New Board Games

Last week the hubby and I ventured to a few antique and hobby stores.  I found so many hobby toys/games- I was grabbing left and right! ;-)  It's actually very rare to find so many items and for such great bargains but I guess the hobby Gods were smiling upon me that day...lol

I found a couple rare board games.  This first game was found by my husband, Tony, at an antique store in a town about 45 minutes to an hour from where we live.  We live in a city called Eau Claire- it's in northern Wisconsin.  This board game is about Eau Claire history trivia- I was shocked when Tony found it!  It was $15 and I grabbed it.  We are both history buffs so were excited to play it.

This past weekend we pulled the game out and played one round.  (ahem..I won...hehe)  It's basically set up like the game, "Sorry": you have three player pieces per person and you have to get all your pieces out on the board and have to get them all to the center of the board without the other person knocking some of, if not all of your pieces off and then you have to start all over again.  Every time you land on a square, your opponent picks up a trivia card and asks you a question- some of them are multiple choice, true or false, and some you have to have the exact answer with no hints at all.

All in all, it's a fun game!  The game states anyone from teen to adult can play it.  It's fun with 2 players, but the game says you can have 2-4 players or teams.  So it would be fun to play with a group sometime....

The company who made this game is called "Trivia Game Productions" and copyrighted in 1995. The company who produced this game is out of Rochester, Minnesota.  Actually, after searching more online, the actual company's home base was out of Olympia, Washington.  I found a bit about them on Board Game Geek:

"Trivia Game Productions was a publisher based in Olympia, WA.  They were active in the early 1990's and focused on producing trivia games about mid-sized cities located in the Northwestern US."

If you click on the link below, you will see a couple other people who belong to this site have posted photos of other games by this former company.  There is one about Salem, MA and another about Spokane, WA:

http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamepublisher/8074/trivia-game-productions

I also found one more site called Fish Pond that had a game by this company listed, but must have sold because it states that the item is no longer available.

So there you have it.  A company who is no longer in business, and what they left behind are some rare trivia board games.  I think it was a great idea of their's to create trivia games about mid sized towns.  Oftentimes these are the towns that are forgotten- at least with this games floating around, the history of these locations will live on. :-)

Here are some photos of the game we picked up~

The cover of the game box:

The directions:

The board:

The trivia cards:

The player pieces:

Below is a photo of all the pieces to the game.  Incredibly, this was never opened.  So this means this game had never been played before!!

The other game I bought is called, "The Lion and the White Witch" and it's based on the C. S. Lewis book, "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" a personal favorite of mine!  I remember reading the book and watching the 80's BBS film series of this story.  I was walking in this old high school built in 1916 that has since been turned into an antique mall.  I think I was on the second floor walking across the creaky floor boards and stumbled upon this game.  Judging from the amount of dust on the cover it hadn't gotten any attention for quite some time!  But I grabbed it up.  The game is from 1983 and put out by the David C. Cook Publishing Company.

When we got home, I opened and checked it.  Thankfully all the parts were there and intact.  I then wanted to see if I could find any further information on it, because I had never heard of it before. When I looked online, I couldn't even find a copy on Ebay.  In fact, the only website that popped up was Board Game Geek, but not for sale- just photos and information on the game.  If you want to see more photos and read up on the game, click on the Board Game Geek link above that's highlighted in red.  So it looks as though I found another rare game.  Can't wait to play it!

I recently found the game, "Are You Afraid of the Dark?" for only $2.99!  I watched this show as a kid and have always wanted this game.  My husband and I played it recently, and we both really enjoyed it!

I have perused many thrift stores and found this game a bunch of times, BUT have never found this version: the English, French, and Spanish edition that looks slightly different on the cover.  Plus I looked it up on Ebay and can't find it, in fact, the only site I can find it on is Board Game Geek!  I got this for $1.99 and as this game often lacks because of small items that kids lose, it does not have three of the four necklaces or the crown.  But every version looks the same on the inside so finding the parts should be pretty easy and then this will be a complete game!  I will have to do further research to see if this game is rare.