I Sold a 4D Board Game to it's Inventor

I once sold an old game to a chap. The game and the chap turned out to have a story and he has kindly shared it with the blog:

"I was at A-level stage in about 1979/1980, and despite trying to do boring school stuff, I was also one of the first people in the UK to build my own home computers and program them, and this was before you could buy any type of off he shelf 'home computer. 

There wasn’t much you could do with them as there wasn’t an established market for games or software. So I used to have to program my own games, in machine code or basic. I was a keen addict at the local games arcade, so writing space invaders and asteroids was an obvious target. 

Myself and a few of my friends formed a weird little group that would now be called the geek squad or similar (!) and we all used to get involved with unusual activities, often with the school teachers encouraging our little group to do things that all the 1,500 kids couldn’t be bothered to take interest in.

The teachers at school kept an interest in what we were doing, because no one knew anybody who was doing anything like it. But we also used to play various board games, like chess and Halma. 

One day our maths teacher ( A Mrs Ball …) approached me and a few friends who played chess, and told us how one of her relatives had invented a new kind of chess with a 'star trek' style time-warp / time-delay element built in.

If you look at the original 1966 Star trek series, you will sometimes see Spock playing a weird looking version of chess with a variety of platforms up one side of the board. It was a kind of 3D chess board. Pieces get moved onto the platforms and shifted along one platform per turn, or something like that. 

Eventually they pop out of their "time warp" and can be placed back on the main board somehow. I am convinced that the chap who invented 4D was inspired by both chess and the star trek version. 

Anyway, we were all asked to play the game a few times according to the rules he had set, although he wanted feedback as to any good ideas to improve things or comments on things that were annoying. We all found the game quite good fun. 

But I never knew what happened to it after it went to market, so seeing it on ebay the other day was great, and off course I bought it! 

So, there you go. A tale of 4D from 40 yrs ago! cheers, 

A.M"

LOFT PROPERTY

Watching old episodes of Toy Hunter has been fun.

Here's two old IDEAL games that Jordan found in American lofts.

This one, Ideal's Mr. Rembrandt, I don't know but I like it. A sort of Mr. Machine robot combined with Spirograph. It draws shapes as it motors round its paper. How cool is that!

Is it one you know? 

This one I do know, Electronic Detective. At least I know of it. I found two of these in the late 1990's at car boot sales and sold them on. A fabulous 'computer' helps work out who the perps are in a sort of electronic Guess Who.

Is this one you know readers?

JUNKING IN EMPORIA 2: ZOWIES

 Further junking brought up these bad boys in two emporia: the old Magistrates Court and Etsy, both in Pontefract.

All in good nick and just one pound each. Bargain!

I was particularly chuffed with the little Zowies, those comical miniature Hot Wheels with tyres too small for the redline they deserved. I had these as a kid and they ran on lino really well. These three take my small collection to five.

Do you remember Zowies?

CLEMENTONI'S BLACK HOLE

I saw this Clementoni Black Hole board game and thought, I've not seen that before.I do like the box art.

Anyone got this Italian game?

GAME ON

 

Recently spotted in a charity shop on the top shelf, these two boxed board games were ten pounds each. Way too dear for me. 

 I do like seeing old board games like this. I used to pick them up for a pence at boot sales in the 90's. Great fun.

Dads Army was based on the popular TV show and released by Strawberry Fayre way back in 1974, making it 50 years old.

Payday was released by Palitoy in the 1970's too, the 'funny money game for all the family'. Its not a game I know at all.

Do you remember these games readers?

Just before Lockdown

 I've been deleting old snaps and came across this bunch showing old games and toys I set out for a collector to browse.

It was a couple of weeks before Lockdown in March 2020. It seems like a lifetime ago now.

I recall my Missus had seen an ad of this chaps on FB, a collector of board games.

Besides games I set out a few other bits and pieces to tickle his fancy.

A lot of this was left over from my old toy stall I had at toy fairs. It had been languishing in the loft for years.

I seem to remember the collector buying quote a lot.

Another two weeks and he wouldn't have been allowed to leave his bubble and come to our house! 

Have you ever had a collector or dealer come to your house to buy stuff readers?

S i l v e s t e r 1 9 8 3

Clearing out my Wife's parents' apartment has been a sobering and often sombre experience this past month.

I've personally known them since 1979, that's most of my adult life till they passed away. It's humbling to be the custodians of their entire life's purchases, belongings, heirlooms and clothes. There was and is so much of it.

Occasionally in all the shifting and sifting I stumbled on evidence of my own small part in their lives.

One such piece was this old games compendium. 

At first glance I didn't notice anything ...

but on closer inspection ....

