LESS SLUG, MORE BUG

JEFF CRUM ISN’T playing games. He seriously wants to take the slugging out of Slug Bug. And he’s chafing to see a 12-year reverie get real. His self-imposed deadline? “Yesterday,” said the 49-year-old counselor.

Crum has developed a game called Tug Bug. Designed for families to play in the car, it is a takeoff on the classic ritual of punching other passengers on the shoulder when someone spots a Volkswagen out on the road.

But unlike the donnybrook of Slug Bug (also known as Punch Buggy), Tug Bug is nonviolent. It still involves scanning for VWs, but players score with wordplay instead of left jabs and straight rights.

Instead of belting fellow competitors, players gently tug on others’ garments.

Crum, a lifetime Spokane resident, has gotten the green light to proceed from Volkswagen’s trademark guardians in Germany. And Tug Bug has already won a national award.

Now if only people could buy it.

To make that happen, Crum is searching for the financial backing that would allow for a limited initial production run.

“I’ve had to spend quite a bit of money,” said Crum. “And things are to the point now where I’m just not able to do that anymore.”

Getting the game on store shelves has gone from intriguing prospect to a kind of obsession.

It all started with a misunderstanding.

Back in 1991 or 1992 (there’s disagreement within the family), Crum was driving with wife-to-be Deborah, a registered nurse. Seeing a VW Beetle, he hit her on the shoulder and shouted “Slug Bug!”

Unfamiliar with the time-honored folk game, she fixed Crum with a reproachful look and made her position clear.

“Don’t ever do that again,” she said.

Thus began the process of morphing road-trip roughhousing into a game that’s more puns than punching.

Crum identified the challenge right away: How do you retain Slug Bug’s infectious “I saw it first!” aspect while jettisoning the fisticuffs and backseat melees?

At first, he didn’t even write anything down. He just started envisioning a game that would be family-friendly and suffused with humor. “It was like a hobby,” he said.

He got serious back around 1998. He found himself daydreaming about revisions and improvements. Snip snip here, tweak tweak there.

Eventually he formalized the rules and road-tested his ideas.

He tried it out on his two sons, then on dozens of others — both kids and adults. Those road tests were encouraging.

Tug Bug, which features a scoreboard that can be held in a lap or attached to the car’s dash, can be played on several levels of complexity.

Basically, players score by spotting VWs and identifying details about the vehicle, such as what it looks like, where it’s located and who’s in it.

The Tug Bug lexicon includes terms such as Lady Bug, Hum Bug, Ugly Bugly, Bug Juice, Litter Bug, Tug Buggy, Tug Bug Hug, Shutter Bug, Volk Poke, Bugaboo and Lightning Bug.

It can be played as individuals or by teams.

Getting to that stage took time. Just finding a graphic design firm that shared Crum’s vision of the game was a years-long process. (He has been working with Spokane’s Bassett & Brush Design.)

“I think I did everything backwards,” he said. “But along the way, I’ve learned a lot. I think somebody should give me an MBA.”

He could put that diploma next to the one for his bachelor’s degree in biblical studies from Whitworth College.

Crum has an agent in Chicago, a patent attorney in New Mexico and a reserved place in line at a production plant in Michigan.

“I’m not just some guy who scribbled something on a napkin,” said the man who refers to himself as a “Dr. of Bugology” and whose e-mail address includes “bugzilla.”

After seeing it at a 2003 toy fair, noted San Francisco child development specialist Stevanne Auerbach, a.k.a. “Dr.Toy,” named Tug Bug one of the top travel games of 2003.

“Your children will be on the edge of their seats as they delight in this contagious game,” she wrote.

Which is all well and good. But until volk, er, people can actually buy it, Crum’s hopes linger in inventor’s limbo.

The uncertainty has to bug him. He doesn’t show it, though.

“Most people would have given up a long time ago,” he said. “Right now, I’m in this weird place where I know it’s going to happen but I don’t know the details yet.”

The key question: Who is going to invest in Tug Bug?

Volkswagen’s motto is “Drivers wanted.”

Crum’s might well be “Believers wanted.”

So he has been courting those with deep pockets, taking meetings, making his pitch. He’s waiting for the one call-back that could press the “Start” button.

“My mother says, “Why is it taking so long?’” said Crum.

He tells her there are a lot of steps and that doing something right requires time.

He said he’s not discouraged. “I’m not the kind of person who gives up on a good idea.”

Besides, he has had a vision of the future.

He’s out driving in his car. He looks over at the vehicle next to his in traffic and sees a happy family playing Tug Bug.

“That would really be something,” said Crum. “That’s when I’d know it was a success.”

To find out more about Jeff Crum and his game, go to www.tugbug.co