Parker Archives - Penny Plays

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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MAD Magazine may not be quite as familiar to those of us here in the UK as it is in America, but it is probably best known to British readers from the numerous references to it in The Simpsons over the years. The magazine was first published in 1952 (albeit in comic form) and provided readers with a humorous look at life. At its peak in the 70s circulation was over 2 million for each edition and it became a highly influential magazine, with numerous mentions across all different forms of media. It’s no surprise therefore that The MAD Magazine Game came to be created in 1979.

There were many “in jokes” for readers of MAD Magazine. Several involved Alfred E. Neuman, MAD’s frequent cover star and mascot, and it’s therefore no surprise that he frequently appears on the board game version too.

Lose all your money

The aim of The MAD Magazine Game is incredibly simple – to be the first player to lose all your money – all players having started with $10,000. Although that’s obviously not as simple as it sounds.

How to play the MAD Magazine Game

There are a few slightly unusual rules when it comes to the game. Firstly, you go around the board anti-clockwise and players should always roll the dice with their left hand. The latter not a rule we managed when we played the game!

The main track of the board goes round the outside edge and players roll two dice to move around. There are also two smaller internal tracks (reminding me a bit of the board in Careers) which players enter when they land on one of the three double arrow squares. For these smaller tracks players just roll a single die.

The game has moments that feel very much like Monopoly, with players sometimes being sent to the Tough Luck square where they have to collect any money tucked under it. Much as some people do with the Free Parking square in Monopoly. There’s also the chance to be sent to “Anywhere” which is somewhat akin to being sent to jail.

As you play, instructions on the squares are relatively straight-forward, but as it says in the rules, if there’s anything that you don’t understand then players should simply take a majority agreement on how to interpret the rules and get on with play.

Some squares tell players to take a Card Card which can be found in a pile on the table. Instructions on these are likes those found on some squares; comical, sometimes unexpected and meaning you can either lose money (good) or win money (bad!)

Everybody swap seats!

The bit that gets a bit more interesting is when players get the instruction to either move seats (leaving their money behind for whoever takes their seat next) or just swap money with another player. You could be down to your last $500, but then with just one card you’re suddenly lumbered with another player’s huge pile of money and another player takes advantage of your losses.

What we thought of The MAD Magazine Game

We first played the MAD Magazine Game as one of our lockdown online board games and before we started we were slightly hesitant as we weren’t sure whether or not the remote players would be bored without much to do. This couldn’t have been further from the truth though, and in actual fact this was one of the funniest games we played so far.

Watching one player have to cross his legs, sit on his hands and do his best chicken impression to lay and egg and lose money was particularly memorable. As was the moment when one of the remote players had got up to make a cup of tea whilst he was missing a turn, only for me to land on a square which said that if another player was stood up at the time I would lose $2000 instead of just losing $1000 if all the other players were seated. We certainly laughed more than we have in other games.

The first game we played was incredibly quick – only lasting about ten minutes. We felt like we hadn’t really warmed up properly so promptly set off on a second trip around the board. I’m glad we did as otherwise the chicken incident may never have happened!

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For more vintage board games and toys here on Penny Plays take a look here.