Our family enjoys playing board games. Andrea and I both come from families that spent more time playing games with the kids than plunking them in front of the TV, and we believe that family games bring us all closer together.
What prompted me to create this page is the fact that certain games have changed over the years, and others have disappeared, and over time, even the fact that they once existed will be forgotten by all but a few. One thing that bothers me is that copyrights on these games never expire, so unless the original publisher agrees, they'll never be remade - simply because they won't generate revenue. Which is a real shame, because ideas are priceless, really.
In the mid-1980's I used to play a game with a group of friends, called Divine Right, that was essentially a swords and sorcery version of the strategy game RISK, with some other elements thrown in. In its basic form, the game didn't have a lot to offer, but the advanced rules, supplemented by our "house rules" that we developed over time, made it an endless source of fun for us bored teenagers. It kept us from terrorizing the neighborhood. Unfortunately, it was only made for one or two years, and if one of my friends hadn't bought a copy at the flea market, I wouldn't be writing this now. I was surfing the net looking for information about the game, and found to my horror that its now a collector's item, and even a used copy will fetch $200 on the collector's market. While searching for information about this game, I found that someone else wanted to know the rules for an earlier edition of the game of LIFE, which I happened to own. They didn't like the gameplay in the newer version. I was able to give them the information they wanted, but it occurred to me, why not start a page - this page - to share information about obsolete games with other interested people on the Internet?
So far, these are the games I have information on:
Please e-mail me if you have any comments or information to share. My e-mail address is wj684@victoria.tc.ca.