Aug. 3--A Bellevue startup has just the thing for boys who can't afford a Nintendo DS, or just want the latest tech-ish game.

Smith & Tinker is making its public debut today with an ambitious sci-fi game aimed at 7- to 12-year-olds.

Called Nanovor, it's played online or offline, using a $50 handheld Nanoscope player that's synced to the PC game with a USB cable.

Online games, available beginning this week at Nanovor.com, are free. But the company expects players soon will buy characters and other toys going on sale now until the holidays.

Nanoscopes, about the size of a deck of cards and with a 1.8-inch color screen, go on sale in October at major retailers.

Players collect a set of little monsters called nanovors, then pit them against each other in battles, similar to playing Pokemon cards.

Instead of physical cards, nanovars are animated digital characters that battle on screen in quick, lively action sequences. Battles end when the loser explodes in a burst of dribbly green goo.

They actually explode in 14 different ways, according to Jordan Weisman, a former Microsoft creative director who started Smith & Tinker in 2007.

"The way they go splat is really important. If you lose a guy in a really fun way, it takes the sting off of it," he explained.

Battles are played online or in person by docking Nanoscopes side by side. They snap together magnetically, letting up to four players battle together in person.

"We believe there's nothing more interesting to a kid than another kid, and there's a reason the toy industry is still a $21 billion industry, as big as the video-game industry in the United States," said company president, Joe Lawandus, a former Cranium general manager who earlier led Disney's $1 billion U.S. toy business. "There's something to kids being social with one another and actually sitting in the room next to each other."

Nanovor is more than a game. It's also an elaborate and costly retail campaign.

Smith & Tinker is pitching it with cartoons, comic books, TV commercials, figurines and a special transaction system.

In addition to the nanovars and other digital items, retailers will sell $10 gift cards with game credits that can be spent buying nanovors online.

Credits will be bundled with Nanoscopes and figurines. Also coming are $8 Nanoscope game cartridges.

Weisman recruited local game and tech veterans such as Chief Technology Officer Markus Schweig, who helped build the Xbox network, and former RealNetworks game executive Charles Merrin.

Investors include Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and Alsop Louie Partners, a San Francisco investment firm that also backed Renton's Wizards of the Coast.

Weisman hopes Nanovor will have sales of more than $20 million next year, and he's already tinkering with additional franchises using the same model.

"This idea of bringing the kids' physical social circle and the virtual social circle together in one cohesive play pattern is pretty broad," he said.

Nanovor appears to have the polish, vision and reach to become a hit.

If not, look for puddles of green goo and insect bits on clearance shelves in a few years.

Brier Dudley: 206-515-5687 or bdudley@seattletimes.com

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