C/D: Board Games That Require A VCR

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I've been picking up games for Rufus for when he is older (it's fun and i get to relive my childhood, you know? I've already found Mousetrap, Operation, Hangman, Stay Alive, Stratego, & Sorry.), and yesterday I bought a Star Trek game and a Star Wars game that both come with VHS tapes that go along with the game. The Star Wars game even includes footage of Darth Vader that YOU HAVE NEVER SEEN! Anyway, they made me think of the VCR boom of the 80's and it occurred to me that I had never actually played one of these games. I remember when Clue came out with their board/video hybrid. So, S/D too, I guess, if I ever see any that people remember. I know there is a board game thread, but this is a very specific kinda board game thread. Did they start making all of these cuz they were scared of losing kids to video games? (hah! They had good reason to be scared.)

― scott seward (scott seward), Thursday, 26 August 2004 11:27 (twenty-one years ago)

how the hell do these work, scott? sounds intriguing...

― stevie (stevie), Thursday, 26 August 2004 11:34 (twenty-one years ago)

I played some spooky ghost one once...Atmosphear. It was real crap anyway. All this fwding and rwnding of the tape.

But! Now there's DVDs these things really come into their own. Got a game called Scene It! which is a DVD movie triv type game with clips and questions. The DVD has some shuffle mechanism in it to make the questions random. Its cool!

― Trayce (trayce), Thursday, 26 August 2004 11:34 (twenty-one years ago)

http://i19.ebayimg.com/01/i/01/17/08/c1_1.JPG

Beta .. bummer.

― dave225 (Dave225), Thursday, 26 August 2004 11:37 (twenty-one years ago)

yeah, that is too bad, cuz that rich little one looks like hours of fun. the star wars one comes with a circular game board that looks like the deck of a ship and has cards and game pieces and all that, and i'm guessing that at certain points in the game you have to start the tape and follow the action/clues and take it from there. Hah! I should just play it with maria some night. it has gotta be worth 1 laugh or 2.

― scott seward (scott seward), Thursday, 26 August 2004 11:41 (twenty-one years ago)

Lessee, help me out here. We've got John Wayne and Jack Benny on the left side and ______ ______ and Humphrey Bogart on the right? Who's that third one supposed to be?

This tape obviously came out in the eighties and Rich Little was still doing Jack Benny? Then again, Imus in the Morning still relies on their stock unfunny bits starring General Patton, Richard Nixon, and Ross Perot.

Boy, Rich looks young up there.

I have never played one of these hybrid games. I have been to a "Murder Mystery" party, and it was about one of the most gayest experiences of my life.

― Pleasant Plains (Pleasant Plains), Thursday, 26 August 2004 11:57 (twenty-one years ago)

The third one might be Cary Grant..? (Who was known for glasses and a single white rose?)

― dave225 (Dave225), Thursday, 26 August 2004 11:59 (twenty-one years ago)

Mousetrap: Great game. You build a Rube Goldberg like contraption out of plastic parts as players, represented by plastic mice, move around the board. The trick is not to be on the bulls-eye at the time of the game when the contraption is complete, the trap thrown and a cage dropped over your piece. Everyone yells "Mouse Trap!"

Operation: Another fine one. Needs batteries. You have a forceps connected to a lead which connects to the metal board, a simple model of a body with cavities for various organs and bones, which are plastic pieces in the metal cavities. You try to remove them without your forceps touching the metal side of the cavity, which completes the circuit, and makes the body's nose light blink and a bell go off.
I think, if I remember, correctly.

Stratego: Quite different, but fun. Red and blue armies represented by lots of plastic pieces. The armies are arrayed in lines on opposite sides. Each piece is a different type of soldier, but your opponent cannot see what type, and you cannot see his, because the frontage of the pieces is blank. You also get landmines, which are represented just like soldier pieces, but as bombs. Your best piece is the Marshal, almost an invincible soldier, one who can only be
defeated by The Spy, a feeble wretch whose only ability is to take down the Marshal if he strikes first.

Now look for Chutes & Ladders and Candyland. Also worth looking for is the first edition of Bismark by Avalon Hill, which will be more suited when he is ten or twelve.

