LOS ANGELES — Chuck Foley, whose Twister party game brought shoeless strangers achingly close to one another and made even the most spirited rounds of Scrabble seem comparatively tame, has died. He was 82.

The inventor, who held 97 patents, died July 1 in a care facility in St. Louis Park, Minn., family members said Wednesday. He had Alzheimer’s disease.

Twister, marketed as “The Game That Ties You Up in Knots,” was born as a collaboration between Foley and cartoonist Neil W. Rabens when they worked at a St. Paul, Minn., design firm in the mid-1960s.