Ideal King Kong Board Game

I have a fondness for "Kong Mania 1977" but own little to none of it's merchandise. Being a board game nut, I think this is one I'd like to add to our repertoire. 

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Electronic Games 1980

As a collector of board games, I wanted to ask folks if Electronic Detective is any good, also is Maniac as fun as it looks? Please let me know in the comments.

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Dungeon Adventure Game!

While I never dug D&D, I probably would have enjoyed this board game version from TSR. I love the wholesome 80s looking family up there, considering TSR was beleaguered with negative press during this period, it's almost ironic....

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Escape from New York: The Boardgame

I really need to get this game for my next family game night. I always equate this movie with Starlog, they really gave it a lot of coverage and hyped me to see it. That just took a while cause I was ten when it came out...

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Choice Board Games of 1976

I'm not sure what your favourites were but I had a mean love affair with playing Hangman and staring at the Sleestak on the "Land of the Lost" board.....

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Spotlight: Planet of the Apes Game by IDW

This past week when I went to my local shop, (World's Collide BTW)  I was presented with this Planet of the Apes tabletop game by IDW.

 I like games and if you pair them with an established property, well I'm an easy mark, so even though I didn't sincerely recall ordering it, it sounded like something I'd do and I went on my way.

What it is: Planet of the Apes is a cooperation game, meaning all players work together rather than pitted against each other. I like this concept a great deal although I've never been particularly successful at it. I'm a big fan of Star Trek Cattan BTW....

How it's played: Each one of the up to four players is Taylor, albeit in a different emotional state, there is Clever Taylor, Defiant Taylor etc.  

The game works sequentially in the film's timeline as you race against time to go through the various stages of the film.  Each area has different challenges and relies often on dice to get you through. 

If the Soldier Ape or the Statue of Liberty gets to the bottom before Taylor, well, you blew it up you maniacs.

How it Looks- It's a pretty darn gorgeous game, the box art is by Jason Edmiston, a super talented dude I got to have a beer with a few years ago and have been a fan of ever since. The interior art is equally as beautiful, this is a joy to look at.

I got an early edition of the game and it came with plastic figurines of the Icarus, Taylor, a Soldier Ape and the Statue of Liberty but honestly, the cardboard pieces are super nice. I'm an Ape toy geek, so these do make me happy, I admit it....

So do you like it? Honestly, i've had a lot of fun but I'll freely admit this, I'm not sure if I'm doing it correctly. 

Planet of the Apes is ambitious and a little complicated, even on my second play, I had some questions. Now, that isn't a bad thing, the game rather new and I expect more and more Youtube videos of actual game play will probably answer all my questions.

I do see myself playing this a few more times as I've enjoyed the experience thus far.

Where to get it?

The absolute best place to get this is your local brick and mortar comic or game store. Keep them in business, spend your dollars locally.

Failing that, you can get it on Amazon or Ebay and if you click these links, you help out this site. Which would also be awesome.

Hobbit games!

I was happily surprised to see that these games all made it to the market in 1979. 

Jerry Lewis for Hasbro games

Jerry Lewis's passing this week saw much reflection on his film and television career but I didn't see any mention of his time as a games spokesperson for Hasbro. 

Celebrity spokes people for games was an interesting phenomena in the 1970s and Lewis joined other notables such as Don Adams, Lucille Ball and Dick Van Dyke shilling for toy makers.

Out of that group, you really have to say the best candidate for such a project is probably Lewis. Hasbro's ad campaign capitalized on his strengths and  had several of his characters squaring off against the humorless (and overly Germanic) villain, The Baron. 

The games are largely forgotten but this wonderful bit of pop culture shouldn't be.

Here is the original 90 second Toyfair reel for the Hasbro Spellbound game, showing that the Toy business always works well with a little show business.

Dungeon! Adventure Game

As someone who was cast out of his one and only D&D game for being too "Disruptive" (my local DM was kind of a tyrant) , I missed out on the whole TSR scene in the day. It was very similar to being the only kid who hadn't seen "Star Wars".

I mainly stuck to playing "Gauntlet" for my fantasy fix.