Earlier today I had an interesting conversation with the owner of the Chicago toy and game store Cat and Mouse about how there are tons of games that ”borrow” the play patterns of other games.  Some even look the same: Bananagrams and Scrabble Apple (both which are similar to Take Two), Yahtzee and Kismet, Connect Four and Toot and Otto to name a few.  Now my mother always told me that “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery,” so I guess that the duplication indicates that the initial product had a level of success that the new game would like to attain.  And that got me thinking.

As an inventor I’d like to believe that the original version is always the superior one; for how could anyone improve upon my idea?!  Well, after quickly glancing through my games when I got home I found the perfect example of when the newer version improved upon the initial game and believe it or not the NEW version had been out since 1954.  (My copy is from 1962 & it’s seen a lot of games.)

Mille Bornes was developed by Edmond Dujardin and was very, VERY similar to the game Touring which was invented around 1906 and then picked up by Parker Brothers in 1925.  Touring was manufactured until it was replaced in their line by Mille Bornes sometime after 1954 which makes sense because who really needs two automobile racing card games in their line?

So what was the improvement that made all the difference?  The coup-fourré.  This is when a player earns a large bonus for stopping an opponent from playing a hazard card such as a flat tire or an accident that would impede their progress.  You do this by having “Safety” in your hand when the hazard is played.  This little difference made the game so much better.  Now when you go to play a hazard on an opponent your actions could be very costly.  However once a particular safety has been played (there are four different ones, seen below) it’s kind of a free for all.  Sounds a little complicated, but really Mille Bornes is a very easy and fun game to play.  Hence the half a century — and then some — this game has been on the market.   In fact, you can still find it at Target and Toys ‘R Us today for right around $5.99 if you don’t already have a copy.  Look in the card game area, it’s manufactured by Winning Moves now.

Now I know that this one example should not indicate the rule, but I think it goes to show that sometimes game play can be improved upon.  But more often I think that the copy-cats are reusing a particular style of game play so that it is familiar, fun and easier to learn – something I guess we should chalk up to flattery.

Mille Bornes Stats:
~$5.99 and up at Target, Toys ‘R Us, Barnes & Noble, Amazon.com
2, 3, 4 or 6 Players (commonly played as a partnership game with 4 players, 2 per team)
35-45 Minutes
Ages 8 and up

**Cat and Mouse Game Store is located at 2212 W. Armitage in Chicago and is absolutely worth a look.

As a kid my older sister and I would frequently get games as gifts for birthdays and holidays.   And even though we’re only 13 months apart, we didn’t often see eye to eye on which games we liked.  I liked Life she liked Monopoly.  I liked Candyland she liked Chutes and Ladders. Maybe it was because we were TOO close in age and we were both grasping for some sort of individuality, but since my degree is in Industrial Design and not psychology we will not dig any further into that particular area.

Thankfully there were a freak few that we both liked otherwise we may never have played games.  PayDay was definitely a favorite of ours because it could be a long game or a short game since you play month to month.  On a rainy Saturday we would play a full 12 months while on a school night it might have only been a 3-4 month game.  The only thing we didn’t really like about the game is that the board is one month long so you played the same month over and over and over.  Well that all changes this year!  Laura Pecci of Winning Moves came up with a very clever solution to this in their new release called Big PayDay.  It fits into the “why didn’t I think of that” category of games.  It’s so simple; the board has channels that you can replace any day with a random new day tile, which allows you to play a different month every month.  It keeps those “year-long” games much more interesting.

When I play we start with the regular board and then add 1 special tile per player the first month, we then clear the board and place 2 special tiles per player on for the second month and so on.  We blindly draw tiles and each player can place it wherever they want and there’s a little bit of strategy to it.  Extra “Buyers” at the end of the month are a good idea whereas covering up some of the mail days is also wise if you keep drawing the $800 auto repair bill whereas your opponents receive cheesy advertisements and postcards.
Big PayDay keeps all of the charm from the 1975 classic PayDay while solving the redundancy with a quick and clever solution.  Fair warning that it’s still the same game as before – one I loved in my tween years — but it’s still a nice and easy game for families to play and for some of us it brings back warm and fuzzy childhood memories.

