25 Board Games That We All Played in the 1970s

UltimateClassicRock ^

[nickcarraway]

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).

'70s Board Games Came to Life With Sounds and Moving Parts

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.

THE GAME OF LIFE

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!

RISK

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.

25 Board Games That We All Played in the '70s

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.

BATTLESHIP

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.

SORRY!

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

CLUE

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.

CANDY LAND

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.

MOUSE TRAP

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

OPERATION

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.

MONOPOLY

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

HUNGRY HUNGRY HIPPOS

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.

Mr. Mouth

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.

KER PLUNK

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.

TROUBLE

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.

THE GAME OF LIFE

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.

CONNECT FOUR

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

RISK

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

PERFECTION

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.

TWISTER

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.

CHUTES AND LADDERS

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.

HANDS DOWN

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

MASTER MIND

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

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

MASTERPIECE

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.

CAREERS

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.

BONKERS

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!

PROBE

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.

Kodak Flash Cubes

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.

Car Cigarette Lighter

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.

View-Master Reels

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.

45 RPM Record Adapter

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.

Metal Adjustable Roller Skates With Key

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.

Nut Cracker and Nut Pick Set

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.

Drive-In Theater Speaker

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.

Corded TV Remote

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.

5 Line Chalk Holder

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.

8-Track Tapes

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.

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TOPICS: Chit/Chat; Hobbies; Society
KEYWORDS: 70s; boardgames; games; recreation

[linMcHlp]

Golf
Regatta

[FLNittany]

I had a lot of these. Masterpiece was a cool game.

[sphinx]

I grew up with board wargames and played fron early Avalon Hill through the SPI/GDW monster game era. Board wargames have their limitations — players have far too much information, no fog of war, sequential as opposed to simultaneous movement — but we did learn a lot about the maps and orders of battle. We also learned a lot about times of arrival and questions of distance and mass.

During my time, the leading designers were focused on accuracy, which meant that the games became unplayable. And no gamer ever wanted to deal with logistics, but that is kinda, sorta important so the designers kept going deeper into the weeds.

All in all, they were a great corrective to the tendency of narrative history to focus too narrowly on the battle piece.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

One game not on the list...Inside Moves. A greater strategy game combining Chess and Checkers. We still play it. I think in the 70s it was called Camelot's Court.

[dfwgator]

Stratego.

[mmichaels1970]

I played Pit! A couple weeks ago. Still holds up and can make even the shyest person scream.

[MotorCityBuck]

Diplomacy.
Another great one!

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

Avalon Hill...Rail Baron! And Midway!

[shotgun]

I luv srkrable two bit nivir wen

[MotorCityBuck]

👍

[Dr. Sivana]

First, how can you include "Probe", but not "Scrabble"? I played almost all of those games, though older versions of Clue, Life, Risk, and Careers. Mastermind is a worthy inculsion. It was HUGE for a couple of years. I know about Perfection, Hungry Hungry Hippos, and Mr. Mouth, but only from commercials. Mille Bornes should have a place on the list. My sister bought Masterpiece and Mouse Trap with her own money.

We were a board game playing family. I wore out several Monopoly sets. Baltic and Mediterranean are Dark Purple, NOT Brown. Risk needs WOODEN armies.

Something that is outside of the scope of this list but should be mentioned is that SOME of us actually bought and played the home version of TV game shows. I personally had Concentration, Jeopardy, Eye Guess, Pay Cards.

We also played a game that my wife insists I made up called Feely-Meely. No one outside my family remembers it.

[Wuli]

Yes, we played Battleship

Risk

and

Monopoly (with modifications for 4 additional revenue streams (one for each player, awarded by role of the dice) - the banker (able to make agreed on fixed interest loans (each time around the board) to buy properties or build on properties (loans could be paid off anytime), the construction/developer (fixed building fees - sale of houses and hotels), the utility board commission (fixed levies on utility properties as % of charges collected), and the railroad board commission (same revenue method as the utilities. The mods were invented by a lawyer friend of ours.

[FLNittany]

All the Skittle games - Skittle Bowl, Skittle Pool, Skittle Poker, etc. were great. Don Adams was the spokesman.

[Dr. Sivana]

Man I loved Strat O Matic.

We were cheap, so we played "Sherco II". Newsprint instead of cards.

[MotorCityBuck]

Midway 👍
@ 6 months ago I purchased an unopened War and Peace from eBay.

I’ll have time during the winter to catch up on that one.

[Dr. Sivana]

It’s missing “Pay Day.”

Pay Day was okay, and VERY 1970s. Too many games, I guess. Trouble's popular sibling "Headache" is also missing. Some of us played Old School Parcheesi which inspired many of these games.

[BradyLS]

PIT was a great stock-trading game with a closing bell to add to the fun.

[Dr. Sivana]

All the Skittle games - Skittle Bowl, Skittle Pool, Skittle Poker, etc. were great.

We had Skittle Bowl. It played well, and didn't take up too much room.

[mmichaels1970]

Lol. Never heard of Sherco. I guess I was sheltered. The first card I remember from Strat, to this day, is Larvell Blanks 1976 Cleveland Indians. Him and Charlie Spikes.

[wally_bert]

Arnold Rimmer on RISK.

https://youtu.be/8qPSUr3AyzI?si=0hgmCXr-IanHO4-I