Worst Home Game You've Played...

[whewfan]

Also, Password, but that gets an asterisk; pretty much all it had was pairs of cards with identical 5-word lists, a pair of red lenses so you could only see one word on a card at a time, and a dial that could be set from 1 to 10...but when you think about it, that's all that Password was.

What else did you expect, a cardboard cutout of Allen Ludden?

A little while ago, a more upscale version of Password came out with a golden score indicator and other nice upgrades. Betty White and Allen Ludden appear on the box cover. IMO it was a lot of effort and money put into something so simple.

[whewfan]

Matt: board games generally only have a profit margin of about one percent. Each new gewgaw adds cost and reduces the likelihood that a prospective buyer will pick it up off the shelf.  If one person grabs it for the light-up game piec3 but two put it down, that’s lost money, Yes, everything wax paper, cardboard and plastic, but there’s a reason for that.

I wonder if the Cardinal company produced those long boxes at such a qupuantity that the $25,000 Pyramid game wound up that size too. It certainly didn’t need the Monopoly or Mouse Trap box.

I still say the board game for COAL is VERY cheaply produced, but when I was responding to what I would've done, I realize of course a casual fan of the show would be okay with the cheap, plastic letter board. My family was not nearly as absorbed in game shows as I was, and honestly, I don't recall ever playing this game with them. I related very well with that kid in the TV show The Middle, where he tries to get his family to play home games of various game shows. No one really wants to play these games, but a few reluctantly do it anyway... that was ME growing up!!

[The Ol' Guy]

With mentioning box size as a factor, a lot of those early games used size to make people think they were getting their $2.98 or $3.98's worth. Among those who designed games to fill the box was Lowell. Even though they're among some of my favorites, they did some odd things to make something out of next to nothing. Some key examples are I've Got A Secret, Strike It Rich, and You Bet Your Life. I just read the rules to IGAS for the 5th time, and they're finally getting clearer. No better, but clearer. Using the giant "selector spinner" to determine which player will have the secret and who will be the panelists is very time consuming - not to mention it's possible for a lucky player to have the "secret" several times. The spinner takes up nearly half the insides. It would be easier to just rotate players taking turns as having the "secret"...and you'd have a lot of box space to fill. The IGAS home game is among the most awkward projects. Panel games tend to be problematic anyway, as they don't come with a package of "instant wit and charm." IGAS attempts to manufacture the humor with their made-up secrets, which can wear thin.

[BrandonFG]

Matt: board games generally only have a profit margin of about one percent. Each new gewgaw adds cost and reduces the likelihood that a prospective buyer will pick it up off the shelf.  If one person grabs it for the light-up game piec3 but two put it down, that’s lost money, Yes, everything wax paper, cardboard and plastic, but there’s a reason for that.

I wonder if the Cardinal company produced those long boxes at such a qupuantity that the $25,000 Pyramid game wound up that size too. It certainly didn’t need the Monopoly or Mouse Trap box.

I still say the board game for COAL is VERY cheaply produced, but when I was responding to what I would've done, I realize of course a casual fan of the show would be okay with the cheap, plastic letter board.

I don't remember much about the home game, but as a child I do recall being pretty disappointed by the plastic keyboard. Granted I don't know how they could've made a cost-effective computer keyboard, but I was 6 at the time.

Having played CoaL on a Zoom stream a couple years ago I realize it actually wasn't a bad home game, even if Wheel's home game puzzle board was a lot snazzier.

/The contestant application was cool tho
//Even though I got the game well after the show's cancellation

[Matt Ottinger]

"Jackpot" gets my award for worst home version.  Where did they get those "riddles" from anyway? 

I think it was Matt Ottinger who discovered that the terrible questions for Jackpot and the original High Rollers home game were repurposed clues from the Now You See It home game.

Several of us worked together to finally figure out the connection between High Rollers and Now You See It. 

The Jackpot riddles were definitely written for the Jackpot game, but probably not by Bob Stewart's staff.  The riddles were way too hard for regular game play.  They're the kind of punny riddles you tell as jokes, the kind that aren't supposed to be figured out by the other person. ("I'm what you look for on the bus."  "Deceit".  Get it?)

In the seventies, Milton Bradley was in a hurry to put out product, and quality control took a back seat to just putting stuff in colorful boxes and onto shelves.

