Radar Love

 No, not the song by Golden Earring (although that's really cool) but a game from 1969 called Radar Search that I happen to have!  Let's take a look, shall we?

Here's the box. As you can see, this game is "electronic," which is a fancy way of saying it takes two D cell batteries. Ah, the D cell...the magic cylinder that powered my youth. Anyway, I digress...

When this game came out, spies were big, baby, BIG! Well, not literally big (they were the same size as regular people). But the spy movement was big in popular culture. James Bond, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., The Wild Wild West, and even Get Smart were very popular, so this game fit into the culture perfectly! Ideal had a winner and they knew it!

Here are the instructions on the inside of the box top. The point to the game is that you have two spy boats on one side of the board, and a government chase helicopter on the other. The spies win if they can make a run to one of two drop points and return to their base without getting found by the helicopter. The government wins if they catch either of the spy boats. There are a lot of little details in the rules that make game play more exciting, such as the helicopter moves twice as fast as the boats but the boats get every other turn in secret. It's surprisingly challenging and a little tense for both players! 

The helicopter searches for the boats by placing it's pin in the hole that is occupied by the boat pin on the other side. If that happens, a very loud buzzer goes off! Game over!

Let's look at the parts...

When you open the box, this is what you see.

This is the other side of the board...

And these are the parts that are in that orange cardboard part under the board.

And this is how you set up the government helicopter side...

And the spy boat side!

I wasn't sure if mine still worked, so I actually went out and bought two D cells. Yes, I spent money for this post! You're welcome! The verdict? It works great! (Which means the buzzer goes off very obnoxiously)

The play time on this one is about 30 minutes, so I might play it with my wife. After all, I have the batteries now...

By the way, just another reminder to never leave the batteries in your toys and games (or flashlight, for that matter). They can kill a device quicker than anything if they leak. 

They made this game for only three years, but they sold a lot of them so they're fairly essy to find and pretty cheap. One warning though is that apparently the buzzers do die on these, so it's best to check them if possible before buying, since a dead buzzer kills the game play. A bad buzzer could ne replaced, I suppose (the wiring is very simple) but it would be an added expense and hassle.

So there you have it! I'll probably do a few more game posts because I'm kind of in that mode now, but you never know what I'll dig out of the attic!

Until next time, keep searching for treasure!

Hail to the King...of Oil!

 As I may have mentioned before, I have a fairly good board game collection. This week I've decided to feature a game from my childhood, King Oil. 

King Oil is a game that features a semi-3D game board. The board is flat, but UNDER the board is an ever changing system of peaks and valleys. This is important because the main point of the game is to discover oil by "drilling" with the rig. It's rather brilliant, really. 

Let's take a look, shall we?

The box top shows what I mean about "almost 3D."

Milton Bradley often put a quick rundown of the goal of the game on the inside of the lid.

Inside the box!

I hit a gusher!!! Of course I had to check about five holes before I did. There's no way to know how the disks are arranged.

These are the disks I'm talking about. Apparently someone did the math and there are 1,728 possible combinations! That's s lot of repeatability!

Cards that complicate matters, lol!

The point here is that you buy property, drill for oil, link properties with piplines, collect royalties and eventually drive the other players into bankruptcy. Nice! The game owes a lot to Monopoly, but has enough twists to make it have its own identity.

Here are the rules...

It's really a pretty straight forward game, with a really good balance of luck and skill involved. It's no wonder that this game is fondly remembered by many Boomers and commands some respectable prices in the secondary market.

Jed Clampett would be proud!

Until next time, keep searching for treasure!

A Spooky Finale!

 Well, I started to write about another Halloween game, but it was kind of dull, so I went a little crazy and added in some Hallo-extras!

Let's do the game first, shall we?

This was a thrift store find a few years ago. It's not as old as I'm usually interested in, being from 1983, but Scooby is from the 60s, so I guess it qualifies. Scrappy is probably one of the most hated cartoon additions ever. I'm not kidding. Scooby fans apparently love to hate him! 

The box is open!

And under the board is...well...not much.

There are a ton of instructions for a game for little kids... I'll let you read through them.

Here is the board all set up...

