Invent the Product

What it is

Invent the Product mashes two everyday objects into one ridiculous product and pitches it back to you with a straight face. Toaster plus umbrella becomes the Toastbrella 3000, complete with a name, a sales pitch, a suspicious side effect and scores for usefulness, chaos and marketability. It is a startup pitch meeting with the sanity removed.

How to play

Pick two objects from the cards, or tap the dice to let the lab choose, then hit Invent it. Every invention is scored out of 100 on three axes for a total out of 300. Tap a card to swap one object, tap the dice to reroll a single slot, or hit Surprise me to roll both. Your best total and invention count are saved between visits, so the leaderboard is you versus yesterday's you.

What makes it different

The scores are baked into each combination, so the Toastbrella is exactly as terrible for everyone. That makes discoveries real: a combo that hits 260 is yours to brag about and a friend's to verify. With around fifty objects there are thousands of ordered pairs, and order matters, so trampoline plus espresso machine and espresso machine plus trampoline are two different products with two different problems.

Why it is on Bored

A generator that produces the same absurd product for everyone turns a solo toy into a group game. Send someone your 270 point jetpack bagpipes and the argument about whether it is marketable lasts longer than the game did. That is the kind of thing we build the arcade for.

Tips

• Try both orders, the first object leads the product name
• Jetpacks, drones and ice cream carts tend to score big on marketability
• Chaos counts toward your total too, so a terrible idea can still win
• Share your best invention and dare a friend to out-invent it

FAQ