25 Board Games That We All Played in the 1970s

Long before "screen time" and connecting via social media, rainy Saturdays in the 1970s revolved around the thrill of Trouble's Pop-O-Matic bubble, the sound of plastic chips falling from the Connect Four grid or maybe, if you were lucky to survive, the nerve-shredding buzz from a misguided funny bone removal during Operation (there was nothing funny about it).

These classic board games didn't just help you pass the time; they taught you life skills, whether you liked it or not.

The Game of Life even forced you to consider the benefits of a mortgage and oncoming midlife crises, all at the tender age of seven.

Monopoly, already around to stress out multiple generations of kids and adults alike, delivered a crash course in capitalism, which often ended in a table full of game pieces crashing to the floor during a full-on family feud about possible real estate sale fraud. Fun!

One thing is for sure: these 1970s board games took you to other places and times. Risk let you conquer continents without leaving the safety of your shag carpet. Clue let you solve a grisly murder while sipping a Tab in your basement. And Perfection? That one left you with lingering anxiety.

From well-known favorites like Clue to cult classics like Masterpiece, these 1970s board games bring a wave of nostalgia for a time when life felt simpler — and maybe even a little more exciting.

Launching a thousand dining room table wars, Battleship allowed you to sink your grandma's fleet and feel proud about it. Electronic Battleship changed the game in 1977 with its various explosion sounds that were totally awesome.

Sarcasm was born when you yelled "Sorry!" and you 100% were not sorry. Family therapy ensued.

You didn't even stop to think back then how kind of violent this whole concept was. But there you were, pew-pew-pewing a little metal gun at your brother. The '70s version had the classic posed photo of the characters in the game, and that became etched in your brain.

The box said "a child's first game," but the vibrant candy colors of the board quickly went dark when you realized it was a game of survival with gumdrops thrown in as a distraction. If you tried to eat the sweet-looking game pieces, you weren't alone.

Nobody actually finished this game. Adults who played with this as a child had a very hard time assembling IKEA furniture.

One would think that the whole point of this game was to fine-tune a child's fine motor skills, but all it did was make them fear loud buzzers. We are still waiting for the "Operation" movie.

Nothing bonded a family faster than bankrupting Grandpa and making him beg for mercy.

This game was total chaos once those delicious marbles were released into the hippo pen. There was no strategy other than pulling that little plastic gear as fast as you could until the game broke.

Yet another installment in the "spring chips into something" game theme. In the 1970s, Mr. Mouth was this delightfully muppet‑ish/McDonaldland-ish yellow dome. By the late '80s and into the '90s, it was morphed into a frog, and frankly, wasn't as neat.

This game looked oddly like that mysterious glass thing in your older cousin's room. It was pick-up sticks’ chaotic sibling — and yet another reason to be wary of marbles.

Nothing was louder than that pop-o-matic bubble when you took a fresh turn. It would wake the whole house up. Fireworks or TROUBLE? Nobody knew. That was pretty much the best part of TROUBLE.

You were 8 years old and choosing marriage, mortgages, and careers. Because why not? This was Monopoly-light with a bit of heart added in as you accumulated children in the back of the station wagon. Those children would later be swallowed by the dog (the little pieces, not actual children). Spinning the wheel felt like Wheel of Fortune or The Price Is Right.

Tic-Tac-Toe’s glow-up with an element of danger. That satisfying clatter when you clear the grid = chef’s kiss.

Why do homework when you could be conquering the world? This was fun geography! Who are we kidding? Nobody understood this game.

Perfection felt like those scenes in James Bond movies when he was trying to diffuse a bomb, except this was on your dining room table, and you were seven and didn't like this chaos one bit.

Dad liked to tell people he hurt his back playing football in college, but he really slipped on a wet Twister mat during Grandma and Grandpa's anniversary party.

Did you know that Milton Bradley changed the name from Snakes and Ladders to Chutes and Ladders because they thought kids were afraid of snakes? This is the most exciting part of this game.

The goal was to slap your card first. The result was Mom telling you all to stop sounding like a herd of elephants.

This was a game all about code breaking, but all you really wanted to know was what was up with the man and woman on the box. What was their story? Where is that movie?

Stratego was chess for kids who didn't have the patience for chess and liked explosions. So, most kids.

Art, to you, meant drawing half a sun in the corner and some M-shaped birds — but here you were, auctioning priceless masterpieces and maybe even slipping in a forgery. This was one classy game.

Like a more down-to-earth version of The Game of Life, Careers let you choose your own path to success. Would you become a rock star? A Nobel Prize winner? It all depended on your ambition and a little luck. BOGGLE BOGGLE thisstuffisthebomb via Etsy

BOGGLE You were either a Boggle champ or a total disaster — there was no in-between. Also, somehow, it was the loudest game on the shelf.

This fast-paced game fully embraced its tagline — "never the same game twice" — since you built the board as you played. But let’s be honest, the best part was those groovy graphics!

This game took Hangman up a notch — part vocabulary test, part mind game, and it totally made you feel like a contestant on one of those celebrity game shows hosted by Bert Convy.

Disposable camera flashbulbs? You bet. These tiny, let's be real, explosives gave your photo subject seriously creepy red eye and pretty much temporarily blinded them. Spinning automatically after each photo was taken, the "snapping" sound became synonymous with '70s photography.

Nowadays, the idea of having to manually roll up a car window seems like a relic from a bygone era, let alone considering a cigarette lighter as the pinnacle of convenience in vehicles. And if that doesn't boggle your mind enough, think about this: it wasn't uncommon for kids to be left alone in the car for long stretches of time. And what did they do with that freedom? Well, sometimes they'd get a little too creative—like accidentally melting GI Joe's foot moments after Mom stepped out to grab some pork chops from the butcher.

