70s/80s board games

[EdenGlen]

Hi,

Any recommendations for vintage board games?

My dad introduced the kids to Careers which he used to play as a child and they love it. We also have an original Game of Life and that gets played every weekend.

We have tried newer games like Ticket to Ride but they aren’t that keen.

Does anyone know of any old games similar to Careers/Game of Life where you move around a board? It would be nice to find something on eBay I could get for Christmas.

Thanks!

This was probably my favourite from that era...Mastermind. We had one called Haunted Mansion which would come out for a few rounds at Halloween.

We are twins, separated at birth. And you are completely right.

MOVE ONE TRAIN SIGNAL. Which always allowed for endless arguments about whether you could move a train signal back onto the same position. By moving it across the board and then into the same position.

And the pleasure of 'Go back to London' when you had got rid of all your cards and everyone was ganging up against you.

The joy when your 3 blue cards turned out to be the easy blue cards. The way you gave up.on.life a little when you got Stornaway.

I was a million miles ahead of my contemporaries in English Literature in secondary school because I had heard of the Bronte sisters.

Keighley.

This is a great game!

Scoop! and careers have given me a proper rush of nostalgia - loved both of those as a child. I think we had Buccaneer or a similar game as I remember being dazzled by the ‘treasure’!

Other 80s games we loved included Blockade (strategy game building walls to block your opponent) and Wildlife Adventure (travel over a world map to save endangered animals).

As a family we have enjoyed Cluedo, Monopoly, Labryinth (and Ticket to Ride)

As I child I loved Tell Me

We used to love 'Smuggle' - it's a bluffing game where you have to try to get expensive items through customs without paying duty on them - it's for three or more players.

I bet they don't make it any more because the items included tobacco and alcohol 😃

I LOVED Careers and no one else ever seemed to have had it when I was young, or have heard of it now. Feeling very nostalgic!

Not one where you race around a board, but Smuggle is an old family favourite. My 8 year old now plays it too

Really should read the thread! Agreed, ethics of kids playing games involving alcohol and cigars is slightly mad! Made for some interesting conversations with DS!

Go for broke opposite of monopoly.

We used to do Monopoly with a time limit.

Normally we'd set the time limit at around 1-1.5 hours. At that point we'd assess. If there was a clear winner at that point we'd stop. If there wasn't, we'd either decide to give another half an hour to an hour or we'd total up out assets and see who'd won that way.

The dc loved it.

We loved Totopoly and Go For Broke!

My all-time favourite was Mine A Million, and my second favourite was Buccaneer.

I also still have a beautiful game from 1984 called “The Garden Game” - the game-play is crazy (you can be moments from winning when a bad roll will lead to a freak weather event that sets you right back to the start). But it is so beautiful, I used to just sit and look at the cards.

@nicelongbath yea I loved Buccaneer! Deciding whether to collect rubies or pears or gold bars… fabulous.

Not moving round a board (and more 1953 than 60s 70s) but have a look at Flips by Spears Game. I just bought one of those.

Well, there are worse things to smuggle in 2025 - it all seems quite innocent now. We had an 80s edition but my mum still had her old set from the 1940s!

I thought that sounded familiar - we used to have a version of that called contraband. I never really understood what diplomatic bag was but it was very important as I recall!

Two from the 80s…. Mysteries of Old Peking and The Lost Valley of the Dinosaurs. Ahhh just googled them and feel all nostalgic!

Knightmare

Looking at all these, board games were much better back then!

Now a lot of them seem to be bad versions of tv series or complicated strategy games which we don’t have the patience for.

So far, Go For Broke, Totopoly, Great Game of Britain and Rat Race sound like they would go down best here.

Agree. We bought an harry potter cluedo game from a charity shop. It was awful, added complications that added nothing. We played it once and sent it back.

My mum's 1940s version was called Contraband - it was exactly the same game, just Smuggle had updated illustrations.

Simon
https://www.google.com/search?client=ms-android-google&sca_esv=06ea9662b9b1f398&sxsrf=AE3TifP8txkEZslO3HySHbgCfgqcH5Ee5Q:1761772299627&udm=28&fbs=AIIjpHy-RSR864DhUKjzNUCRuMvmSUm6VcfdQG-fX5Sa1ozMNsso5uWkPOMt3T9WcBImPVZcEGiKoP_LudNw8bV8DRQx7C29Wh1Z7PVRF9gEUzeW_3UephiCEjoH3Q-38tCEyaR3Yz4bfp9vCib2-i9lbCdwJUmdH52-VjmJgtGjJKxZ7tZgDvDm0Y5utVdajDdtyCl7jcpr3RfLc7yx1-3-pCsnRJeHeaV0W8OaR4qIOp0S5Gl6-9cPbCYOMRCRkZKjDu8-AfCs&q=simon+electronic+game&ved=1t:220175&ictx=111&biw=411&bih=760&dpr=2.63

I second the suggestions of Escape From Atlantis and Mysteries of Old Peking - still have my original games!

Also, Bewitched was very simple but good fun.

Mike Reid's pop quiz
Mousetrap.