Vintage Games

Skirrid – The Shapes Game

June 25, 2024 by Penny Leave a Comment

The box of Skirrid proudly announces that it only takes three minutes to learn how to play and that’s definitely correct. With modern games being so complicated it was actually quite refreshing to open up something and be playing it within a few minutes, rather than spending a good 30 minutes wading through a long instruction booklet.

What is Skirrid?

The Skirrid board consists of a 19 x 19 grid which has two differently coloured areas – with a white lozenge-shaped central arena at the middle. Every second square on the board has a number on it, with a general rule of lower numbers on the central squares and higher numbers near the edges and corners. The values are not evenly distributed though and one corner scores more highly than the others. There is a bit of a feel of scrabble about it in the way that the numbers are distributed and you can imagine triple word score spaces where the highest numbers are.

The skirrid board in action. Clear and smoky plastic tangram shapes are placed adjacent on the board covering some of the numbers.

Players are provided with tangram shapes and in the two player version of the game each player has 18 of these. One player’s are clear plastic and the other’s have a smoked effect to them. Some of the shapes have numbers engraved on them – more about those in a moment.

How to play

Play starts in the centre of the board with the first player laying down a shape of their choice making sure they cover the very central square. They then score points for whatever numbers their shape covers. The second player then continues with laying one of their shapes so that one edge of it is adjacent to an existing shape.

Should you lay a shape with a number on it and that number is over a number on the board then the two numbers are multiplied together to give you your score for that turn. Scoring is undertaken on a very complicated scoring board. You move a counter along the board to show your score, but this is designed so that once you get to ten you need two counters – one to show how many tens you have scored and the other to show the number of units. A third counter is required once you get to a score in the hundreds, meaning that in a two player game you can end up with six identical counters on the score board. Far from easy to keep track of what is going on, especially as they’re all black and blend in somewhat with the black background!

The skirrid scoring track with the easy to miss black counters on it.

Adding more players

We only tried Skirrid out as a two player game, but the instructions do allow modifications so that you can have up to six players in total. There are options of playing it as two teams, or all as individuals. The latter means that the concept of having one colour of plastic shapes each goes out of the window, but also so does the doubling and tripling of scores for when there is a number engraved on the shape.

What we thought of Skirrid

Skirrid was a nice and simple, easy to understand board game, but at the same time it had a feel about it that made me think of rainy holidays where it had been found in a cupboard in a holiday cottage or caravan somewhere and was pulled out as you’d exhausted all other entertainment possibilities. It didn’t exactly blow me away at all. It certainly has a very retro feel about it.

We’d played a two player game with the quick start instructions, but reading up afterwards I realise that we’d overlooked the fact that you’re supposed to only play inside the white area on the board until you’ve scored at least 75 points (hence the blue shading against 70 and 5 on the score board). There is also a more complicated rule in which you can place a shape upside down on the board. In doing so you don’t score any points for it, but it means that you can’t then place another shape adjacent to it – hence possibly blocking a high scoring part of the board from another player.

The Skirrid box showing three tangram shapes and white light coming in from the left and initially travelling as a rainbow, bouncing through the first shape, before being split and red, orange and yellow going into a second shape in one direction, and green, blue indigo and violent going in another direction through a third shape.

Skirrid is very much the sort of game that would appeal to logical thinkers, and I think it is the prefect sort of game for adults and children to play together. Maybe that’s what I can see it so clearly appearing in a cupboard in a holiday cottage somewhere? I quite liked it as a two player game, but feel it might have quite a different dynamic with more people around the board. If we had endless space in the house I think I would hang on to it for family get-togethers, but as it is I’ve relegated it to the charity shop pile.

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Rock ‘N’ Roll The Music Biz Game

March 5, 2024 by Penny Leave a Comment

Rock ‘N’ Roll The Music Biz Game is another of those charity shop finds that looked interesting enough to come home with us, but then sat in the cupboard for years before we finally got round to pulling it out and playing it. Even just opening the box though you’re struck by the design work that has gone into this game.

The box for Rock 'N' Roll The Music Biz Game

The Look

There is no playing board in Rock ‘N’ Roll. In fact there aren’t even any playing pieces. Instead you open the box to a very neatly organised playing arena. Pride of place is given to a spinning album, made of cardboard with a plastic record arm over it. Also in there are an array of card cassettes which give you a variety of situation cards that you refer to throughout the game.

A large cardboard concert ticket - with the game instructions printed on the back.

