I mentioned in this past weekend’s Battle Cat toddler hopper piece that I found something pretty nifty and cheap at a local vintage toy shop. I went into Billy’s Toys expecting to come out with something, I mean with the sheer amount of cool vintage stuff he has on hand it’d be hard to leave empty handed. I had expected that item to be a toy though, since that’s what he specializes in. Though I had my eye on a couple carded Bionic Six figures and a pretty rad Tonto figure released by Gabriel back in 1981, as I made my way through the store a number of times I just couldn’t decide what I wanted. That is until I spotted a small orange box in the back of a glass case which featured some very familiar faces…
It had to be kismet as I was just lamenting last week that there didn’t seem to be enough 80s era properties being used to make board and card games. With my girlfriend Jaime I’d just picked up a copy of Looney Labs Back to the Future card game released in 2010. We’d had fun learning the mechanics and playing that, and though I’m looking forward to breaking out that deck again I was kind of hoping that there were more games out there that were similar branded with some of the other movies and TV shows I grew up loving so much. So when I laid my eyes on this Dukes of Hazzard card game box I was pretty darn excited!
Though the box was a little beat up, the cards were all accounted for and in really good shape. After reading through the rules a few times I’m still kind of confused on how exactly the game works (it never states how many cards can be played per turn, or if there is a strict hand-size, etc.), but I’m still champing at the bit to break this out during our next game night. Even of the game itself isn’t a hit, I’m pretty enamored by the artwork on the cards which was well worth the purchase price alone…
Of course, once I realized these cards existed it eventually led me to eBay so see how many other 80s era, vintage, branded games were floating around out there. I knew there were several board games (Knightrider, Goonies, G.I. Joe, Indiana Jones, and the Silverhawks just to name a few), but I was more curious about card games. Let me just say there are A LOT of them and I kinda went nuts picking up a bunch that were pretty reasonably priced. Soon copies of the E.T., Return of the Jedi, G.I. Joe, A-Team, and Transformers card games should be winging their way into my collection and I have my eye on the Gremlins, Munsters (granted, it’s from the 60s, but I still grew up on them), Care Bears, Strawberry Shortcake, and Masters of the Universe games as well. Some of these are pretty basic from the descriptions and consist of standardized decks built for playing run of the mill games like War or some form of picture puzzle matching, but others seem a little more original. Either way, I’m pretty sure Jaime and I have some fun game nights in our future.
Which reminds me, in addition to breaking out that new Back to the Future game we recently bought, Jaime also introduced me to the insanity that is Electronic Mall Madness!
I think we’re definitely going to have to breakout my copy of Go For It! soon as well…