There's my name and the year written by my Father in Law at the time. I was 22 and living in Germany with his daughter round the Corner from where they lived.  It was New Years Eve, Silvester, 1983 and we must have been playing board games as a family.

I was touched seeing it, a small something of me from my Father in Law so long ago.

I was there. Where were you readers?

PLAY VROOM

Its always fun to see a game you had as a kid having been enjoyed by kids in other lands.

Here's Waddington's Formula 1 as issued in Germany by Brohm, Nurburgring Formel 1 [apologies, can't find the umlaut on my keyboard!]

Formula 1 was actually my older Brother's game, along with others like the Battle of the Little Big Horn, Blast Off and Twister, but I saw them so often I associate them completely with my childhood.

I will have been busy dropping the ball down the chimney in my beloved Haunted House game!

Did you have Formula 1 in your neck of the woods?

WADDINGTONS PURPLE PEOPLE EATER

Here is another weird one. Is this something you came across in your days as a toy trader ? Did you ever play it ?

The Flying Purple People Eater was originally a 1958 novelty song by Sheb Wooley. There was also a 1988 children's movie (in which Sheb Wooley appeared), a game by Waddingtons, and several toy versions.

The Waddingtons Purple People Eater is described as being something like the game Operation. The object was to remove tiny plastic people (who were not purple) from the mouth of a sleeping Monster, without waking him up.

The monster was a large, hideous, slimly, octopus-like creature, with two eyes, one of which glows red, and a menacing growl (batteries not included). The colour scheme is purple/red/green/yellow.

The box provides a fair amount of information:

The Electrically frightening 'feely' monster game of skill.

The Purple People Eater is asleep. Can you save the people from his horrible clutches ?

If you wake him up you will hear him growl as his eye lights up in anger. Caught in his clutches you will feel his tentacles quiver on your hand.

Will you be able to rescue the people through his gapping jaw ? Take care, because if you wake him he will get very angry !

The creature does not match the description in the song (a one-eyed, one-horned, flying purple alien). The Waddingtons monster does not appear able to fly, he has two eyes, and no horn.

From 6 Years, 2 - 4 players. It dates from the early 1980s sometime, with different sources saying 1979, 1980, 1981, or 1982. I could not find any photographs showing a copyright date, to pin this down.

A bag of 16 small red plastic people was included, for the Monster to chomp on. But in reality, the Flying Purple People Eater only ate purple people, so the little red people should be perfectly safe.

The retail price was £7.99 according to this old TV ad.

https://www.google.com/search?q=waddington+purple+people+eater&oq=waddington+purple+people+eater&aqs=chrome..69i57.11611j0j15&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:10762b90,vid:YwHC4v9AkKM

This is another one of those toys or games where you can only wonder what was going through the minds of the creators. It does not look to have been a big hit, and there are very few sales listings for it today.

Two photographs from Worthpoint.

What do you think?

Paul Adams from New Zealand

A RISKY GAME

Here is an interesting You Tube video. Instead of playing the boardgame Risk on a normal board, this group decide to turn the board in to a three-dimensional map. Using texture paints, and gel for the seas. The results look really good, although it might be a bit difficult to actually play on.

A fun project for a rainy weekend maybe ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8GQT5zaJ_s

Paul Adams from New Zealand

PROPHETS AND LOSS: THE WADDINGTONS OUIJA BOARD

Car booting on Sunday I was amazed to see a Waddington's Ouija, a very obscure board game from the Sixties occult craze.

I haven't seen this board game for years.

Showing some interest in the thing propped up against a stall leg I began to wander over but Missus Moonbase said forget it. She wouldn't have it in the house.

I wuz amazed at such a strong reaction to what was simply marketed as a toy.

No wonder Waddingtons ran into trouble from concerned parents back in the day. I understand that the company had to pull their Ouija after just one year of production. It reminds me of the travails of Mars Attacks cards or Aurora's Victim.

I've always liked monster board games and collected them avidly back in the Nineties and Noughties. I had loads and after an evening trip to someone's house who'd advertised in the newspaper small ads - yes before the tinternet - I drove there and bought a Waddingtons Ouija on the doorstep. The Missus may not have been with but we did often take trips to buy classifieds stuff at night, taking our young daughter with us for the drive.

I remember feeling slightly queasy at the time about Ouija in the home. It wasn't like having an innocent game like Haunted House or Creature Castle in the pile. Ouija was something different, something more dangerous perhaps.

I must have sold Ouija at some point. I sold everything.

Looking at it again I recall loving the simple box art. The black background and the grainy blue hooded figure emerging from it like a stone golem or something.