The instructions are printed on the back of a large concert ticket (remember though from before we all went digital!) and rather than bank notes all payments in the game are made by cheque.Published back in 1988 this is a game that absolutely screams of its time. It’s a wonderful retro throwback to those of us that were music fans in the 80s and 90s as all these novelty bits really added to the game’s overall feel.

Aim of the Rock ‘N’ Roll Game

The aim of this game is relatively simple – to make as much money as possible by moving through the 5 grooves on the spinning album. Each one of these grooves represents one album release.

How to play

With the absence of a board or playing pieces you might be wondering how to play Rock ‘N’ Roll. Each player is allocated a different coloured gold record marker piece. Initially all these are placed in the slot in the box denoting that the player is on the first groove of the record. As players move to the inner grooves their gold record marker piece is moved to the corresponding space in the box.

On their turn each player spins the spinning record. Before doing so they line up the tone arm of the record player so that it is sitting over the groove that they are on. Once the record has been spun the needle of the tone arm points to a space on the track denoting what they have “landed on”.

Inside the box of Rock 'N' Roll The music Biz Game. You can see the spinning record, teh cassette situation cards and the radio hit single spinner.

It could be that you land on a RADIO space when then allows you to spin the Radio Hit Single Spinner. This tells you how well your record is doing and you earn money accordingly.

Most of the spaces on the records grooves are situations and then the player must take a cassette situation card.

Cassette Situation Cards

In an attempt to be as realistic to life in the music business as possible the idea of the situation cards is that they are supposed to show all the different people that you have to interact with for a record or act to be successful. Depending on what you land on you could be picking up one of the following cassette situation cards:

Artist
Agent
Publisher
Record Company
Manager
Accountant
Merchandiser
Lawyer
Everyone Else

The situation cards could tell you what to do or require you to pay something, or even to collect more money.

Moving between record grooves

The final type of space on the record grooves is the GO TO NEXT ALBUM space. This allows a player to move to the next groove on the record, but only if they can afford the same $150,000 in recording costs. If you don’t have the money you can take a bank loan, or see if another player will loan it to you. The bank offers 0% interest, but you can’t have a bank loan outstanding to move up any further, and you can only borrow from the bank three times in a game.

Close up of the spinning album showing teh five grooves and all the different spaces players can stop the needle on.

Retiring

The game continues until a player retires. To do this they have to land on the retire space on the fifth album groove. When they do so they could actually choose to delay retirement if they think they need to earn more money first. You need to remember here that the winner of the game is not the first to retire, but the one that makes the most money from their music career.

Upon deciding to retire you get one final spin of the Radio Hit Single Spinner which will decide how big a retirement bonus you will receive – if you get one at all!

When retirement has happened all players stop and count up their cheques before a winner is declared.

What we thought of Rock ‘N’ Roll The Music Biz Game

We played this game with a couple of friends of a similar vintage to ourselves and our first impression was that we really liked it. The spinning record was a novel idea and we all liked the cassette cards and the idea of being paid by cheque. As the game went on it did begin to drag a little bit though.

The spinning album was quite hard to spin and having to move the needle arm all the time (due to us all being on different grooves) was a bit of a faff. Whilst the cassette cards were a nice idea the wording on them was a bit poor and we found that the denominations of cheques wasn’t quite right for what you actually needed to do with money in the game.

I’ve read that the game was invented by two music business pros and it shows a bit. There are definitely some nice touches in there and we really liked the retro feel of it, but I’m not sure we’d play it again.

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Ulcers – a vintage Waddingtons game

February 28, 2024 by Penny Leave a Comment

With a name of Ulcers you might be expecting some sort of medical board game, but that isn’t what Ulcers all about. From the box…

Ulcers is the fun game that gives you power over people. You sure a Vice-President or promote your Salesman. Your President demands more money. Someone steals your Secretary and your Sales Manager quits. You raid another company to fill your empty offices. But, boy have you got problems! People change hands at a wild pace as each player tries to collect his company office stage. Just try and keep your personnel; If it is happening… you have Ulcers.

First impressions of Ulcers

Just looking at the bright pink box and the bubble writing of Ulcers tells you that this is a 1970 game. Published in 1973 by Waddingtons you instantly note that the box is in both English and French, much like I remember some of their other games like Ratrace were. This seems to have been done so that games could be sold into the Canadian market easily and this version of Ulcers does have a note on it saying that it is Copyright from House of Games Corporation Ltd, Ontario, Canada.

