Patent Required or Not

Sounds interesting. The first thing you basically need to know is that patents, trademarks, and copyrights are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Secondly, each type of IP (intellectual property - patents, TMs, and CRs) operate under different rules and provide different types of protection. It is possible that you can obtain a patent for the game comprising the different components. You may also be able to obtain a patent for a method of playing a game. On the other hand, a trademark does not actually provide protection for the game itself, but only for YOUR game as you market it - so, let's say you start marketing the game under the mark BEACH CHALLENGE (admittedly, not probably a great name for a trademark - you want a strong mark, not something approaching a descriptive mark, but I couldn't readily think of a good trademark) - so your TM will only protect your particular game - that is, the one you market as BEACH CHALLENGE. Someone else can be selling the exact same game under a different mark - let's say FAMILY FUN TIME. The point is, TMs only have protection for your particular product as it is being marketed. On the other hand, if you got a patent on the game, or the method of playing the game, no one else could make, use, or sell the same game under any product name. Jumping over to CRs, you may possibly obtain a CR for the instruction manual on how to play the game. Years ago, the Pet Rock was a huge commercial success - now, no one could possibly patent a rock, but the instruction manual for what one could "do" with the Pet Rock was copyrighted - therefore, no one could develop a similar instruction manual or else they would be infringing the Pet Rock owner's copyright. Good luck.