MARK Wood's card says "inventor / psychologist" but his attire and demeanour shout "academic". Mark - Dr Mark, if you prefer was indeed an academic until he retired to work on a puzzle that may or may not change the world. The Kaleidoscope Classic has been successfully test-marketed, is being manufactured in India and will be launched at this weekend's Australian Toy Fair in Melbourne.

Mark is American-born but moved to Sweden at 22. became Swedish, then left in 1989 and became Australian to work for the Federal Government. He has two degrees from Sweden, a doctorate from New Zealand and has lectured at several Australian universities. The Kaleidoscope Classic, its creator believes, is the logical successor to Rubik's Cube, that infuriating creation of Hungary's Professor Erno Rubik that has sold 200 million units since it was launched in 1980.

• Q. Does you game have that sort of potential?
• A. Much greater, it should appeal to between four per cent and 12 per cent of the population, which means we should sell at least a million in Australia and obviously a great deal more abroad.

• Q. Will it make you rich?
• A. Possibly. But I have just turned 62 and as I have not made a great deal of money thus far in my life, whether or not I make it now is not all that important. I suppose if I made a lot it would be nice to give some away and to have some in my old age.

• Q. When did you start work on the game?
• A. In 1989. Testing is central to psychology and I was exploring some of the tools available when it came to me this might be an interesting direction to pursue.

• Q. Will it drive us nuts, like Rubik's Cube? A. Not at all. The secret is that some solutions are quite easy while others are very complex. It looks simple, but you will discover it has bite.

• Q. How does it work?
• A. It's a chessboard made up of 18 unique pieces. Each piece is different in either size, shape or colour. There are about 20 billion ways in which they can be fitted together. The first, simple puzzle is to assemble the pieces back into a regular chessboard. There are many ways of doing that. But then you begin to assemble it into other patterns animals, religious symbols, words and letters, flowers, people, sports, and more. They get increasingly difficult.

• Q. How will you persuade people, especially kids, to play with something low-tech in an age of computers?
• A. Easily, People are multi-dimensional and enjoy a range of activities. Just because someone plays cricket does not mean they are not interested in watching television. The game appeals strongly to people who like to work on something tangible. We are all over-exposed to technology pressing buttons to make things happen without understanding how or why they do. With this, it all happens in our fingers.

• Q. You'rs obviously confident you're on a winner.
• A. It's just beginning in Australia. But in our first, brief test, we sold 13,000 games in India. We also did a test launch on the Gold Coast last November and it quickly became the best-selling Christmas toy up there. We sold 2000 in two months.

• Q. What is Australia's involvement in all of this?
• A. I'm now Australian and so are my partners, though one was born in Holland and the other in Britain. All manufacturing is done in New Delhi but our corporate headquarters are on the Gold Coast. Also, (Australian cricket coach) John Buchanan has one with him on the Sri Lankan tour.

• Q. How much does it cost?
• A. It will sell for $59.95 in most toy stores.

• Q. Was there a moment when you shouted Eureka! Because you knew you had it?
• A. Not exactly. I realised early in 1993 that I had a saleable product and than it was all a bit exciting. But the thing that continues to excite me is people's reaction to it. This is a puzzle that, at one level, all people can do-which tells them that the smarty pants who invented the thing is not just trying to show them how dumb they are.

• Q. You mean we're not dumb?
• A. No sir. Even you got it out, didn't you?