And here is the spinner. It seems like they could have just used a die, but this game seems to have been designed on the cheap.

Here is the board with nothing on it. It's a race game with a double track- one for Scooby and one for Scrappy!

And that's it. 

It's a nice enough game, but for my Halloween finale, it seems weak... So, let's look around the attic for random items, shall we?

The first think I found is a puzzle that I've featured before, but I really like it! So here you go!

Not "Haunted Mansion," mind you, but "Haunted House!" I'm nerdy enough to think that's really cool!

Here are the pieces! They're all there!

Next we have a new tumbler that I bought last year at Spirit Halloween. It looks plastic, but it's actually ceramic and very heavy. This side features a really cool Rolly Crump design...

And this side has the official logo...

I also got this large, heavy ceramic coffee mug.

On the reverse, we have our favorite hitchhiking ghosts...

Speaking of heavy things bought at Spitit Halloween, this wall plaque is made of very heavy resin and is almost a foot tall!

That's all I bought at Spirit, but I picked this up at a yard sale. I know nothing about it, but it's still in the plastic wrap and has the Disney World price tag on the back. It cost 15.00 originally...

Yes, it's our favorite Haunted Hotel!

Finally, we have another wall plaque that my daughter got me a couple of years ago. It's a little larger than the other one, and much lighter, being made of plastic... But it has a secret!

If you press the scull on the bottom of the sign...

BOO! It lights up and plays Grim Grinning Ghosts! Very cool! And Spooooooooky!

So there you go! 

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

I'm already planning next Halloween's posts!

Until next time, keep searching for spooky treasure!

Of Spooky Mansions and Hidden Treasure

 This week I have another (sort of) Halloween themed board game with an interesting twist- there's no board! The game is Mystery Mansion from 1984, and while it's a little later than my Baby Boomer focus, I played it with my daughter, so it counts, dadgummit!

Mystery Mansion is a search game that challenges you to actually build the mansion as you go! During game play, players add room after room to find a treasure chest. They then can search each room by looking in and under items. Cards show you what to search. BUT, there are fake chests as well as the one with the treasure. And you have to drag the chest out of the house to open it! Trap doors and Secret Passages make things even more interesting!

Here's the game...

And inside the box...

The different colored rooms are different levels. 

The cards control much of the play.

There are stairs, secret passages, treasure chests, and player tokens to round out the parts.

The instructions are pretty involved, but easy once you get going. Here are the most important ones...

The game play is actually pretty exciting! There is a good blend of  strategy and luck, which is difficult to design into a game. The random elements of "building" the mansion mean you never get the same house twice.

There really isn't much spookiness involved, although the box makes it look like there would be. Still, it's a fun and unique game!

Until next time, keep searching for treasure!

Spooky Time!

 In the glitzy star studded world of blogging sometimes you accidently blog about something twice (yes, I've done it) and other times you could swear you wrote about something, but you can't find it. Today is the second one (I hope). 

Around this time of year I start to wear my special watch. Which watch? A witch watch? A wrist witch watch? Noooooo...This watch!

Yes, it's my limited edition Haunted Mansion watch! It has the Haunted Mansion font, little skulls for most of the numbers and three ghosts...but not the three that most people associate with the Mansion, which is all the more interesting because it came packaged with this sculpture (I don't have this part, I got the picture off of the interwebs)

As you can see, THESE ghosts are the iconic "Hitchhiking Ghosts" from the attraction's finale. The watch ghosts aren't, though.

The watch ghosts look a lot closer to these guys...

These are the spectral trouble makers from the 1937 short "Lonesome Ghosts!" This happens to be one of my favorite Mickey shorts, by the way, so when I saw the watch pop up on eBay, I just HAD to grab it!

Interestingly enough, Lonesome Ghosts was one of the themes that was seriously considered when the Haunted Mansion was going through it's development stage. It didn't stick (just like quite a few other ideas) but now they at least showed up on a watch. My watch!

By the way, the watch seems to be from the mid 1990s and was limited to 2000 pieces. Here's the back of mine:

I have number 513! I also obviously wear mine. I figure that's what it was made for, so in the fall of every year, mine goes on!

Until next time, keep searching for treasure!