Inventor of iconic party game Twister dies Co-inventors of the game Twister Charles Foley, left, and Neil Rabens demonstrate the game. The man whose Twister game launched decades of awkward social interactions at parties has died. He was 82. Charles ""Chuck"" Foley died on July 1 at a care facility in the Minneapolis suburb of St. Louis Park. His son, Mark Foley, said on Thursday that his father had been suffering from Alzheimer's disease. Foley and a collaborator, Neil Rabens, were hired in the mid-1960s by a manufacturing firm that wanted to expand into games and toys. They came up with a game to be played on a mat on the floor, using a spinner to direct players to place their hands and feet on different coloured circles. ""Dad wanted to make a game that could light up a party,"" Mark Foley said. ""They originally called it "Pretzel." But they sold it to Milton Bradley, which came up with the "Twister" name. ""The game became a sensation after Johnny Carson and Eva Gabor played it on The Tonight Show in 1966. Mark Foley said his father made little money from Twister, but that it never seemed to bother him much. Charles Foley's first invention came at the age of 8, a locking system for the cattle pen at his grandfather's farm, and over the years he invented dozens of other toys and games. He lived in North Carolina for a number of years, but returned to Minnesota six years ago to be closer to his family when his health began to decline. Foley and his wife, Kathleen, had nine children. She died of breast cancer in 1975, and Foley never remarried. ""He never stopped having fun,"" Mark Foley said. ""He tried to think like young people thought. He never wanted to grow up, and he always maintained his enthusiasm for seeing things through the eyes of a child.""