[TwoInchQuad]

Mine would have to be "The Baby Game"... I went through the entire stock at the store, and couldn't find **one** that actually included the baby.  Which you really need, in order to play the game.

- Kevin

[Sodboy13]

In regard to the "cheapness" of COAL, look, you're not getting a light-up keyboard. It's 1986, and game show games with light-up functions are either the Quizzard in $OTC or those tiny lights running off a 9-volt in Electric Jeopardy, and both of those are toward the luxury end of the board game spectrum. A board with 27 responsive light-up keys would be prohibitively costly.

That said, the puzzle board itself was cheap. A wipe-off board with a crayon, and not even a couple of plastic legs to prop it up. Put that next to the standard Wheel of Fortune home game at the time, and it was easy to see which one would be more "worth" your $12.99 or whatever. Also, I don't think there was any play money included at all. I remember making my own for it.

Even with the cheap-outs in production, though? Still a fun game to play, which is more than can be said about a good number of others in this topic.

Also, strangely, while COAL only got one "edition" of a home game, that appears to have been made with three different "versions" of the keyboard. There's the one pictured on the back of the box, with opaque plastic and the raised sliding letter "buttons." There's one where the plastic buttons get replaced with printed cardboard rectangles you punch out from a sheet. And there's a third that uses a flimsier, clear plastic to lay the cardboard letters on, which is the version I got as a kid. Search for the game on eBay and you'll see the differences in the listings pretty quickly.

[TLEberle]

I am thirty-five yers late, but a sheet of laminate over the puzzle console or Wheel’s Used Letter BoarD would have been great, though I don’t remember dry erase markers being easy to find.

[Jeremy Nelson]

Matt: board games generally only have a profit margin of about one percent. Each new gewgaw adds cost and reduces the likelihood that a prospective buyer will pick it up off the shelf.  If one person grabs it for the light-up game piec3 but two put it down, that’s lost money, Yes, everything wax paper, cardboard and plastic, but there’s a reason for that.

This is exactly why I'm annoyed, but understand why Pressman has been manufacturing the exact same Wheel box game for nearly 40 years. Larger puzzleboards and additional bells and whistles won't really convince someone to spend an extra $10 on it when all you're really trying to do is maximize the profit on what I'm guessing is a costly license to own.

[JMFabiano]

  The main game would show you the answer you were trying to describe - but only accepted one word clues, so it becomes more of Password than Pyramid. 

Or Million Dollar Password, then?

[BrandonFG]

Also, I don't think there was any play money included at all. I remember making my own for it.

Board Game Geek shows a (prototype?) version with play money and a "$1,000,000 Bill" at the very end of the slideshow. I'm leaning towards prototype, as the play money says TELEPICTURES CORPORATION, which had merged with Lorimar by the time the show premiered. Plus the box art looks really, really generic.

/Cool that the back of the million dollar bill shows what looks like the pilot set
//I definitely would've noticed that at 6 years old

[Adam Nedeff]

Also, I don't think there was any play money included at all. I remember making my own for it.

Board Game Geek shows a (prototype?) version with play money and a "$1,000,000 Bill" at the very end of the slideshow. I'm leaning towards prototype, as the play money says TELEPICTURES CORPORATION, which had merged with Lorimar by the time the show premiered. Plus the box art looks really, really generic.

/Cool that the back of the million dollar bill shows what looks like the pilot set
//I definitely would've noticed that at 6 years old

I just dug out my home game--my million-dollar bill has Telepictures. (Cardboard squares keyboard, if you're wondering.)

[mystery7]

All I have in my copy of Lifetime is a casting call for couples. No money. Not even a coupon for Corn Bran.

[Sodboy13]

Oh man, that bill is an excellent mix of cool and cheesy and would definitely have had a place of honor had I gotten one with my box.

[SamJ93]

The '80s Hollywood Squares home games from MB. Even setting aside that adapting HS to home play is kind of pointless to begin with, the Xs and Os were these flimsy colorform-like stickers that basically became unusable after just a few playings.

No "love" for the first Endless TPiR game, which was just a straight-up re-skin of the '80s MB edition? They didn't even bother to update the prices, resulting in the absurdity of playing Any Number for a $6000 car in 1998...