Board To Death

Tornado Bowl is a great example of how, back in the day, they would take anything, regardless of how horrifying it might be, and turn it into a board game. Though, Tornado Bowl is another one of those that straddles the line between board game and toy. But, as with any of the others, it comes with a base and pieces that go on it, so that, in my opinion, makes it a board game. Regardless of semantics, Tornado Bowl is for up to 4 players, and takes around a half hour to complete. There's no designer listed, as seems to be the case for most of the games I cover these days, but then again...what's to design here? You'll understand when you see it. Tornado Bowl was released in 1971 by Ideal, which is kind of ironic because it's less than ideal to be stuck in a tornado. The description for the game from Board Game Geek is as follows: Here's a game for those who like wild and wacky excitement! You set up your pins, then the TORNADO TOP is released...and the frenzy starts...

Gunfight at O.K. Corral is a board game in which a pair of dueling children pit their monstrous sized personal Cowboys against one another in a fight to the death. Okay, not really, but that would be so much better than what it actually is, wouldn't it? Kaiju Cowboys? Maybe it's just me who find that amusing. Either way, Gunfight is similar to the previous game featured here, "Crossfire", in that it almost boils down to essentially the same overall concept of just shooting things at whoever is on the other side of the board. Published by Ideal in 1973, I can find no information on either the designer or the artist, which kind of leaves us in a tough spot, because now I don't have anyones career to pick through for amusement, so let's talk about the game itself, shall we? Frankly, I think if you're having a gunfight, then not everything is okay at this corral. The description of this game is as follows: This is a children's dexterity game where players ...

Before its name was adapted for a terrible right wing show featuring smarmy holier than thou fools who actually probably knew less about politics than an actual human infant, Crossfire was a radical board game. Well, it was a game on a board, anyway. Crossfire is one of those that really straddles the line between "board game" and "toy", kind of like Hungry Hungry Hippos. Still, it's absolutely awesome, and if you're of my age (I'm 33 for those wondering) then you likely remember the completely over the top commercial that went with it. Boy do I miss the days when they tried to sell kids games and toys using hard rock anthems. Good times, good times. To be honest, however, for the sake of transparency, I'm going to admit that I had completely forgotten about Crossfire until doing some research for what games to feature on the blog this month and this one came up, immediately unlocking long lost memories of Saturday Morning Cartoons interrupted interm...