Because my family generally despised each other, the only time there was civilized discussion was during board games.

The 3M bookshelf game series rocked some seriously cool art. The games (except for "Aquire") were mediocre at best, but the cover art kicked ass. I remember wishing that my family was as happy as the family in Phlounder, that I'd eventually meet a woman as cunning and sexy as the gal on Oh Wah Ree or that I'd become a successful businessman like the dude on Acquire.

I miss this era of cool art. I was fascinated with the paintings that hung in Rod Serling's "Night Gallery" or the art which appeared just before the commercial breaks during "The Wild Wild West"

Salut' cool cheesy 70's game cover art.

When I was in grade school, we used to play board games like Acquire and Hūsker Dū whenever recess had to be held indoors due to weather.

I remember Acquire being kinda fun.

Colonel Panic wrote:When I was in grade school, we used to play board games like Acquire and Hūsker Dū whenever recess had to be held indoors due to weather.

I remember Acquire being kinda fun.

The theme was buying and selling hotel chains. It's still considered genius game design by geeks like myself who take board games way too seriously. What kind of a frigging Mensa-assed grade school plays math intensive games like Acquire?

My family played quite a bit of Facts in Five.

It was not a particularly good game. Has about the lamest box art of that series as well.

Twixt was fun.

Ha.. I still have "Foil". The cooler looking box.

fancyjamtime wrote:

Colonel Panic wrote:When I was in grade school, we used to play board games like Acquire and Hūsker Dū whenever recess had to be held indoors due to weather.

I remember Acquire being kinda fun.

The theme was buying and selling hotel chains. It's still considered genius game design by geeks like myself who take board games way too seriously. What kind of a frigging Mensa-assed grade school plays math intensive games like Acquire?

It was just a regular, smallish Catholic parochial grade school. They had a few board games stashed in the cabinets at the back of the classrooms. Most of these were "educational"-type games and most of them were missing half the playing pieces, cards and stuff. I distinctly remember a Chinese Checkers game with most of the marbles missing.

If it was raining outside or a blizzard or something, then we'd have to stay indoors for recess under a teacher's supervision and the only thing we could really do was pick out a board game and start playing. Sometimes a kid would bring his Uno cards or one of those Mattel electronic handheld "Football" games to school and we'd have something better to do, but we'd usually be stuck with Acquire or Hūsker Dū.

Those are pretty rad. You should shoot them a link or something over at Boing Boing. They'll probably blog about it, as they love retro shit like this.

I loved these when I was a kid, though only knew how to play a couple of them.

There was another one that used gold and silver cylinders, heavy little metal fuckers, of varying heights. I have this vague memory that it was called Blockade or Breakout or something like that. Anyone know what I'm talking about? It was definitely in this same line of games.

We had that one, Twixt, and Bazaar, though I don't ever remember playing Bazaar.

Nice trip down memory lane, fancyjam. Hadn't thought about those things in a long time, despite how much pleasure I got from them, including the funky box art.

ERawk wrote:What I find interesting about these games is that they were actually made by 3M.

I was probably born not too long after they were taken off the market. I don't remember my parents having too many board games before I came around.

However, I do remember my parents had this game, which I think my parents bought in the 70s:

Mille Bornes

I LOVE Mille Bornes. I just had an opportunity to play it again for the first time in many years during a recent trip to the beach. So nice, the French driving card game.

Ty Webb wrote:I loved these when I was a kid, though only knew how to play a couple of them.

There was another one that used gold and silver cylinders, heavy little metal fuckers, of varying heights. I have this vague memory that it was called Blockade or Breakout or something like that. Anyone know what I'm talking about? It was definitely in this same line of games.

It must have been Breakthru.

As a lad, I also had Speed Circuit; not a bookshelf game, but rather one of the 3M Sports Games, and all kinds of awesome.