The box of Ulcers sitting on a wooden table top. The box is bright pink in colour with Ulcers written in bubble writing. Also visible are a series wow carton style pictures of personnel in ornate frames with their business positions written below them.

The game board has a simplistic look. Almost plain by 70s standards. However the number of colours and patterns used on the squares makes up for the plain white background!

1970 office sexism is also alive and well in Ulcers. All secretaries in the game are female, and all other roles are undertaken exclusively by men. What a surprise!

The board of Ulcers. There is a white background to the board and a main circular track of squares. Off it are three smaller tracks that appear as arcs inside the circle.

Aim of the Game Ulcers

The aim of the game in Ulcers is to collect all the office staff that you need to run your business. An office requires two Secretaries, two Sales Men, one Sales Manager, one Vice-President and one President. As you go around the board you land on squares which allow you to appoint different staff as you find yourself on the appropriate square.

Pay levels

Where Ulcers gets a bit more interesting is what you pay your staff as this is not prescribed. When you appoint a staff member it is up to you as to what to pay them. This could be as little as $5,000 or as much as $200,000. The only rule is that you need to follow the company hierarchy. A more senior person can not earn less than someone more junior than them. However, they could be paid the same. A player can “raid” another players staff via certain squares on the board, and in doing so take a member of staff to pay them more than they were on there. This means that it doesn’t always make sense to pay everyone the smallest salary, but you also can’t afford to pay everyone $200,000.

A close up of part of the "company" board. Lying on it are the cards for a couple of secretaries, two sales men, a sales manager and a Vice President.

When a player hires a staff member they place their card on the “company’ in front of them. This “company” is a long piece of card with different slots in for the different pay levels that they can have. It makes it visually easy to see how much everyone is paying their staff and the pay hierarchy inside the company. (The paper cards also remind me a lot of the status symbol cards in the 1973 version of Ratrace that I wrote about a few years ago.)

As you go around the board it may be that you can increase your cash reserves by undertaking the Business Venture track, or if you’re called to pay out the Payroll and can’t you might have to go round the Payroll track. You also might need to deal with industrial action from your staff – another of the minor tracks on the board. These latter two can affect not only your cash holdings, but also you night end up with losing a staff member or two!

How to win the game

The first player to fully staff their company AND return all the way round the board to the start of the new fiscal year is the winner. This final bit is important as it could be that someone has all the staff they need, but then a member of staff is raided by someone from a different company.

Comedy Rules

I know I keep referencing Ratrace here, but once again I’m going to refer to how when I reviewed it I spoke of how the rules for the game were written in a comedy question and answer style. Exactly the same is true for Ulcers. They’re well worth a read, but don’t lend themselves well to being read aloud when trying to explain the game to other players. That’s probably why you don’t see modern day instructions written this way.

Similarities to other Waddingtons games

The other thing that you instantly note from Ulcers is that there are some similarities with other Waddingtons games from that era. As well as the main circular board there are three diversion routes on there. If you land on a specific square (the ones relating to Business Venture, Payroll or Strike Action) then you are sent down these routes and for the time that you are on them you throw only one dice to proceed. This is very similar to when you follow the career paths in Careers. Also like Careers are some of the Ulcers cards which allow players to move a certain number of spaces on the board, and these can be held until a player wants to use them.

One of the Ulcer cards. It reads as follows: Strategy Card. Move ahead 2 square. (This card may be sold, traded, or kept until needed.) The message is then repeated in French.

Passing the arrow where “New Fiscal Year Starts Here” is marked is similar to passing Go in Monopoly. You collect 50,000 when you pass or a whopping 100,000 if you happen to land on the square. The Business Venture subtract is also a bit like when you gamble on the Stock Exchange in Ratrace.

Our Ulcers Experience

We played a three player game of Ulcers and really rather enjoyed the game. We liked the interactions between players that come from being able to raid another player’s staff.

Towards the end though we ended up in a position where all three of us just wanted to hire a President and yet none of us ever ended up landing on the right square. We had all our other staff in place and there was therefore no need for anyone to raid anyone else. We’d also all earned so much money from the Business Ventures track (which all of us went round multiple times) that the first player to land on the President square could instantly pay the President the maximum salary and this made them safe from other players too. Sadly a bit of a tedious and predictable end to our game.

