Slime Monster

It's a shame that they stopped producing board games that essentially were based around a schlocky 50s b horror film, because what a gem this one truly is. Okay, so what if all the kids on the box look like they've just experienced the thrill of tasting human flesh and now hunger for it nonstop, that still makes the concept (of the game, not cannibalism) really cool! 

Designed by Jeffrey Breslow and Erick Erickson - a name which has to be fake because nobody would do that to a child - and released by Mattel in 1977, "Slime Monster" follows the idea of The Slime Monster having invaded the town, and only you can stop him! You must get from the High School to the Armory, pick up a land mine and knock the Slime Monster over. But be careful that the Slime monster doesn't knock you over with his slime.

Let's just get past the core issue that apparently teenagers are allowed to just wander into an armory and take as many landmines as they please. What kind of horribly guarded armory is this?! Teenagers are the last people we should be giving any kind of explosives to! According to Board Game Geek, the gameplay is fairly simple:

Movement is directed with a spinner. Each spin is used twice: once for the player and the same amount for the monster. The players try to manipulate the monster so that he winds up standing over an opponent. He then "slimes" the player and moves. If the slime covering the player causes the player piece to fall over, the player must start again.

And that's really all there is to it. Sounds pretty easy if you ask me, and considering the game is for players ages 5 and up, it sounds like I'm right on that account. Which is nice, because sometimes all you really want is something simplistic and quick. While Erickson apparently was never involved with anything beyond this game, for good reason because who trusts a man with a matching first and last name, Breslow on the other hand had a fairly good career. Born in 1943, he is the president of Big Monster Toys. For seven years, Marvin Glass mentored him in the art of toy design. In 1967, he along with Howard Morrison and Rouben Terzian began a 31-year collaboration that has led to the creation and design of some of successful toy and game products such as Ants in the Pants. All three men were inducted into the Toy Industry Hall of Fame in 1988.

That being said, I looked through Breslow's history, and noticed that he mostly worked on games that were extensions of pre-existing IP. Here's a slew of examples: Bigfoot (okay, fine, Bigfoot isn't an IP, sue me), Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Card Game, Frogger, Jaws, and Ms Pac Man to name just a few. Yes, there are board games based on old video games, and contrary to popular belief, it isn't a modern invention. Apparently these were created as far back as the early 80s. I plan to cover them eventually, perhaps all in one post or perhaps in their own separate yet lightly interconnected posts. We'll see.

So, let's talk about the design of Slime Monster.

The design of this board is just...well, I'll say, plain out wacky. It's a topdown view of the town, but I don't know, something about it doesn't work for some reason. I mean, it's easily understandable, the artwork looks pretty good, but for some reason it just isn't visually coherent. It also comes with the spinner, the player tokens and, of course, the big boy himself, the Slime Monster.

The cool thing about this board game is that the Slime Monster does actually ooze slime onto the player tokens, which is a fairly unique aspect of an otherwise standard board game. Usually board game pieces are static and don't do anything, so when you get something like this - or the record player in Seance - it is a really neat little trick, and I appreciate that level of inclusion in the artistry, though that spinner pepto pink is garish as all hell.

While the player tokens are your standard primary color plastic pieces, the Slime Monster is, in all honesty, just a really neat toy that happens to be included in this weird ass forgotten board game. The fact that he will actually ooze slime is a true testament to just how grotesque and obtuse stuff for kids used to be allowed to be, and how that's really missing these days from toys. Then again kids don't play with toys anymore, let alone board games, so maybe it's not the industries fault for once.

Either way, it's a really cool and unique board game, honestly, and probably a pretty good time because of it. In fact, I kind of wish that this had become a genre unto itself; giant monster board games. Imagine a big bulbous blob like creature or perhaps a big alien of some kind rampaging around the board while you try to not only survive and avoid it, but find a way to destroy it before the other players and come out the victor. Really cool, and I think really worth the effort if anyone wanted to do that. I love the design of the Slime Monster, too. Forget the fact that he oozes slime, which is hard to forget considering its not only his primary defining characteristic but also his fucking name, but the design of the guy is just so great. He's a pea soup puke green with little yellow eyes and he walks on two hind legs with t-rex arms. You look at that guy and tell me he isn't cuddly as all hell. Yeah, that's right. You can't. Because he is.

All in all, Slime Monster is yet another obscure game, but one that doesn't deserve to be. Of all the more obscure titles I've covered on this blog, I think Slime Monster might actually be the most deserving of recognition, because not only is it a cool idea that's executed fairly well, but it's also the most original. Plus, he oozes slime! It's like if Nickelodeon designed a monster.

I mean, they did, with Dan Schneider, but that's beside the point.

Though, truth be told, I would probably be the kind of girl who'd attempt to befriend this Slime Monster monster rather than destroy him. Monsters are cool. My peers were not. Let's take over this backwater town, monster!