― George Smith, Thursday, 26 August 2004 14:59 (twenty-one years ago)

I think VCR moustrap sounds like a lot of fun.

VCR Operation, not so much.

― dave225 (Dave225), Thursday, 26 August 2004 15:05 (twenty-one years ago)

There was a VCR Clue game too, right? It must have been connected with the movie somehow.

Yeah, I guess I generally remember these games as a bad application of "multimedia". Note interestingly: there were no DVD boardgames.

― mikef (mfleming), Thursday, 26 August 2004 15:39 (twenty-one years ago)

bad application of "multimedia" .. or cashing in on the latest craze..
Probably true. In light of that, I'm surprised there weren't any fax games. Not many CB-related games either. .. although there was an electronic game with the voice of Buford T. Justice .. I only remember, "Kiss my .. toilet."

― dave225 (Dave225), Thursday, 26 August 2004 15:46 (twenty-one years ago)

hey, wait a minute, i didn't buy a vcr mousetrap game! I only mentioned those as examples of other board games I had picked up for Rufus. the star trek and star wars games were the vcr/board hybrids. although, a vcr Operation game does sound like it would be cool.

― scott seward (scott seward), Thursday, 26 August 2004 15:49 (twenty-one years ago)

it took me over an hour to put the mouse trap together when i bought it. if you are missing a piece on that thing you are really screwed.

― scott seward (scott seward), Thursday, 26 August 2004 15:51 (twenty-one years ago)

Did anyone ever actually play Mousetrap? My sister and I would put it together just to watch the cage drop.

I also spent hours playing a game called Run Yourself Ragged. I think. It involved getting a steel ball bearing from one side of a playing field to another, having to go through obstacles like platforms that move and metal beams that flex.

How did those VCR board games work if you had to rewind and fast-forward? If it was through the use of counters, then it must've been so fucked. I've never seen two VCR counters that are in synch to each other.

― Pleasant Plains (Pleasant Plains), Thursday, 26 August 2004 15:56 (twenty-one years ago)

Nah, I didn't think there was a video operation game or video mousetrap.. How in the hell would either of them work? It's like video slip & slide...

― dave225 (Dave225), Thursday, 26 August 2004 15:58 (twenty-one years ago)

it will be interesting to see if ONE person on ILX ever played one of these damned things before this thread slips off into nothingness. I guess there was a reason that everyone just started playing video games instead of board games. Lack of innovation!

― scott seward (scott seward), Thursday, 26 August 2004 16:05 (twenty-one years ago)

I played one onc, when I was young! I don't remember what it was called! It had some creepy wizard dude!

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Thursday, 26 August 2004 16:09 (twenty-one years ago)

MALL MADNESS

― Homosexual II (Homosexual II), Thursday, 26 August 2004 16:11 (twenty-one years ago)

I've played Atmosfear. I also used to have a vcr game version of You've Been Framed - which would have been cool excepy I never played it. Oh, and a vcr game of 221B Baker Street, which was rubbish.

― Kevin Gilchrist (Mr Fusion), Thursday, 26 August 2004 16:14 (twenty-one years ago)

Aha! The vcr/board gamers come out of the woodwork!

― scott seward (scott seward), Thursday, 26 August 2004 16:16 (twenty-one years ago)

I saw a movie trivia one at the thrift store, but it looked really lame.

― scott seward (scott seward), Thursday, 26 August 2004 16:17 (twenty-one years ago)

I had one as a kid. It was some (U.S.) football-themed game where you moved along the board as if it were a football field, and the video would show the plays. I never really understood the point of it, because you watched the video in order, so it'd be the same game every bloody time you played it, right? Or maybe there was some nuance I'm forgetting. I remember really wanting more interactivity out of it and being frustrated with the limitations of VCR technology.

― jaymc (jaymc), Thursday, 26 August 2004 16:18 (twenty-one years ago)

(Needless to say, my brother and I played it once, and then it was forgotten.)

