What’s the one thing you can find stacks of at every garage sale, and that everyone has a closet full of already? Board games. They’re a great way for kids to entertain themselves for hours, or a way to pass a rainy afternoon, which is why you probably had a ton as a kid.
Many of those nostalgic board games from your childhood have survived for decades and are still being manufacturered. Here are some of the vintage games that kids still love to play with today.
1. Monopoly
Created in 1935, Monopoly is still one of the best known board games around. It’s so popular that you can get it in about a million different themes, from Disney characters to your favorite university or state. It’s based on an older version called The Landlord’s Game, and, well, there’s debate over the economic lessons this game teaches kids.
2. Twister
Twister has been making kids contort themselves into all kinds of shapes at parties since 1966. Adults certainly love to play it, too, whether its kept PG or turned into something a little more, shall we say, raunchy.
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3. Chutes and Ladders
Chutes and Ladders is based on snakes a ladders, an Indian game that dates back approximately 2,000 years. In 1943, Milton Bradley took the popular game and turned it into the simple board game that kids still love playing today.
Related: Can You Guess These Famous Board Games by Their Pieces?
4. Battleship
Though it originally started out as a pencil-and-paper game, Milton Bradley turned Battleship into something that could be enjoyed over and over again. Some sibling rivalries were probably created by this strategy game, especially when the older brother thought he could outsmart the younger.
5. Candy Land
Candy Land was created in 1948 by retired teacher Eleanor Abbott. She had contracted polio, and while she was recovering in the hospital, she made the game for the polio-stricken children around her to play. It was so popular among them that she pitched it to Milton Bradley, and the rest is history.
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6. Trouble
Trouble debuted in 1965, and it has always had the little popping plastic bubble for the dice. Parents love it because unless you break it, kids can’t lose the dice; Kids love it because of the satisfying popping sound and movement.
7. Operation
That telltale, horrifying “BZZZT!” when you screw up in Operation will live in our heads forever. It may seem like a more modern game, but it was actually created in 1965. The game’s concept is still weirdly mortifying.
8. The Game of Life
Someone’s journey through life is something we all can relate to. But 1960’s The Game of Life is less about choices and more about a roll of the dice — or spin of the wheel, in this case. For some reason, everyone wanted twins, just so they could put those little blue and pink pegs into the blocky little game pieces.
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9. Concentration
Concentration is a simple memory game that’s been around in one form or another for a long time. But the board game is based off the long-running NBC game show “Concentration,” which ran from 1958 to 1973.
10. Yahtzee
Dice games have existed for thousands of years, but in 1956, Edwin Lowe released Yahtzee, and it’s remained popular ever since. Up to 10 people can play the simple game, and it can be played at a breakneck speed, which makes it great for parties.
11. Risk
Risk is a military strategy game, and it’s pretty complicated. That hasn’t stopped anyone from playing it since it was released in 1957, though. Players can release their inner conquerors to try and capture their enemies, a.k.a. grandpa.
12. Clue
“In the conservatory, with the candlestick” seems like a weird phrase, but everyone knows it refers to Clue, the ubiquitous mystery board game. It was created in the 1940s based on murder mystery parties and released as Cluedo in the U.K. and Clue by Parker Brothers in the U.S.
13. Sorry!
Sorry! is based on an ancient Indian game called Pachisi. It was first sold in the U.K. in the 1920s, and then the U.S. in 1934 when it was marketed as the most fashionable game in England.
