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Trouble

Trouble is one of the oldest board game memories that I have.

I don't have a lot of good memories growing up, but, before my mother remarried, we did spend a lot of time together in relatively good ways and one of those ways was playing Trouble. I think we went to Toys R Us and decided which board game to pick out, and I think we settled on Trouble because we often felt like we were so close to being in trouble ourselves all the time. It really just seemed very appropriate at the time.

Launching in 1965 and originally made by Kohner Brothers for Irwin Toys (but later, like everything else, falling under Milton Bradley's enormous amazing technicolor umbrella), Trouble is - much like Candy Land - an extremely simple game. You simply need to move the pieces around the board while rolling your dice in the pop-o-matic, a concept that honestly I'm surprised I've only ever seen in Trouble, as it's extremely easy to lose dice and cheat with dice. With the pop-o-matic device, it keeps the die in the game board, makes it so it can't be toyed with, and on the whole makes things fair for everyone. Now perhaps it's not been used in anything else because it's copyrighted, I don't know, but I think it's one of the single most brilliant design choices in the history of board games, myself.

The board design, and overall design I suppose, is also fairly decent. It's a very simple board, but its bursting with colors corresponding to each of the 4 player colors, and the little peg/hole design choice is really cool. Again, making it easy to not have your pieces easily misplaced. Trouble, more than anything, seemed very interest in simplistic yet logistically sound game design. I can approve of that. My favorite fun fact about Trouble, however, is that in the UK it's known as "Frustration", which really is hilarious and oddly appropriate because, honestly, isn't trouble just extremely frustrating? I'd say so. It also neatly ties into the UK's inability to sound rude.

There's actually not a whole lot of interesting history to talk about in regards to the game itself, quite frankly. So  with that in mind, I'll just say that Trouble is definitely a classic and understandably so, because, much like Candy Land, it's simple design and play style is so simple that even a 4 year old could be involved, making it an all ages game and thus perfect for families to play together. And while it's not a super interesting board, visually, unlike Candy Land or (especially Pay Day), it's still aesthetically visually pleasing and easy to look at and comprehend.

So, if you're ever in the mood to play a game, might I suggest Trouble, a game that, with as easy as it is to understand, you should have no trouble getting the hang of.

...sorry. That was terrible.

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