Board games from hell?

[gamed121683]

Have you ever owned or played a game show home game with friends or family that never really matched up to the fun on TV?

This might surprise some of you, but my vote would go to Jeopardy! Maybe it's the company I keep, but while I love playing it on TV and it does translate well to cardboard, playing the home game with friends is usually a chore. More times than not, Final Jeopardy is either ignored or played as a formality because it's such a blowout. The $25,000 Pyramid home game, meanwhile, is always a favorite with my group.

/After watching last weekend's Lost & Found, maybe I should check eBay for a Call My Bluff home game.
//Of course, I could just buy Balderdash...or an unabridged dictionary.

[DoorNumberFour]

I love Three On A Match. When I was in college, I scored a copy on eBay for a decent price, and I was so excited to show all my tabletop-gamer friends this fast, intriguing, exciting game.

I think that was the first time my game friends were ever bored to the point of visible anger.

[TLEberle]

Sale of the Century and The Price is Right really don't translate well into a tabletop experience, and Millionaire joins that pantheon.

/Cribs: You should have called me, I would have come over!

[Mike Tennant]

Sale of the Century and The Price is Right really don't translate well into a tabletop experience

I'll grant you TPIR, but if the shopping experience doesn't matter to your players, either version of SotC can work as just a basic Q&A for high score. I've had success with both the Kelly/Garagiola-era game and the Perry version (people like Quizzard). There's even some fun to be had with the now-retro prizes, particularly in the older game.

Let's Make a Deal usually falls pretty flat, although the MB game from the '60s can be amusing the first time or two you play it.

Hollywood Squares is kind of a dud without prepared zingers. Match Game '7x flops if you play it by the official rules, though having real panelists could make it fun; '60s MG, on the other hand, is always a hit in my experience. Really, any show that relies on celebrities (i.e., using them as something more than contestant partners) isn't going to translate well.

[PYLdude]

I haven’t always been a fan of Wheel of Fortune games and have had several. They’re okay to a point.

Pressman does Jeopardy well. Tyco should’ve stuck with RC cars. They didn’t lack for material but everything else was just so unwieldy that by the time you finally got to play the game you’re exhausted.

I’m afraid to open the Star Wars Family Feud set I got for Christmas a few years ago. I think the concept is such an interesting one that the gameplay couldn’t live up to it.

[BrandonFG]

In college, we bought the $25K Pyramid home game, GSN edition. We found the material underwhelming and very random.

[Adam Nedeff]

Hollywood Squares is kind of a dud without prepared zingers. Match Game '7x flops if you play it by the official rules, though having real panelists could make it fun; '60s MG, on the other hand, is always a hit in my experience. Really, any show that relies on celebrities (i.e., using them as something more than contestant partners) isn't going to translate well.

Even if you don't have prepared zingers, Hollywood Squares can be a fun home game, and I'm speaking from experience...if you have a big gathering of people, assign each of them one of the characters in the game. You don't have the fun of the zingers, but it's fun for friends to do ridiculous voices and personas for each game. It's gone over fabulously every time I've tried it with a group of friends.

My only real "hell" experience with a game show home game has been You Don't Say! The problem with that game is fascinating. I've tried playing it at parties twice and exactly the same situation happened both times: After explaining the premise of the game and giving everybody one example, 50% of the room gets the game and masters it instantly. The other 50% don't get it, will never get it, and stare blankly no matter how many more examples you give them. There are some people who just absolutely cannot wrap their heads around it.

EDIT: Also, this isn't exactly "hell," but Waddington's Blockbusters home games are some of the most beautiful games ever designed, and the question material just absolutely sucks. Everything is either very vague, or on the opposite end of the spectrum, it's just "What E is a [literal dictionary definition of a word starting with E]?"

[chris319]

Not a board game, but we used to play What's My Line? on game nights. It requires ZERO preparation and people found it fun to play. Besides the panel we had a contestant and an emcee — someone to call for a "small conference".

Who can't wrap their heads around You Don't Say? Dude, you're hanging with the wrong crowd.