― jaymc (jaymc), Thursday, 26 August 2004 16:19 (twenty-one years ago)

haha my friend is totally OBSESSED with these vcr board games! he has california games (fun), and that "yes my gatekeeper!" one. they are somewhat fun.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 26 August 2004 16:26 (twenty-one years ago)

nickalicious! I played that one too at a birthday party when I was 11 or something... I think we eventually turned the tape off, because the old guy would come on every five minutes shrieking 'YOU'RE RUNNING OUT OF TIME!', which got really irritating.

― derrick (derrick), Thursday, 26 August 2004 16:44 (twenty-one years ago)

ha ha THAT'S IT! God I wish I could remember what it was called.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Thursday, 26 August 2004 16:48 (twenty-one years ago)

"yes my gatekeeper!"

I think that line really belongs on this thread.

― Pleasant Plains (Pleasant Plains), Thursday, 26 August 2004 16:49 (twenty-one years ago)

haha!

― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 26 August 2004 16:50 (twenty-one years ago)

My friend owns Scene It! Not good. We saw a repeated question on only our second game. Also, I suspect there was some payola because the answer to about half the video questions is "Field of Dreams".

― Vinnie (vprabhu), Thursday, 26 August 2004 17:02 (twenty-one years ago)

I've played two, and both were dull. One was the US football game that jaymc mentioned above. The other was something in a haunted house. I think each got exactly one play. There was too much back and forth between the board and the play button.

Not board games, but there used to be those tv shows/videos where you shot at little targets on the screen and the animated bad guys could shoot at you. Those were a blast.

― JC-L (JC-L), Thursday, 26 August 2004 19:33 (twenty-one years ago)

http://www.dragons-lair-project.com/games/pics/time/pic01.jpg

Was it ILE that brought this back to my attention, or was it somewhere else?

― Pleasant Plains (Pleasant Plains), Thursday, 26 August 2004 19:48 (twenty-one years ago)

we had the "I, Robot" or something one that Asmimov had a hand in. some cheesy robot detective story where YOU spot the clue!

i think we played thru it once, or maybe just halfway...

― Lt. Kingfish Del Pickles (Kingfish), Thursday, 26 August 2004 21:22 (twenty-one years ago)

dude what was that video game system where you "played" against the vcr tape?! i cant fucking believe my parents got me that instead of an NES

― jess (dubplatestyle), Thursday, 26 August 2004 21:32 (twenty-one years ago)

anybody remember Captain Power, where your ships would react to the flash targets in the videos?

― Lt. Kingfish Del Pickles (Kingfish), Thursday, 26 August 2004 21:36 (twenty-one years ago)

captain power!!! and the little action figure EJECTS!

― ())(())()()()(()(LASER)()()()LA(Z)E(R)()()()((L)()()(A)(S(E)R()()()) (ex machina, Thursday, 26 August 2004 22:22 (twenty-one years ago)

For some reason my dad was given the first three "Nightmare" games (later became Atmosfear I think) - I loved them when I was about ten, and would play them endlessly. There second one had a zombie I think, he was really camp and crude, like those sixty yr old gay guys who come onto you at four am in the morning at bars in the most revolting fashion because the time for subtlety or self-respect is long gone. He used to say "HIT THE HOLE!!!" with this triumphant/pained groan, which even at the time seemed a bit indecorous.

― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Friday, 27 August 2004 01:28 (twenty-one years ago)

I remember playing the Clue game at a friends (it sucked) and I got some total crap one for Xmas one year that was based around vampires and werewolves and whatnot. I remember trying to play it once, then watching it straight thru, then never touching it again.

― Aaron W (Aaron W), Friday, 27 August 2004 01:41 (twenty-one years ago)

Haha... I just tried to look up Atmosfear to see if it was the same as the vampire one I had and found this:

http://www.atmosfear.net/atn/frameset.html

(turn up your speakers)

― Aaron W (Aaron W), Friday, 27 August 2004 01:42 (twenty-one years ago)

There second one had a zombie I think

Baron Samedi.

Actually, that 'HIT THE HOLE' mantra gives me the willies now.

― Sexual Air Supply (Autumn Almanac), Friday, 27 August 2004 01:43 (twenty-one years ago)

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