The Player Returning to Earth First Ends the Game
Gold Discovered on Mystery Planet in Outer Space! Expedition Under Way Must Guard Against Space Bandits!
This is the first in a series of spotlights on Parker Brothers Games, specifically the ones that have gorgeous game boards. It's Parker Brothers Space Game from 1953.
Click the gameboard photo to supersize the image. There's a lot to like here.
- The delicate orange and green color scheme is spectacular, especially today, when we feel constrained to make space either black or blue. No satellite photos = green space, yellow stars.
- The smiling Conditioning Chamber: people enter in gray post-war garb and emerge in Chris Ware space suits belching orange flame.
- The rocket-ship design on the box cover looks like it was stolen from Ward Kimball's top drawer.
- The Disney dark ride serpentine gametrack.
- The Nicholas Tesla fever dream bad guys with big magnets in the upper right corner.
- There are rumors that Black Bandits are 
hovering in outer space - it is well to avoid these dangerous people, if possible, because they demand booty if they contact a Space Man.
- Black dots = Danger spots.
- Parker Brothers: At The Cutting Edge Of Science. Two wormholes, here called Short Cuts.
- And the classic Parker Brothers logo.
Labels: gameboard, Parker Brothers
posted by Don at
7:17 PM
1 Comments:
Hi,
I collect Australian and New Zealand space toys and games and this article has helped me identify the likely origin of a game mentioned in a local newspaper in August 1955.
The Australian Govt in the fifties restricted imports to preserve foreign currency reserves. So a lot of games and toys were licensed from overseas and then made here and this may be one of them. It fits the description in the newspaper very well - about the only difference is the spinner is supposedly in the middle of the board.
I've also recently bought a small plastic rocket game piece that is a dead ringer for the ones shown in your article.
So thank you for posting the info and the pictures as they'll help me identify the game when I see it.
By
Steven Baker, At
November 23, 2009 at 12:01 AM
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home