It seems like every game nowadays is on a smartphone. What happened to good old board games or games that had you running around the entire room? Children in this decade never got to experience some of the best games we had growing up. Here are games that we need to bring back to relive our childhood's and show these kids what really made game time fun.
1. Elefun
The elephant would have tons of nylon butterflies in it's trunk and each player would have a butterfly net. Once you turned on the game, the elephant's trunk shot up and the butterflies flew out. The person who go the most butterflies won. The game got super competitive and after about 10 games you had a third of the original butterflies.
2. Perfection
25 shapes, 25 holes, 60 seconds. (Also know as the most terrifying 60 seconds of your life.) You would push down the tray then players would take turns trying to fit every shape in the correct hole before time was up and the entire board popped-up, scaring the crap out of you. If you were lucky enough to finish the whole thing before time was up, you didn't get little yellow pieces hitting you in the face.
3. Mouse Trap
Each player gets a mouse piece and their objective is to trap each of their opponent's mice, hence the name Mouse Trap. The set of traps is started off with a crank that turns a set of gears which begins a series of stages. The last stage is a cage being lowered over the "cheese wheel" space on the board. The game consists of building traps to stop your opponents... in the most ingenious ways possible.
4. Hungry Hungry Hippos
A game board surrounded by colorful, and very hungry hippos, that are controlled by levers. The object is to press the lever down fast enough that your hippo "eats" the most marbles. This game is very competitive and usually ends in at least one person breaking a lever (at least the way I played it). Careful not to place your hand in or around the mouth of the hippos... the sh*t hurts!
5. Sorry!
The game often confused with Trouble (or is it just me who does that?). This is the game is to be the first player to get all four of their specific colored pieces from the starting place to the "home" space. Where your pieces go is determined by drawing of cards. So basically there is no strategy, it's all... luck of the draw! (Pun 100% intended.)
6. Mancala
The super cool game with marbles that unless you understood how to play looked like people just moving marbles into random places. The object of the game is to have more marbles than your opponent. Each small pit has a certain number of marbles in each, each player chooses a pit to take the marbles from and disperse them in order of the board. The player with the most marbles in their side of the bigger pit wins! (Sounds super complicated, but it's really easy once you play it!)
7. Trouble
The one I mentioned earlier that I often get confused with Sorry! Except this one has that clear dome in the middle that makes a clicking noise when you press it, also know are the "Pop-O-Matic" which is just a fancy term for the thing that tolls the dice for you. Each player's pegs has to go all the way around the board to the finish space, but if another player's peg lands on the same space are you are, you peg has to start over... bummer. The first player who gets all their colored pegs to the finish wins!
8. Don't Wake Daddy
The game that actually reminded you of real life and how terrifying it can be to accidentally wake your father. Each player pretends to be a kid trying to sneak to the fridge late at night (what else is new?) while trying not to wake their sleeping father who is sleeping in the middle of the board in a large plastic bed. How you move is based on the spinner the corresponding moves. If a player makes on the the couple "noises" they have to push the alarm clock next to "Daddy" a certain amount of times. If you are the loser in that roulette game, the clock will ring loudly and "Daddy" will jerk awake, scaring just as bad as perfection.
9. Gator Golf
Taking putt putting to a whole new level by each player taking turn putting into the mouth of a electronic alligator. Sounds simple until you realize that this gator can fling the ball off of its tail and spin around creative different challenges for each player.
10. Hi Ho! Cherry-O
The game where you learned to count! Each player starts out with an empty basket and 10 cherries on their tree. Everyone takes turn spinning the spinner and performing the action. You would be told to take a certain number of cherries from the tree, replace the cherries if you landed on the bird or dog, or you could "spill" your basket and put all the cherries back on the tree. First place to collect all the cherries from their tree yells "Hi Ho! Cherry-O" and wins the game.