[chris319]

We tried playing "Jan Murray's Charge Account" one game night. The responses ranged from bewilderment to bewilderment, with some asking "this game was actually on the air?".

[SuperMatch93]

EDIT: Also, this isn't exactly "hell," but Waddington's Blockbusters home games are some of the most beautiful games ever designed, and the question material just absolutely sucks. Everything is either very vague, or on the opposite end of the spectrum, it's just "What E is a [literal dictionary definition of a word starting with E]?"

How does it compare with the material in the MB one? I wonder if using the question book from that one would be a better fit (despite not being able to do an authentic Gold Run).

Who can't wrap their heads around You Don't Say? Dude, you're hanging with the wrong crowd.

To be fair, I had a tough time understanding it when reading how it was played, and it wasn't until I saw an episode that I realized "Oh, it's like Pyramid but with words that sound similar."

[chrisholland03]

On a slight tangent, the older Family Feud home game answer boards are a pain in the ass to assemble and keep assembled while you play the game.

[calliaume]

As an adult, I learned unless I'm hanging out with a good game show crowd, bringing out the board games doesn't work well.

My then-girlfriend (now wife) played The Newlywed Game against a newlywed couple who had been together considerably longer than we had, and we clobbered them. They were not happy.

I played Password about 15 years with a colleague of Karen's (she's a theology professor) who was born in the early 1960s. He'd never seen the show on television and had no idea how to play it. Even his wife was stunned by that one.

[Sodboy13]

EDIT: Also, this isn't exactly "hell," but Waddington's Blockbusters home games are some of the most beautiful games ever designed, and the question material just absolutely sucks. Everything is either very vague, or on the opposite end of the spectrum, it's just "What E is a [literal dictionary definition of a word starting with E]?"

How does it compare with the material in the MB one? I wonder if using the question book from that one would be a better fit (despite not being able to do an authentic Gold Run).

It is a better fit, though with a 40-year-old question book, I'd imagine there's a fair bit of chaff in it by now. I also think there might be a letter or two different between the two versions. I could check in the downstairs closet right now, but that seems like effort.

The Super Blockbusters game comes with a dedicated set of Gold Run cards, but again, it's a bit wonky. You're instructed to call out a letter from a standard BB board, and then the host reads you the actual initials and the question, just going down the line on the card. And again, there are going to be a fair number of 30-year-old Anglo-centric questions in the stack.

Jackpot seems like it could be a fun little party game, but the questions included with it were a complete pile of ass.

[BillCullen1]

In the 70s, MB cranked out a version of Pyramid every year. The front game was fine, but the WC round had answers that all fit one category. So I typed subjects and taped them to the back of each card. It worked and made the game more like the TV show.

I agree with others that for HS and Match Game, have two people as the civilians and the others be celebs who answer the questions. Since we're not restricted to broadcast standards, some of the MG answers are not suitable for little kids, but we have a good time. Those dry erase boards and markers come in handy for this. In my group, there's someone who does a dead-on impression of Paul Lynde for HS.

I would have no trouble playing You Don't Say since I remember the show.

Jan Murray's Charge Account had a home game? You learn something new every day.

[beatlefreak84]

The one that immediately popped into my mind when I saw this thread was TPIR.  I had the '80s MB version when I was growing up, and later the Endless Games knockoff, and the game had so many things with it that only my mom would play it with me (I think out of pity):

-The game is 10 pricing games, plus a Showcase.  It's just too long with the standard rules.
-The host has a LOT of bookkeeping to do with setting up games.
-Playing for "prize cards" that have random amounts on them depending on which tile you draw does keep people from memorizing prices, but really takes the "pricing" element out and just reduces to random guessing.

Eventually, we would just play the pricing games for fun and not really keep score.

But, I would say, in general, it's hard to get people to want to play game show-related games; they tend to go over like lead balloons with the people I play with.  The only one I can actually remember someone enjoying when I was younger was the Parker Brothers High Rollers game.

Anthony