Rollin' On the River (boat)

 Well, this week let's wander through the hub and end up at the Rivers of America! The Mark Twain is waiting to take us on a voyage of adventure (and frustration). Yes, this week we look at the Riverboat Game!

The Riverboat Game was released in 1956, like the rest of the Disneyland games. Let's take a closer look, shall we?

The box, once again, has great graphics. The Mark Twain chugs down the river, past wildlife, with a bunch of fairly fancily dressed period passengers. The passengers don't matter in the game. The wildlife does.

Here's our look at the back of the gameboard. Once again, the box graphics are repeated on a sticker here. 

The open gameboard shows the Rivers of America winding in a big circle just like they really do! There's even a fort on an "island" in the middle! And a train! Uh...wait a minute. That's not right. Anyway, it's a nice board, if not terribly accurate. Notice the animals along the river. They can be your friends...or not. You see, when you land on one, the river pulls a Mississippi and overflows its banks and changes directions. How? With a special piece that we'll look at in a moment.

In the mean time, we'll look at one of the weirder aspects of the game. You see, you're not traveling in a grand riverboat at all, but, rather, in a tall ship (sans sails). And this was a good two years before the Columbia was launched! Freaky... I suspect they had these little ships laying about from another game and thought they would be close enough. I can't prove it, though.

And here is that moving river piece. It looks different from the rest of the game because it was actually missing from the game when I bought it. Thanks to the ol' interwebs, I found a good picture of it (in black and white) and was able to print it out in the correct size (after a lot of fiddling around with it). I glued it to a piece of thin cardboard, colored it with map pencils, and laminated the whole thing. And...it works! Remember, I was buying these to play, not really to collect.

Here are the instructions! They aren't as complicated as they first seem, and playing the game is actually pretty easy.

Oh, and here are the graphics from the end of the box...just because.

So there you have it! This is a pretty fun game, but not really my favorite. The shuffling of the extra board section can be a pain, and the going this way and that can get frustrating. Still, it's an interesting concept.

Next week, we'll take a more modern mode of transportation!

Until next time, keep searching for treasure!