A view of the table as we played the game. Visible in the foreground is my company board with seven staff members on it. In the background you can see an opponents company board with only six members of staff on it. Also on the table you can see money, dice and Ulcers cards as well as a mug of tea.

Whilst playing we found earning money relatively easy, and if anything we’d say that the game needs more banknotes. Only at one point early on did a player run out of money and even then it’s easy to get more. None of us ever had to go round the Payroll mini-track as we could always meet our payroll obligations when required to do so.

It might be that all three of us were just lucky, or just that the game works better if you have four players. When you look at the starting set up for the game, for a three player game you set up the Personnel pool with six Secretaries, six Sales Men, three Sales Managers, three Vice Presidents and two Presidents, meaning that is only Presidents that are in short supply.

In a four player game the set up is a bit different: seven Secretaries, seven Sales Men, three Sales Managers, three Vice-Presidents and three Presidents. This means that there aren’t enough staff in the Personnel pool at all levels, so we expect it creates much more interaction between players. Next time we plan to play with four players and see how it changes the game dynamic.

We all thoroughly enjoyed Ulcers, and if you overlook the 70s sexism I’d actually say it’s still remains a good game. More than just a roll and move as you need to think strategically about how you pay your staff and where you might try and get them from too.

Ulcers was published under the Waddington’s House of Games label in 1973. There was also a slightly different version published again by Waddingtons in the 1980s. Copies of both are generally available online via either eBay or Amazon.

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The M25 – A Game of Bumper to Bumper Bollards, Breakdowns and Botheration!

October 3, 2022 by Penny Leave a Comment

The box for the M25 game showing a cartoon style picture of three cars full of people with comedy number plates (NERD1 and HOG1) and surrounded by bollards going in all directions.

The M25 – A game based on the UK’s most expensive practical joke. Now you too can experience the frustration and botheration of the country’s most hated motorway. Who do you know that experiences the 127 miles of the M25 – you can now share with them their tale of woe from start to finish.

The game is easy – all that is required of you is to keep a level head and get from the start to the finish; as to be expected your journey will be impaired because you have to use the M25. During the course of your journey you will be required to lip read what other drivers are trying to say to you; gesticulate in the form of a mime what you may think of player’s driving or draw a phrase which you may feel describes other drivers or the M25.

The back of the box blurb above pretty accurately describes The M25 board game. Quite why anyone would be so frustrated sitting in traffic on the M25 that they decided to make everyone else endure the same pain by making a board game of it, I just don’t know. But that’s exactly what they did.

Aim of the game

The aim of the M25 game is to go all the way round the M25 one way, go round the M11 access roundabout and then go back the opposite direction before arriving into central London and trying to find a parking space there. It’s the sort of thing that brings most drivers out in a cold sweat. And bear in mind that as a 1980s game this was all before the congestion charge was introduced. Or the ULEZ. Yet it still looks and sounds as daunting as it does today!

The M25 game board showing London in the middle of the board and two directions of the M25 looping round. The River Thames comes in from the right hand side of the board and the motorway goes into a tunnel under it. There are various slip roads and roundabouts for junctions with other motorways and cartoon versions of some famous 1980s landmarks.

M25 Cards

This is obviously designed as a party game as it’s designed for 3 to 12 players, although what sort of dinner parties ended in an agreement to play a game like this is also beyond me.

Players get to move their counters around the M25 based on how well they do on the M25 cards in the game. The die is only used for starting the game and when players are on slip roads.

There are four types of cards altogether. Simple ones that tell you to do something relating to your motorway journey. Then three more types that give the game its party flavour: lip read, charade or draw cards. Basically it’s like playing charades, trying to lip read or play Pictionary within the game. Depending on what type of square you’re on when you take the card determines which clue on the card you need to get others to guess. And if a player does guess correctly both of you get to move a number of spaces further forward on the board. If no one guesses correctly you still get to move, just not as far.

Five example M25 cards showing two where players are given instructions as to how to move - or not. The other three are an example of the lip read, draw and mime cards.

Both the board and the box have a cartoon style to their artwork, giving the game an overall very 80s theme.

Our thoughts

Whilst this might work well as a bit of a joke game for anyone that does have to use the M25 on a regular basis, I can imagine that joke wearing thin quite quickly. If you’re after a decent party game then you may well do better with a game that focusses more on one of the guessing elements – lip reading, drawing or miming.

A close up section of the M25 board showing the motorway as to come out off the north of the Dartford tunnel and the junction for the M11 including a road about and a loopback to get onto the other carriageway.

