Board games from hell?

[Adam Nedeff]

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?".

I’ve found that there’s a connection between that game and Boggle. Since you’re basically trying to build a Boggle board, that’s how I describe the game, and generally, people who like Boggle end up liking “Charge Account.”

[Adam Nedeff]

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!

Agree on Sale.

2003 Price works reasonably well, since it's not as arbitrary.

Millionaire has always gone over much better than it has any reason to whenever I've played it. It's such a basic game but there's always legit excitement whenever I've brought it out.

[chris319]

What about the home games of Tic Tac Dough and (B&E) Break the Bank? Any good?

[BrandonFG]

Millionaire has always gone over much better than it has any reason to whenever I've played it. It's such a basic game but there's always legit excitement whenever I've brought it out.

Having played this with you before, I found it to be really fun, although the questions had a British slant, and some seemed to be pretty simple for the higher values. I believe you mentioned several questions were cribbed from the British home game.

Even in 1986, TPiR's prices don't seem to match up with retail values.

[Adam Nedeff]

What about the home games of Tic Tac Dough and (B&E) Break the Bank? Any good?

'70s TTD is awful--two questions per category. 50s Tic Tac Dough is a really neat little game with a lever on the side that shuffles the categories for each round. The game material has also aged shockingly well for a 60+-year-old game. About 75% of the material was still relevant, I'd say.

Break the Bank went over like gangbusters the last time I brought it out but I do have two knocks against it--#1, about every dozen questions or so, you come across a question where the bluff answer is just obviously wrong, so I always encourage the "celebrities" to give a better bluff than the one supplied if they can think of one. Also, Milton-Bradley's approach to game design was weird. I can only assume they thought the game was confusing enough that they didn't think the average person would understand where everything is allowed to be placed from game to game, so instead of one set of twenty sturdy tiles that can be rearranged from game to game, they gave you 47 pre-arranged sets of 20 card stock tiles with each one explicitly labeled with where on the board to place it.

[chris319]

I never understood why BTB had the money bags. Why not just play with the groups of connected squares? If you want to tilt the odds a little more in the contestants' favor, add another trio of connected squares.

[Neumms]

I never understood why BTB had the money bags. Why not just play with the groups of connected squares?

Because they’d have had to change the title, silly. Maybe it was their way of breaking up the game, like Secret Squares. It introduces an element of risk, too.

[Neumms]

I hauled out 80s $ale in college and it was a hoot. Most disappointing to me was $10,000 Pyramid, as mentioned, with the lame endgame.

[That Don Guy]

I never understood why BTB had the money bags. Why not just play with the groups of connected squares? If you want to tilt the odds a little more in the contestants' favor, add another trio of connected squares.

One reason is, the way it was designed, it made a draw impossible. With only groups of connected squares, it would be possible for one player to get two of each value, and the other to get the third and the wild card square. If that happened in the actual game, then whoever got three money bags first won.

[BrandonFG]

I never understood why BTB had the money bags. Why not just play with the groups of connected squares?

Because they’d have had to change the title, silly. Maybe it was their way of breaking up the game, like Secret Squares. It introduces an element of risk, too.

If it comes down to icons, a piggy bank gets the job done too.