The word OUIJA - a blend of yes in French and German - appears to be conjured by the hand of the blue figure and the only real clues to what the game may be are the words Talking Board Set and The Mystifying Oracle, a registered trade mark no less.

This trademark was the property of William Fuld, who's name also appears on the cover. Waddingtons licenced the game from Fuld, an American who claimed to have invented it and had much success marketing it in the States as well through Parker Brothers. You might say he he profited from the prophets!

Waddingtons closed it doors in the 1990's and its entire archive went to the Museums Service of Leeds, not too far from Moonbase.

I imagine that at least of a couple of Ouija's went there way, nestling together now on some dusty shelf, talking to each other about life in the phantom zone and the pitfalls of selling occult toys to kids.

They didn't see that coming did they!

Did you have a Ouija?

Will Osborne's Vintage Games

 From Will's collection. Anything familiar?

Plastic Games of the Sixties

Back in the day childhood was full of brilliant games and sets.

There were so many in the Sixties I find it hard to remember them all.

Fascination was one. Two players each got a plastic hand-held maze tray and the first to get a ball bearing to the end would light up a small light on a stand. Oh what fun! Fascination sums up my tender years and I still have a set.

Crossfire was one too. A huge table-top game, in which steel balls were fired at a rolling puck. The balls were loaded into plastic pistols. I remember playing it so much with mates that zi got a blister on my inner trigger finger! I still have a board but no other equipment.

Casdon Soccer was another game I liked. Endorsed by Bobby Charlton, it was a sort of subbuteo on a plastic pitch. Instead of flicking each player twisted knobs to make ruddered players turn and kick. Great fun and a tough chunk of plastic, which has easily survived right up to press. I've owned a few.

I could go on. Which games do you recall?

THE HAUNTED STAIRCASE

 Seeing this modern TV-related Moon and Me toy, which my Granddaughter watches, took me right back when I saw it.

Its that staircase!

Bam! It's so similar to the fabulous stairs in my beloved Haunted House board game from the 1960's.

You remember! a marble hurtles down the stairs and knocked over your plastic playing person, with a large framed portrait of a smiling witch watching!

Denys Fisher's Haunted House was a key ingredient of my spooky childhood. I adored playing the game with friends and family or just on my own! One of my mates called it 'Drop it down The Chimney' on account of a marble being ... well, dropped down the chimney to get the ball rolling!

Everything about the game feels iconic to me; the box art, the art style, the actual cardboard house and board, the plastic accessories, the wonderful mid-walk plastic playing pieces and maybe top of the cauldron, the playing cards with the names of witches on like Glenda the Good! 

When I started a vintage toy business back in the day I played with designs for business cards using the Haunted House cards as the basis. In the end I opted for something whiter so it could be read easily, but the veneration was there!

Haunted House is a game that went around the world. Cooked up first by Milton Bradley in the States, it became Haunted House in the UK with Denys Fisher and the same with Toltoys in New Zealand. In Germany it was Spukschloss and in Italy, Castello Incanto.

Milton Bradley really did start something when he dropped that first marble down the chimney!

I've written about Haunted House and other creepy board games - like Ghost Castle, Scream Inn, Creature Castle - before, because I used to collect them.

Out of interest I checked Amazon to see if any have survived the ravages of time and lo and behold, the IDEAL clone, Ghost Castle has made it. Brand new and for a fresh generation of spooksters, here's the modern haunted staircase.

As good as it is, alas, it just don't cut the nostalgic mustard for me, so I'll stick to dropping Denys Fisher's vintage marbles down my mental chimney and leave it at that.

Did you play Haunted House?

TRY TO STAY ALIVE!

 

I VANT TO BITE YOUR FINGER GAME TV AD 1981

 

I've found at least two of these boxed games at car boots over the years and they sold quickly on my old toy stall.

Remember I Vant to Bite Yer Finger?

KRESKIN'S ESP BOARD GAME TV AD

 

I've only ever seen this board game in reference books. Did you have it?

Who was Kreskin?

SCREECH GAME TV AD 1970'S

 

I don't remember this at all. You?

WORDLE MUDDLE

I see young kids playing Wordle online all the time.

I understand that someone invented Wordle during lockdown and sold it for millions. A classic game success story.

Strangely though I thought Wordle existed as a board game in the Sixties and Seventies.

There were hundreds of word based games back then but they're hard to name now. Wordle sounds like it should have been one of them!

I recall Boggle, Mastermind, Perfection. So many.

Am I dreaming? Did Wordle exist as a board game back in the day?

Do you Wordle?

Mystery Board Game Cards

 Anyone recognise these old board game cards?