If a game about roads is more your thing then take a look at what I thought of the classic vintage game Motorway instead.

About The M25 board game

For 3 – 12 players, age 10 to adult.

Contents: Board, 168 M25 cards, 12 playing pieces, 1 dice, pad and pencil, full rules

Distributed in the UK by B V Leisure Ltd, St Ives, Cambs.

Available secondhand online here.

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Bermuda Triangle

September 28, 2022 by Penny Leave a Comment

After a childhood fascination with the Bermuda Triangle this particular game was on my want list since I first saw it in a charity shop (at a stupidly expensive price) years ago. I then managed to pick up a copy for a much more reasonable price online, but I always assumed it would be incredibly complicated to play and so it sat on the shelf for ages. When we finally got it down to play though we realised just how wrong our assumptions were. It’s actually an incredibly straightforward game, but one with a lovely random mechanism to keep you on your toes.

The box of the board game Bermuda Triangle from MB Games

Aim of Bermuda Triangle

The aim of the game is simple enough – follow a route through the sea, around 4 different ports and collect goods as you do so. The first to have goods (sugar, timber, oil and bananas) worth £350,000 wins the game. But, and it’s a large but, the ports are around the bit of the Atlantic Ocean where boats and planes have disappeared. In what is known as the Bermuda Triangle.

The board for Bermuda Triangle. Most of the board is sea with a track of boat shaped "squares" going round in a route, touching 4 ports on land. In the middle of the board is a grid and on this sits a strange plastic cloud shape which is the Bermuda Triangle in the game.

The Cloud

The way the Bermuda Triangle manifests itself in the game is in the form of a large plastic storm cloud that can rotate around a circular base on the map.

A close up of teh plastic cloud on the grid.

After each round a spin of a spinner dictates how the cloud both rotates and moves around the board. In the centre of the cloud is a small viewing hole, and through this you can see the grid underneath. You physically move the cloud along this grid as dictated by the spinner, and then rotate it. In doing so it might knock players’ boats off course, or even make them disappear entirely. Each of the little boat playing pieces has a small magnet on top and the base of the cloud contains sections which also contain magnets, meaning the pieces can be picked up by the cloud.

A cardboard spinner showing three rings. The inner one with a letter A-G. The second with a number: 4, 7 or 10 and then an outer one showing N, S, E or W. At the main compass points the second and third rings are merged and just say North, South, East or West.

The route around the board is simple enough, but with a limit on how many boats are allowed in a port at any one time there can be a nice bit of strategy in terms of trying to block ports for your opponents. The swirling cloud and its movements are so unpredictable though that in just one move it can easily take out everything at a port or several boats at sea. Depending on where it is positioned it can also stop players from moving in the directions they want.

What we thought of Bermuda Triangle

We really enjoyed playing Bermuda Triangle and found it a nice simple, quick game at the end of a busy day. The cloud element made it so much more interesting than a simple roll and move game, and being a map lover I also really enjoyed the vintage map design on the game board.

A corner of the board for Bermuda Triangle where it shows the name of the game. a couple of ships in port, some cards and the cloud covering part of the route.

We initially played a two player version and found that great fun, but adding in the kids for a 4 player version adds even more fun. Players can get strategic and try to block another player from a port, but at the end of the day the randomness of the Bermuda Triangle itself will help dictate who wins and who loses. The kids certainly love it as a quick before bed game, and it’s taught them all about the Bermuda Triangle too.

Where can I get hold of the Bermuda Triangle board game?

Originally published by MB Games in the UK in 1976 it’s easy enough to pick up a second hand copy online from either eBay or Amazon. Copies do also appear in charity shops, but not all that often.

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Waterworks – Parker Brothers Leaky Pipe Card Game

September 26, 2022 by Penny Leave a Comment

There is absolutely no doubt that the world’s best known board game is Monopoly. Over the years there have been thousands of different versions of this classic, but what do you know about spin off games? When I picked up a small box containing the Parker Brothers card game Waterworks in a charity shop I wasn’t really sure what I was buying, but that’s often the excitement with buying vintage games.

The box for the Parker Brothers vintage game Waterworks.

