Board To Death

Board games sort of suffered the same fate of movies in the sense that after years of being readily available and considered classics, they underwent a "remake" that was often nowhere near as cool. In board games sense, these often meant updating them for the modern era and making them electronic. Once electronic toys hit the market, board games had to do something to compete, so why not drag out old IP - one which perhaps the kids parents remember fondly so they'll be more inclined to buy it for their children - and redo it with electronics so it appeals to the newer generation? Easy money, baby. So, here we are, back again the seemingly unending well of "creepy building" board games. Between Ghost Castle , Haunted House and Haunted Mansion , I swear, as big a plethora of these exist as crappy B horror movies exist. It's ridiculous. In fact, I could probably just cover nothing but creepy building board games for the rest of this blogs lifespan and still ne...

One of the last times I went out was to a local thrift store in town, and while there I was absentmindedly searching the board games, looking for things my girlfriend and I could do together to kill time at home since all we have to do otherwise is game or watch TV or read, and after a while those options become rather monotonous. Anyway, while there my eyes landed on something I couldn't believe...a near pristine, complete in tin edition of the Wonderful World of Disney Trivia. This was a game that I actually owned growing up, and I had honestly forgotten about entirely until seeing it there. See, my family took yearly vacations to Disneyland (I admit, I grew up in a fairly well off household, which doesn't make the trauma I endured any less horrifying but still), and we usually got souvenirs, One time that consisted of a rather pricey board game titled The Wonderful World of Disney Trivia. We must've played this game a billion times, and it was something I was particularl...

In what is possible the lamest of all the haunted house board games we've covered here lately, Ghost Castle (yeah, even the name doesn't really do much for it), is about as bland as they come when compared to the others we've looked at. Okay sure, we've only looked at two others and okay sure one of those was based on pre-existing IP (The Haunted Mansion) but still!Ghost Castle is still the most childish and least visually entertaining of them all. That isn't to say it doesn't have its good points, though, because despite its massive shortcomings design wise it still has some pros to it. Let's discuss the artwork. While it's nowhere near as visually neat as Haunted House - because it lacks an actual model - and The Haunted Mansion - because, well, it's not the Haunted Mansion, it still merits some points for the artwork within it. Even though the "castle" in this sense of the word is nothing more than painted board pieces, those painted boa...

Okay, I usually don't do similar games back to back, and I generally try and steer away from games based on things, or from external media (Jumanji was an outlier, obviously), but this one that cropped up while I was doing last weeks post really caught my attention and demanded I discuss it, so here we are. Because, look at this, and I mean just look at it for a good solid few minutes before we continue. There's so much to appreciate here, and that's just aside from the fact that it actually exists, ok?  Released in 1972 and published by Lakeside, 2 to 4 players attempt to move their Doom Buggy throughout the Haunted Mansion. Meanwhile, there's large swaths of the game board which feature rotating discs that regularly change the path your Doom Buggy can or cannot take, which is an extremely neat idea. It also means that if you land on a spin stone via these discs, you'll activate the spooky ghosts you're trying so hard to avoid, so there's a whole other leve...