Three Incredible Vintage Board Games You Didn’t Know Existed, Reviewed
The fact that the Sweet Valley High board game isn't more popular than Monopoly is a travesty of justice.
For the last few months, Australia’s bestselling book charts have been consistently topped by colouring books for adults — like the unimaginatively titled The Mindfulness Colouring Book, colouring goddess Johanna Basford’s Secret Garden and Enchanted Forest, and the entire Zendoodle range.
On the one hand, the craze is being justified as a mindful pursuit, with studies showing colouring in can help boost mental health. On the other hand, it’s colouring books. For adults.
If the infantilisation of our society is your cup of tea, rest assured: their more creative cousin, the humble board game, is waiting to burst from the cupboard to take reign. Or at least I hope it is, as I have shelves of them gathering dust.
I dug a few vintage favourites out, and realised immediately that in this internet age of nostalgia, they were worthy of attention. Here are three I highly recommend, if you can get your mitts on them.
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Sweet Valley High Game
(Milton Bradley, 1988)
Based on:
The best-selling teen novel series by Francine Pascal, which starred identical twins Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield, and ran from 1983-2003
Aim:
To find your boyfriend in time for the big date!
Set-Up:
Select your favourite Sweet Valley gal, and help them prepare for their dates: Jessica for junior prom night, Elizabeth for a suitably dull bicycle tour, Lila for her sweet sixteen or Enid for a surfing beach party.
Place your character in their home space on the board, and take their scoreboard which lists the items they’ll need. Shuffle the large card deck and the item cards, placing the large cards face down on the Sweet Valley logo and the item cards face down on each classroom space (except for detention).
Jessica’s scoreboard, unusually empty.
How To Play:
The rules state that Jessica goes first, which isn’t explained but seems fitting.
Move your perfect size six California girl around the game board, entering classrooms to search for your items. When you roll the die and land on a classroom, you must turn over the item card for all players to see. If the card shows an item on your scoreboard, you take it — otherwise you return the card facedown to its spot.
The key to success in this game is to remember where your item is located so you can get it, which should be easy for all characters except for Elizabeth, who suffered from amnesia in SVH #7, ‘Dear Sister’ (which caused her to sass all and sundry, as she strutted around looking like a B-grade Cher Horowitz).
You also need to find your character’s boyfriend — but in true Sweet Valley fashion, swapping and stealing other people’s boyfriends is expected.
Cardboard Elizabeth is silently judging you.
As you travel around the board you may be prompted to trade places with a player or play a card, which could instruct you to head to detention and lose a turn, or to peek at/take an item from any room.
Not only is this game excellent at sharpening your memory, but the classroom setting adds subtle education lessons along the way.
Soviet influences infiltrating an unsuspecting Sweet Valley community.
The first character to escape the clutches of propaganda, collect their items (including their boyfriends) and return to their home space wins.
It is with deep sadness that I announce that Enid did make it to her beach party.
Verdict:
Given Sweet Valley High’s descent into ridiculous plotlines, involving werewolves, vampires, crazed doppelgänger murderers and face-transplanting clinics, this game had the potential to be far more exciting.
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The Neighbours Game
(Crown & Andrews Ltd, 1988)
Aim:
Write an episode of Neighbours in three scenes, collecting tokens as you go.
Set-Up:
By the time you’ve laid out the board (which has a nifty split in so it can double as an awkward clapperboard), sorted and shuffled the cards (playing cards, wild cards, character tokens and extra tokens), and placed them in the dispenser box or on the board, you realise that you shouldn’t have bothered.
more like bored game, amiright
How To Play:
The fun of this game lies in the playing cards and being able to pick and choose your own storyline at will, so chuck away the rules and let your imagination run free from the boundaries of the board. Think about it as Cards Against Humanity with less sex and more Mrs Mangel.
As this game was made in the late ’80s, all characters referenced are no longer part of Neighbours, with the exception of the multifaceted Paul Robinson.
In case you weren’t around in 1988 or can’t cast your memory back that far (much like Harold Bishop on his emergence from the sea), the rules also give background information on the game’s characters.
The young people tease him.
A force to be reckoned with.
Technically the player who collects the most tokens from moving around the board wins, but this game is not so much about winning and more about how many stories you can spin around Helen Daniels being hit by a pavlova.
Let the entertainment begin!
Verdict:
Rumour has it that the episode creation process of Neighbours involves a team of writers huddled around this game, clutching strong spirits. How else could Bouncer’s dream be explained?
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Grateful Dead-opoly
(Discovery Bay Games, 2009)
Aim:
Join your fellow Deadheads on the Grateful Dead tour bus as you accompany the legendary band from gig to gig. Rack up more than good karma by buying up records, concert venues, cheap motels and swank hotels (sell-out!).
Set-Up:
This game is essentially Monopoly with drug references, so you know the deal: set up the board, placing the cards (in this instance The REX Foundation and Karma cards) in the middle, and choose a toke-n (amp, drum, guitar, tour bus, boot or Otis the singing dog).
As the banker is in charge of property allocation and the doling out of Dead Bucks, it’s important to choose the most sober player for this very important position.
VIP.
How To Play:
Once you’ve set the game up, chuck a Grateful Dead record on and dip into your mind altering substance of choice. But not too much, as this game will test your head, and your mind and your brain too. Settle in as you’ll be in for a long ride, as your token cruises around the board, buying things and trying to avoid owing other players money or being kicked off the tour bus.
The fun you’re having at the start will likely end around the midway point as your bliss gives way to mortgage stress and money woes, much like real life.
Not legal tender.
The savviest business “man” will end up winning the game after the other players end up bankrupt or in the recovery position — whichever comes first.
Verdict:
No amount of thinly-veiled pot references or flower power can distract from the fact that consumerism is totally square. But with the Grateful Dead still touring, adding to their million dollar merchandise stockpile as they go, they’ve well and truly got the business know-how this game rewards.
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