“You can take a room full of strangers, play this game and make a room full of friends,” said Bruce Brown about his recent invention, Music Madness.

His musical cassette game was born of a deep love of music. Brown is the elementary music instructor for the six towns of SAD 48, roving to schools from Newport to Hartland. While on a band trip, Brown was talking with old friend and band supporter Maurice Temple, who casually mentioned a game idea using tapes and music. Brown was shocked. He was working on a similar idea.

“It was like combining peanut butter and jelly,” said Temple.

And so Music Madness was born. Two years later, the game is ready to market, but this is where Brown’s education priority kicks in. Instead of mass marketing the game nationwide to grab pre-Christmas sales, Brown and his partners, his wife, Melissa, and Temple, have offered the game to Nokomis Regional High School seniors as a Project Graduation fund-raiser.

Future plans for the game are also as school fund-raisers.

“It may sound corny,” said Brown. “This was not a money-motivated project. We’ll be happy if we break even.”

Each Music Madness game comes with four tapes containing the first 12 seconds of more than 450 songs. The object is to guess the song title and performer. A variety of time periods are available, such as Age of Rock, 1960-91, Golden Age, 1930-1940, and classical.

During field tests, they gave the game to the Newport High School Class of 1961 at their 30th reunion. After protesting that they probably wouldn’t have time to play it, the group laughingly reported that they played the game for more than four hours, not stopping until 2:30 a.m. “When you first describe the game,” said Brown, “it sounds OK. But you really have to experience it.”

“Music Madness is actually more than a game,” he adds. “It is a way to bring the family together, a way to share memories and lots of laughs. We have been invited to a lot of parties since the game was invented. People really love playing it.”

Brown and Temple drove a winding road full of potholes in the two years since the idea’s conception to it’s actual marketing. At one point they rented a car (telling the dealer they were going “a little bit past Boston”) and drove to Minneapolis to meet with a toy broker. They were full of zest and excitement, sure their game would be received with as much spirit as they had for it. They were so excited, that just two hours after checking into a hotel, they were unable to sleep and jumped back into the car, continuing their trip.

Once in Minneapolis, however, they discovered the broker was not interested in their game, but, instead, wanted to purchase their concept.

“I think that was the worst day of my life,” said Brown.

More disappointment was ahead, however, when they found most large toy companies have their own elite research and development departments that are not interested in outside ideas.

The pair then linked with the Maine Inventors’ Network at the University of Maine.

“They were our guide through the whole system,” said Brown.

Through the Network, the gamers were able to get answers to marketing questions, find a manufacturer, copyright the game and network with other Maine inventors.

Beginning in October, Nokomis Regional High School students will be taking orders for Music Madness, with a percentage of the profits benefitting Project Graduation. In addition, other schools have shown an interest in the game for their fund-raisers. Teachers have also approached Brown to create a Geography Madness, complete with sounds and music from other countries.

“We feel that it is the perfect game to be used with educational fund raising” said Brown.

“And we like focusing on Project Graduation,” said Temple, “because it makes us feel so good.”