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Old Mechanical Games

Posted: July 9th, 2017, 8:24 pm
by VideoGameCritic
I was just talking to a friend about some of the fun old board games we used to play as kids, including:

Run Yourself Ragged - this was an ingenious little obstacle course game you controlled with knobs and levers. Apparently the game still exists under a new name.

Hungry Hungry Hippo - my sister had this one. Very loud but fun.

Mr. Mouth - Flick chips into a head with a big mouth that would open and close as he rotated.

Rock'em Sock'em Robots - Plastic-crunching good time. Love how their heads would pop up when they took one on the chin!

Mousetrap - Seems to me this was kind of complicated to set up.

Re: Old Mechanical Games

Posted: July 10th, 2017, 7:34 am
by Teddybear
How about The Junk Yard with that steel ball of death?

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Re: Old Mechanical Games

Posted: July 10th, 2017, 11:02 am
by velcrozombie
I also enjoyed Hungry Hungry Hippos and Mousetrap. I don't think I ever legitimately played Mousetrap - all I ever wanted to do was watch the contraption do its thing.

Back in the mid-80s Milton Bradley made a line of mechanical one-player games called T.H.I.N.G.S. (Totally Hilarious Incredibly Neat Games of Skill, natch) and I had a bunch of them. Each one would have a timer and you'd see how many of a certain activity (catching rings, rolling barrels across a bridge as it opens and closes, rescuing astronauts, etc.) you could do in the amount of time given. The only problem was the small parts that would inevitably go missing:

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I got a game for my birthday one year the name of which I can't remember. It had two teams of plastic naval vessels and each ship had between one and three slots on the bottom (depending on the size of the ship). Each player had a submarine that could shoot these small red discs - if you hit one the slots on the one of the plastic ships a part of the ship would "explode" via the magic of rubber bands. If anyone knows what game I'm talking about please let me know.

Also, my cousins and I played a lot of Crossfire, a game that is much older (1971) than I anticipated. The commercial for it is pure 80s cheese:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCwn1NTK-50

Re: Old Mechanical Games

Posted: July 10th, 2017, 2:59 pm
by LuckyMan
I have Hungry Hungry Hippos, Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots, Mousetrap and Operation. My daughter and I used to play all of those quite a lot when she was younger. I don't know if they're in the same category, but I also have two newer games: Don't Wake Daddy and Gassy Gus that you have to press a button a certain number of times until Daddy pops up or Gus lets one loose. Good times!

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Re: Old Mechanical Games

Posted: July 10th, 2017, 3:22 pm
by pacman000
Those T.H.I.N.G.S. look fun.

I remember pocket pinball games, with a bee-bee or ball bearing as the ball. There was never a scoring mechanism, or flippers, juts a plunger. You had to keep track of the score in your head. Also had a similar fishing game; you had to flick the fish into a net. Simple fun.

Re: Old Mechanical Games

Posted: July 10th, 2017, 4:29 pm
by scotland
pacman000 wrote: I remember pocket pinball games, with a bee-bee or ball bearing as the ball. There was never a scoring mechanism, or flippers, juts a plunger. You had to keep track of the score in your head. Also had a similar fishing game; you had to flick the fish into a net. Simple fun.


Could you be remembering the Tomy Pocket Games. If you grew up without much spending money, these were inexpensive fun on the go. They made a lot of them, including ones with video game redesigns like the Pac Man one below.

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Re: Old Mechanical Games

Posted: July 10th, 2017, 4:45 pm
by pacman000
I might have had one of those, tho I don't recognize any design. Most I had were cheaper than those; they had plastic fronts backed by cardboard. You could get them at the dollar store for party favors.

Re: Old Mechanical Games

Posted: July 10th, 2017, 6:32 pm
by scotland
pacman000 wrote:I might have had one of those, tho I don't recognize any design. Most I had were cheaper than those; they had plastic fronts backed by cardboard. You could get them at the dollar store for party favors.


Got ya. You mean ones like this one. I think I still have a baseball themed one.

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Re: Old Mechanical Games

Posted: July 10th, 2017, 7:45 pm
by lynchie137

Re: Old Mechanical Games

Posted: July 10th, 2017, 8:09 pm
by lynchie137
Teddybear wrote:How about The Junk Yard with that steel ball of death?

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I got this one second hand from one of my older cousins. Fantastic game. Sadly, I somehow managed to lose all the pieces to it ;-(