Top Board Games from the 60s for the Baby Boomer Generation
People of all ages love board games. As a baby boomer, board games challenge your brain and help you stay sharp in your golden years. Researchers have proven that an hour of board games can increase your attention span significantly. They also help prevent cognitive impairment in older adults. However, choosing a suitable board game can be a challenge.
Baby Boomer-themed trivia board games are a great way to keep the elderly entertained along with their friends, children, and grandchildren. Along with this, it also has a major health benefit. It helps reduce stress, and depression and also decreases the chances of memory loss.
Are you planning a get-together for your elderly friends and would like to give the nostalgia of the 60s? We’ve compiled a list of the most amazing board games from the 60s.
Top Board games from the 60s
Dynamo Chess
A little different from the normal chess game, Dynamo chess was a 60s sensation. This variant was created by the chess problem solvers Hans Klüver and Peter Kahl created in 1968. Dynamo chess was inspired by the then popular Push Chess, a nearly comparable variant created in 1967 by Fred Galvin. Dynamo chess uses the same pieces, board, and beginning position as orthodox chess, but instead of captures, the opponent’s pieces are “pushed” or “pulled” off the board. Any given move can be either a conventional move like in traditional chess (without capture) or a “push move” or “pull move,” depending on the situation. “Dynamo moves” are actions that may either push or pull the player.
Monopoly
Monopoly is another fun game from the 60s. It is a multiplayer board game with a commercial theme involving about two to six players. Players travel around the game board by rolling two dice to buy, trade, and develop properties with homes and hotels. In order to bankrupt their rivals, players collect rent from them. Tax squares, Chance cards, and Community Chest cards are additional ways to win or lose money. Players essentially have to trade to earn points in the game. Every time they pass “Go,” players are given a stipend. They can also get locked up and cannot leave until one of three requirements has been satisfied. There are house rules, several spin-offs, hundreds of editions, and connected media. With local licensing in more than 103 countries and printing in more than 37 languages, Monopoly has assimilated into global popular culture. It has been around for decades and will still be played by many generations.
Park and Shop
Park and Shop are perhaps the most intriguing of all the sixties board games. What started as a marketing plan for Allentown, Pennsylvania, developed into a popular board game across the nation.
Park and Shop is a board game that nicely captures the lovely mundanity of the sixties. The title of the game, which is simply Park and Shop, says it all. Players had to compete to secure a parking place as a “motorist” before switching to a “pedestrian” and making their way from store to store in an effort to finish all of their tasks before anybody else. Of course, until you returned to your car and made the trip home, you weren’t the winner. And be careful! Interestingly you might wind yourself in jail as a result.
Park and Shop is a far less ambitious game than Monopoly, and Life or Risk, yet it gained popularity in the 1960s. Sadly, the practice of doing chores for enjoyment was abandoned in the 1970s, since it seemed to have lost its appeal.
The beginning of the game is far more intriguing than the idea and title may imply. In essence, it was designed as a PR stunt.
In order to reinvigorate its downtown area after the war, the city of Allentown, Pennsylvania, adopted the “Park & Shop” idea. Ample parking, including the demolition of old buildings to make room for new spaces, together with establishments that validated parking so consumers could do so for nothing, encouraged shopping as a hobby rather than merely a required excursion.
Feeley Meeley
The Feeley Meeley party game was released in 1967 by Milton Bradley and designed by the then-renowned game maker Emanuel Winston. It required players to use their tactile senses to locate objects that were concealed before their opponents.
The Feeley Meeley game box came with 24 tiny plastic playing pieces, 24 picture cards that corresponded to each of the plastic objects, and a grab box. A small monkey, crocodile, hairbrush, red and black checks, an elephant, a serving platter, a horse, a donkey, a fork, a spoon, a comb, a lamb, a rhinoceros, teeth, a calf, a dog, a shopping card, a buffalo, a tiger, a frog, a goat, a pig, and a hand mirror were among the items.