Big PayDay Stats:
~$30-$35 at Amazon.com, Winning-Moves.com
2-6 Players
~ 15-30 Minutes (depending on number of players and number of months)
Ages 8 and up

I love clever ideas; they just make me happy.  (And sometimes envious that I didn’t think of them myself!)

This past February when I was roaming around Javits during New York Toy Fair I saw the cleverest feature in the Winning Moves product King Me.  It’s such a simple “duh” idea that I am still smitten with it.  You know what it is?  Self-crowning checkers.  Yup, that’s right, the crowns rise up from each checker when you twist them.  How cool is that?!

There have been thousands of versions of checkers including The Simpsons checkers, Dinosaur checkers, magnetic checkers, oversized checkers, designer checkers but none of them have ever tempted me to buy a new game of checkers, until now.   So who came up with this clever feature?  Phil Orbanes did while he was in the shower.  (I swear, the shower is a great place to think.)  Anyway, for those of you who are in the industry you probably know who Phil is.  For those of you who aren’t familiar with Phil, he’s one of the founders and current president of Winning Moves and before that he was the Senior VP for Research and Development at Parker Brothers, which means he knows a bit about good games.  He also has written a bunch of books about Monopoly and the book that is currently sitting on my desk called The Game Makers: The Story of Parker Brothers from Tiddledy Winks to Trivial Pursuit.

Good work Phil!  I like the way you think.

King Me Stats:
~$15 at Amazon.com, Toys ‘R Us
2 Players
~15 Minutes
Ages 7 and up

If your family is anything like mine, there’s a whole shelving unit dedicated to old games in the basement of your parent’s house.  There are some well-worn classics like Monopoly, Sorry and the version of Clue with the stable and fountain from the late ‘80s.  But it’s also teeming with games you’ve never heard of and definitely never played because they sound so dull you’d rather clean the basement than play the game.  Like “The IRS Game” I recently unearthed in my father’s house.  He’s a CPA so I’m sure it was some sort of gag gift, but honestly, who would want to play a game about the organization that makes sure we stay good citizens and pay our taxes?  I left that one where I found it.

The game I was looking for comes in a small box and was invented just after the turn of the century — the last century that is.  It’s called Pit and although the name isn’t bad, it’s the “commodities trading” theme that is outright unappealing.  I’ll admit, it’s pretty hard to convince a group of players to sit down for a fun game of commodities trading, but I managed to sucker some friends into playing recently.  They didn’t have much of a choice since we were out of town and their alternatives were pretty slim, but I was happy that they obliged and promised it wouldn’t disappoint.

As one of my all-time favorite party games, Pit is easy to explain, even easier to learn and it’s quick.  The game is made up of rounds that are a free-for-all of people trading cards until they’ve “cornered the market” on one commodity, meaning they managed to collect every single wheat or soybean card in the game.  During this process people are feverishly yelling how many cards they want to trade, reaching across the table and over other player’s hands to conduct the card swap in hopes of finding the last couple cards they are missing.  The frenzy comes to halt when a player triumphantly rings the bell to signal that they have cornered the market.  As the other players sigh, the winner collects points and the next round is started.  The quick, fast rounds keep everyone excited, but adding twists like silent rounds or playing with the bull and bear cards add another level to play with the bull acting like a wild and the bear like an old maid.

While I have an older version of Pit that I found buried in a dusty corner, this game can be purchased new for less than $20.  It comes with eight different commodities to trade and a bell.  Sadly, since this game isn’t as well known as it should be, it probably won’t be available in your local Wal-Mart, but according to the manufacturer, it can be found at Toys ‘R’ Us stores nationwide.  There are also plenty of online retailers including Amazon.com who carry the game and it’s worth the 3-5 day shipping wait.  But if that’s too long, check out www.winning-moves.com to find a store near you that carries this classic game.

In the end, even though my friends had some pretty low expectations going into the game, when we finally decided to stop and grab some dinner they were all amazed at how much fun it was.  There have already been some requests for me to bring Pit with me whenever we get together next.

So grab 3-8 of your closest friends (over the age of 7) and spend the afternoon “cornering the market!”  Maybe just leave out the game’s theme when you ask them to play.

Pit stats:

• ~$15 Toys ‘R Us, Barnes and Noble or online retailers
• 3-8 players
• ~2 minutes a round (so play lots!)
• Ages 7 and up