F*#$ Games From My Childhood

What did you play as a kid? My dad is/was a war gamer, so I played some crazy stuff. But mostly I played with the kids down the street, not my dad. I would beg my dad to play chess with me, and occasionally he would reluctantly agree. Then he'd crush me in approximately 5 moves, give me a book on chess, and tell me to go read it. "Rematch?"

"No."

We played a couple games though that I have sort of fond memories of. One was called "Dungeon" and in retrospect, it was a horrible game. It enjoys a generous ranking of 2835, I suspect that's more because so many are familiar with it rather than it's actual quality. But that's what they had in 1975.

(we had this alternate cover)

Dungeon was by TSR, and involved wandering around the board, kicking down doors, killing monsters, and taking their stuff.

We also had a game called Sorcerer's Cave which was good from far, but far from good. The concept was great, explore the cave, flip new rooms from a random deck, spread it all around your living room (see picture). But really, it was just an evolution of Dungeon with a nifty random map element thrown in.

It was a little clunky because if you went north and found a dead end, turn over. Determining the temperament of an NPCs involved rolling a single six-sided die. Combat was the same. Luck is fun! Well, not for me.

Sorcerer's Cave ranks a well deserved 2310.

I have some vague recollection of a game called 221B Baker's Street, where you tried to solve mysteries al la Sherlock Holmes. I also remember a game called By Jove which we never played because it came with a booklet of Greek myths that you had to familiarize yourself with. So my dad gave me the book and said "read this." And I didn't :) By Jove seems like it was an educational game anyway, and a rank of 7115 is the new record for games I looked up on purpose.

Anyhow, my friends down the street actually had most of the games we played together, so we played at their house. We played plenty of Risk, a little Axis & Allies, and a little Fortess America. (That's the one where, well, here, let me just paste the description from BBG: "From the west arrives hordes of Asian foes; from the south arrives a union of South American countries through Mexico, and from the east lands come legions of Soviets who have taken over all of Europe. America besieged has to rely on the remaining ground and air forces left in the country along with partisan uprisings to defend mom's apple pie." Ahhh Milton Bradley, those were the days. Well wait! Fantasy Flight is actually re-releasing this game. Because something new is too hard?) We also played some Talisman, this is before I dubbed it "the argument starter". The number of contradictions in the rules of that game was miraculous. Note the playing time, four hours. (Fantasy Flight also re-released this game as a 4th edition).

We played Dark Tower occasionally. I would play that game right now and I don't even remember how it worked. I remember that great midi music though, and the sound of the door slowly opening, and your units fighting the brigands round after round. I also remember my friends' tower breaking and that being the end of that. (2 minutes of Tower ecstasy on youtube here)

Less than $300 on eBay if you act fast!

Oh man, I loved Stratego. I would see that on a shelf at a random friends house and beg to play it. The sad thing is, I probably only played and finished a game like twice. I asked for Stratego for Christmas a few years in a row, nothing. Santa let me down. My mom just dumped a pile of old childhood memories on me and I came across one of those very Christmas lists with Stratego NUMBER ONE, obvious evidence my parents did not love me (Dad, if you're reading this, I'm sorry...but the proof is right there). I got Darren to play me in Stratego last week while we waited for the others to arrive. But like just like in my youth, we never actually finished.

Stratego was awesome. What concept! It had bombs, it had spies, it had surprises, it had subterfuge, it had strategy, it had bombs, it had tactics, it had bombs. The new sets have changed the numbering but not the play, someone decided that the best unit should be the highest, so they flipped all the numbers around. 10 is the best, 2 is the "scout". Whatever, it's still fun!

My son wants to play Settlers of the Catan (sic), badly. So finally, FINALLY, I taught him the basic rules last night. But before we did that, we had to learn all about probability. (It's tough being my son, Paul. I apologize now and I promise, I PROMISE, I'll pay for your therapy later.) I also made him learn about binary before he could play Minecraft. He's 8. I have a problem. But I digress. We play games together semi-regularly, more so now that he's older. Guess what our favorite is? Stratego.