The objective of the game was to have the most things in possession at the game’s conclusion. The game was played by kids and adults alike. Age requirements were ages eight and above, and was played among two to four players. Players can also team up to play. The game items are placed inside the grab box (a cardboard box with a hole on each of its four sides) before shaking the box to disperse them at random. Players are required to feel the objects through the hole and guess what they were holding. The game cards are placed facing down on top of the box after being shuffled.
Milton Bradley’s Feeley Meeley was a very popular board game in the 60s.
Bucket of fun
Bucket of Fun is another sixties innovation by Milton Bradley. It is essentially a “magic bucket” that pops out a shower of balls and players scramble to retrieve them.
The Basket of Fun is a plastic bucket about 8 inches high and 8 inches in diameter with a spring-loaded platform that is filled with several plastic-colored balls. A knob on the bucket is turned, releasing a timer which, after some time, will activate the game and launch the balls.
In due time, the plastic balls are launched in all directions. Players scramble to pick the balls, attempting to be the first to retrieve all balls of their chosen color. The balls are retrieved one at a time and placed in their correspondingly colored plastic container tube. Whoever fills his tube first wins the game. Basket of Fun can be a great source of family fun.
However, the Basket of Fun Game can be very hectic.
Bee Bop
Among the many board games and tabletop games of the sixties, Bee Bop was quite popular. The Bee Bop board came with a spinner, a round plastic frame, and several bee-shaped playing pieces.
One of the players bops the Bee Bop and the spinner starts rolling. When the spinner points to a player, the other players try to catch the chosen player’s bee to win chips. To win chips, opponents try to trap the bee before it is bopped or catch the bee in their net after it is bopped. At the start of the game, every player gets ten chips each. To win in the Bee Bop game, players aim to increase their initial reserve of ten chips to twenty by catching or trapping their opponent’s bees with their net. The first to do so is the winner.
The Bee Bop game comes in a large colorful box with four nets, four bees, four bopping devices, a spinner, and a supply of chips.
Green Ghost
Originally released by Transogram in 1965, Green Ghost is a board game designed for up to 4 players. It was the first board game made specifically for playing in the dark. The game was mass-produced by Transogram in 1965, and in 1970 it was sold to Marx Toys and distributed by the Ideal Toy Company in Australia.
The board is of the 3D type, it has a standing scenery and was designed to look like a creepy village. It features three boxes with lockable trap doors positioned below the bright plastic board, which is raised on six stilts. The pits have a variety of concealed “ghost kids,” including “Kelly,” the Green Ghost Kid, as well as plastic bones, “bat” feathers, and rubber snakes.
Players moved their pieces via any one of the four ways by spinning the huge Green Ghost: vulture, rat, cat, or bat. They also employ trap door keys in order to acquire ghost kids and improve their chances of winning. After being freed from the traps, all twelve ghost children are put in the corresponding holes on the Green Ghost spinner (players need to remember which ghost kids are found). The large Green Ghost then spins once more, pointing to the Kelly-designated little ghost. The game is won by the one who finds the person referred to.
Boom Again
Boom Again is a pop culture quiz game that transports players back in time to the Baby Boomer memories of poodle skirts, micro skirts, The Twist, disco, I Love Lucy, Saturday Night Live, and protest marches.
To play the Baby Boom game, players form two teams, place a token in each of the game board’s central areas and choose any category they like.
The opposing team reads out a question while the first team makes attempts to guess correctly. Once a team gets a quiz right, it “tugs” the category token toward its side of the board.
The identical token may be “tugged” back one space toward the other team if they select the same category and get the question right. Tokens are pulled back and forth and the team that gets the most questions in a row wins the game.
Conclusion
There are specialized board games designed to enhance memory formation and give a calming sensation, especially for baby boomers. Many games also require hand agility and coordination, which are very important when it comes to aging seniors.
Playing board games with others or by yourself may be enjoyable. In particular, older individuals are always looking for friends and entertainment. People may connect via games and have a good time.
When purchasing board games for baby boomers, it is important to consider a few things. You may select the appropriate trivia board games for them with the aid of our guide.