Waterworks and pipework

Released by Parker Brothers in 1972 the card game Waterworks was named after the Water Works space on the Monopoly board. The link with Monopoly goes no further than the name though. The aim of Waterworks is to build a pipeline of a specified length (depending on how many players are playing) and that it has to start with a valve (a tap) and end with a spout. The cards have on them pieces of pipe – either straight or bent – and some have junctions and caps on them. All pieces of pipe come in three different types –

copper, which can never leak
lead, which is vulnerable to leaks, and
lead which is already leaking

The overall objective of the game may sound simple, but as the length of the instruction leaflet shows, it’s anything but simple at first.

How to play

All players start with one spout and one valve with which they will start and end their pipeline. They are then dealt five more cards which will be their playing hand. In addition they receive two small metal wrenches, which wouldn’t look out of place as weapons in a Cluedo game!

Players take turns in which they have to try to lay a card. This can be either adding a piece of good (i.e. non leaky) lead or copper pipe to their own pipeline, or they can add a leaky piece of pipe to another player’s pipeline. Should the player not have a suitable piece of pipe to use then they can discard one of their hand. Players draw a new card at the end of their turn, so that they always have 5 pipe cards in their hand – in addition to the already played tap and spout saved for the end of the game.

Cards always have to be played in a portrait format on the table meaning that you can easily end up in a situation where you just don’t have the right card to be able to play.

A section of pipework laid out in card form in the game waterworks. Also seen in teh picture is the plastic bathtub for drawing and discarding cards.

Leaky pipes

When it comes to leaky pipe cards, I’ve already mentioned that these are played on other player’s pipe lines, but they can either be added to the pipe line as the next card, or placed on top of the last card played in their pipe line, as long as it is a lead pipe (remember copper pipes can never leak). This helps delay the other player in making their pipeline of the required length. Leaks always have to be sorted out before players can add further to their pipeline. Even in a multiplayer game there can be no more than one leak in any player’s pipeline at a time. Also, once a pipe has been repaired it can’t leak again.

How to fix leaks

So, how do you repair the leaks? There are two ways to do this. Either by playing a good pipe card (of the same shape) on top of the leaky one, or by placing one of their metal wrenches on top of the card with the leak. This fixes the leak.

If a player does not have the right card or a wrench to fix their own leak then they can’t add any more good pipe to their pipeline. On their turn they can either just discard a card and draw a new one, or they can add a leak to another player’s pipeline.

Ts and Caps

As if things didn’t sound confusing enough already, the game also incudes cards with T junctions and caps on them. As is the case with these in real life plumbing, Ts and Caps can also leak.

With a T added to a pipeline the water can technically flow in more than one direction, but we don’t want this as the aim of the game is for water to flow from the tap to the spout. If a player uses a T card they will then need to also use a cap to cap off one of the directions. Cap cards have four different types of cap on them, but it is wise to cap a route as soon as possible with a good cap as otherwise another player could add a leaky cap to a long route of pipe flowing one direction from the T and as your final pipe length is only counted between the tap and the spout this could render some cards useless from a length perspective.

Water flowing uphill?

A final note about finishing your pipeline. When you add your spout you must make sure that the water is flowing down out of it! Water doesn’t naturally flow up.

The bathtub

In the description of the game I’ve spoken of taking cards from a draw pile and discarding them. What I’ve haven’t mentioned until now is the gimmick in this game of there being a lovely small bathtub shaped tray to hold the cards. You take cards from one half of the bathtub and then discard them into the drain. A lovely small touch that you don’t need to play the game, but fun all the same.

What we thought of Waterworks

Our family was a little bit split on Waterworks. My son absolutely loves the game and would play it at every possible opportunity. There is great scope in the game to really sabotage another player’s game if the cards play in your favour.

The thing that I disliked about Waterworks though is that you need an absolutely massive playing space for it! We’ve a pretty big dining table that we use to play board games on, but even with just three of us playing we often had to rearrange pipes so that we weren’t falling off the table. With each card playing card size they really can take up a lot of space, even in a two player game as you’re trying to make your pipeline contain at least 15 cards excluding the tap and spout.

A top down view of a tangled mess of cards showing two players pipelines in the game waterworks.

It is generally a fun game though, and not too difficult for older kids to pick up. The bathtub is cute and I like the retro tie in with Monopoly too. It will definitely stay in our game collection, but I can’t promise it will get played too often – unless we buy a much bigger table!

Waterworks – the facts

The game contains 110 pipe cards, 1 bathtub and 10 metal wrenches. It was originally published by Parker Brothers in 1972. A modern version of it was released by Winning Moves and is still available online now, but without the wonderful bathtub!

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