You can still find them today, albeit as nostalgic classics on the shelves of Target: View-Masters, the go-to entertainment in '70s households with just one TV. Today kids might hang out with their own tablet, but we huddled in our dimly lit bedrooms, flipping through the same stills from Disney cartoons on our View-Masters, over and over again, with only the desk lamp for company. And we loved it.

Can you believe it? Back in the day, 45 RPM records were all the rage—just one small disc with a single song on each side. But to play them properly, you'd need one of these inserts to prevent the record from sounding all wonky, especially since you had to crank up the speed. Naturally, these inserts had a knack for disappearing, often ending up in the depths of your Barrel of Monkeys barrel.

If you were going to patrol your dead-end street with your pals, it was best done on roller skates, and not the fancy shoe or even boot kind like Olivia Newton-John wore in Xanadu, we're talking the heavy metal contraptions that attached to your sneakers. They required a skate key to keep them nice and tight—and a tin of band-aids because you got roughed up pretty bad.

Tucked away in pristine packaging, untouched for eons, were those nut pick and cracker sets, gathering dust until the rare occasion when company came knocking. Sure, they were meant for cracking open walnuts with precision, but in reality, they were more like relics from a bygone era.

Nobody dared to use those sharp dental tools as intended—oh no. But leave it to your maniac cousin to grab one and carve his name into the picnic table instead.

Back in the day, before you could tune in to a tinny radio station on your car's stereo at the drive-in, your only option to catch the actual movie audio was to park close enough to one of those metal speakers you'd hang on your car window. But let's be real, you were more interested in chowing down on snack shop treats and having a blast on the swings than worrying about the sound quality.

So, picture this: back in the day, before fancy-schmancy remotes ruled the living room, there was the OG remote—your little brother. But then came this bad boy, the real deal. And let me tell you, it was anything but "remote." Nope, this sucker needed to be plugged into the wall and the TV set, with a cord practically begging to be tripped over at least twice a day by every member of the family.

Sure, these handy chalkboard tools weren't exclusive to the '70s, but they sure made life easier for teachers trying to draw straight lines on those rough Monday mornings. And if you were a band geek, well, seeing these meant one thing: music theory time. Before you knew it, you'd be Do-Re-Mi-ing your way through class in no time.

Ah, the 8-track tape—a bulkier, older sibling to the beloved cassette tape. Its claim to fame? The ability to play in a continuous loop without needing to be ejected. But here's the kicker: I distinctly remember our 8-track player being exclusively in the car, which meant if we wanted to jam out to those albums that we only had on 8-track, we had to cozy up in the Honda Civic.

Can you imagine? In the good ol' days, you'd hand over your credit card to the clerk, who would then use this strange contraption to make an imprint of it. The sound? Well, let's just say it was unforgettable, kind of like a guillotine dropping. Probably similar to how your parents felt every time you needed new school supplies.

What about the game Simon, where you have to remember different colors that light up. I never had it, but I remember it.

What are the on-line websites to play these days?

I play 2 - webdiplomacy.net, and playdiplomacy.com

It is so convenient not having to find 7 players for a 7-8 hour game!

102 posted on 07/07/2025 4:39:11 PM PDT by FatherofFive (we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor)

Strat-O-Matic is still going strong and the company is still in business. It has an almost cult-like following with a number of Facebook groups.

103 posted on 07/07/2025 4:43:22 PM PDT by Vigilanteman (The politicized state destroys aspects of civil society, human kindness and private charity.)

I hate Monopoly. My brother and I are still playing a game from 1980.

I never met Larvell or Sid, only that one. He also coached the Del Rio High School baseball team.

105 posted on 07/07/2025 4:49:38 PM PDT by Mark17 (Retired USAF air traffic controller. Father of USAF ISR pilot. Both bitten by the aviation bug)

I liked Masterpiece. I still have it along with remnants of other games such as

What about Pig Mania? Using pigs as dice and getting the rare “Makin Bacon” roll.

For many years, I was a subscriber to Strategy and Tactics magazine and had just about every war game that I could get. Lack of time and of opposing players eventually filled off that pastime for me.

Stratego: Capture the enemy’s flag and win, lol. I like collecting View Masters as they made all sorts of lovely colour images of places back in the 1950s and 60s.

110 posted on 07/07/2025 5:33:32 PM PDT by OttawaFreeper ("The Gardens was founded by men-sportsmen-who fought for their country" Conn Smythe, 1966 )

Warhammer40k was what my kids played. Expensive but cool backstory.

In our house, we had Life, Battleship, Monopoly (my brother was the biggest a$$hole at Monopoly and I always finished the game by throwing the board across the room), Sorry!, Clue, Chinese Checkers, Chess/Checkers, Backgammon, Cribbage, Scrabble, Uno, and Mastermind. Funny story about my dad taking the dog out one day when we were at my grandparents' farm and the dog pooped multicolored Mastermind pegs. 🤣

A neighbor had Operation and a Ouija board and we used to scare the crap out of each other with both of those.

Oh, that was my classic Monopoly move! Either hand chop to the center of the board, or flip it to the ceiling from one of the corners. Yes, I was the baby of the family.

We still play Scrabble...and my son still always beats me.

Did he use “KWYJIBO”?

Stratego
Battleship
Monopoly

Twister was for spin the bottle ages

9-12

Get that warm fuzzy feeling going

Spent numberless hours pouring over this one. I still have it on the shelf.

120 posted on 07/07/2025 6:07:28 PM PDT by Skooz (Gabba Gabba accept you we accept you one of us Gabba Gabba we accept you we accept you one of us )

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