evaluation, it was all too obvious that Outside The Box held many people captive with the challenge and fun which made the game a success in this segment of our evaluation. Outside The Box passed this segment of our evaluation with the highest of recommendation. Return to Top

A Sampling Of Our Evaluation Category Ratings

	The rating of a product is useless if you do not fully understand and comprehend how the ratings is reached or what the value of the rating represents. This need for clarity encouraged us to have this section titled "A Sampling Of Our Evaluation Category Ratings." To assist you in gaining a greater understanding of the evaluation category ratings we use, a small sampling of the individual category titles & rating scores from the complete product review itself for this product or service are featured here. The categories which have been selected to be featured in this evaluation report summary for public view, specify some of the primary points of how and why each specific rating score was reached.

	The Featured Category Ratings Sampling For This Evaluation Summary Are Listed Below:

	CREATIVE AGENDA: Rating Level - [5] Outside The Box proved its worth in our evaluation of CREATIVE AGENDA. The creative agenda of the game delivers a guarantee of a strong narrative progression and prompt response level with its progressive learning structure.  As one of our evaluators stated so perfectly, it delivers a strong influence in cognitive development and creative strategy thinking. The players have to think and respond quickly as a team and get creative with every single game.  No room for lazy brains here. The CREATIVE AGENDA of Outside The Box provides a challenge that influences recurrent game play. Players almost always developed a desire to play at least two or more games in our testing. Outside The Box pulled a perfect score of [5] Stars in this evaluation category for CREATIVE AGENDA.

	funQUOTIENT™: Rating Level - [5] funQuotient™ is an evaluation category where Outside The Box wasn't lacking. It is a perfect fit for both home and educational use in creating plenty of funQuotient™ in the experience.  As one of the teachers at a local high school stated, "Who would have imagined a game like this could get these students to have fun learning without hesitation?" Outside The Box has all of the right elements to create the strongest level of funQuotient™. The literally endless number of narratives which could be developed within each round to win this game, serve as a catalyst to create plenty of competitive challenge.  Outside The Box managed to pull a perfect score of [5] Stars in this evaluation category for funQuotient™.

	LEARNING CURVE: Rating Level - [5] Learning curve? What learning curve? With Outside The Box the LEARNING CURVE was a challenge to establish an accurate rating. It is important to realize that players have a choice to read up on every facet of the game with the materials provided in the box and on the CD, or they can just jump in and learn progressively as they play each round. The latter option was generally the one most often chosen by all testing groups in our evalaution.  Having a game designed with such an unusual option to learn as you go practically eliminates the idea of a learning curve altogether.  This learning curve approach adds greater value to the game. It creates a stronger inspiration for players to strive even harder to draw on and develp their cognitive skills to win the game. As always, this also enables Outside The Box to keep from becoming boring and redundant. Outside The Box came through in this evaluation category with a perfect score of [5] Stars in this category for LEARNING CURVE.

	MARKETABILITY: Rating Level - [4.5] Outside The Box clearly was quite challenging in our evaluation of its rating in regard to MARKETABILITY. There were many variable attributes and elements that had to be taken into consideration such as price point and product footprint. Many of these elements may be seen one way by one evaluator and differently by another.  We first established without question that Outside The Box appeals to a vast range of age groups as well as is a hybrid product. We also reminded ourselves of the fact that our evaluation guidelines are simple, yes, or no.  A product either does fit specific criteria or it doesn't.  Taking that into account and looking at the game from a clinical standpoint, (just the facts), we were quickly able to streamline this portion of our evaluation and establish more well founded determination in each evaluation rating. It was clearly established in our evaluation that once a consumer gets their first experience with Outside The Box , they most likely will not only play the game again but will share the delight of their experience with others again and again. This contributes substantially in a positive favor in the marketability rating. Although Outside The Box pulled through the rest of the evaluation categories so well, there were a few considerations that caused a few dings.  Visual appeal, durability, product foot print, price point, and a few other details had some minor impact in the final rating score in this evaluation category.  The end result is that Outside The Box came through in this evaluation category falling short of a perfect score by a half a point.  The final rating score for Outside The Box was [4.5] Stars in this category for MARKETABILITY.

	SKILL IMPROVEMENT: Rating Level - [5] Outside The Box possesses all of the right elements to create a progressive rate of skill development and improvement for players of all ages 12 years of age and up. One of our independent evaluators expressed it so well in his own words quoted below. "Although the large number of playing cards may seem daunting at first impression, they are an elemental building block responsible for a player's skill improvement. The game is instrumental in initiating ever-changing strategy development and use of higher level cognitive skills for each of the players. With repetitive play of the game, the diversity of so much content from the cards fulfills the brain's constant demand for new stimulation" It is more than obvious to see that Outside The Box makes a substantial contribution to skill development in this evaluation category. Outside The Box rocks the house yet again with a final score of [5] Stars in this category for SKILL IMROVEMENT.

	VISUAL APPEAL: Rating Level - [4.5] VISUAL APPEAL posed a very strong challenge for us in our evaluation. With Outside The Box, the developers appear to have put their focus more into the game structure and eco-friendly design.  This resulted in a small loss of overall visual appeal.  At the same time, considering the game was manufactured in the USA and is a first run, it still maintained a level of visual appeal sufficient to be rated well above average.  The color scheme of some of the cards is stimulating to the eyes and draws your attention while others are more neutral and lacking in engaging your attention.  The main element that caused an almost perfect score in this evaluation category was the text of the Master List book. According to some of our feedback forms from consumer hands-on evaluation, the text is too small for some to read.  The challenge for the developers though is that if a larger typse style is used, the printing expense increases along with the bulk of the book.  Outside The Box is simple, no spectacular splash of imagery yet the simple and bright colors with very visible text on the Phase cards draws the attention of everyone so well. This caused Outside The Box to docked a 1/2 a point in this evaluation category.  Outside The Box came in with a powerful score rating of [4.5] Stars in this category for VISUAL APPEAL.