"You Sank My Battleship!" (Favorite Childhood Toys and Games.)

[seoulsearch]

Hey everyone,

What games and toys did you enjoy when you were a kid... and maybe even still enjoy them today? Feel free to name anything from hopscotch to jumping rope to classic video, board, and card games or toys.

Although I was never artistic enough to be able to build things on my own, I used to like watching my siblings play with Tinker Toys, Lego, Lincoln Logs, and Transformers. One of my siblings has even kept some of the creations built in on childhood and has them displayed at home. I also have fond memories of playing Connect Four, Hungry Hungry Hippos, Hi Ho Cherry Oh, and on rainy days, my family would play Monopoly (defeating my Dad, who ALWAYS won, was one of my biggest childhood achievements. )

I've never been coordinated enough to play video games, but I did enjoy watching one of siblings who was especially good at games (and now, in fact, designs them for a living.) I spent many hours watching Spider Fighter, Pitfall (I got a kick of watching the player jump onto the alligator's heads without getting swallowed alive... and then collecting gold and silver bars), and Pac-Man. Once upon a time, I even played Lazer Tag... Back when the earth was still flat. Just kidding!

What about the rest of you? What were your favorite childhood past-times?

 

[thezachattack]

Connect 4. It was on if I showed up at your house and you had Connect 4.

 

[DanielTate]

At first it was sega when I was very little like 4 or 5, my older siblings would play it, mortal kombat, street fighter, alex the kid, streets of rage, later on came play station and nintendo. The most joy came from playing outside with all the kids in the neighborhood, tag, hide n go seek, marbles, trading cards, handball, toy soldiers.

 

[thezachattack]

I also probably spent most of my recesses from 4th-6th grade playing four square.

 

[Lynx]

Pit, the card game. So named because of the stock trading "pit." When I describe it you'll think it's a really dry game, but it's a lot of fun with a lot of yelling and excitement.

You have cards representing corn, oats, wheat, sugar, barley, rye, etc and each type has nine cards. You use as many types of cards as you have players, so if you have four players you would have corn, barley, rye and oats (for example.) The objective is to trade with other players to try to corner the market on something, i.e. get all nine barley cards. So you have a table full of people, all of them yelling how many cards they want to trade. If I'm yelling five and you're wanting to trade three, I may trade you three for three or I may hold out for someone to want to trade five.

And after someone corners the market everyone else wants to know "Who had my last two oats?" "Why did you hold on to three wheats?" "Ugh, how can I win when you keep hoarding the cards I'm trying to get? Do you have a telepathic link or something, you can read my mind and know what I'm going for?"

It's really fun if you have a guy who doesn't really know what he's doing. He'll probably be so scrambled that he won't realize some of the cards he's holding, so part of the strategy is to guess what is useless to try to collect because he'll never wake up and trade it out of his hand.

Game over: "Alright Harley, show us your hand. I know you had my last rye." "And my last two sugar, I bet you had them too."

 

[T_Laurich]

When I was in second grade, we would run around and pick up sticks and play harry potter....

That's also the same year I flashed two girls...

Man when I was a kid I was bad...

 

[thezachattack]

Does anyone remember Pogs?

 

[Liamson]

RECESS GAMES!!

Because Honestly Recess was the greatest thing ever.

We played a lot of a game called BUMP
How to Play "Bump": 4 Steps (with Pictures) - wikiHow

Also a game called 500
How to Play 500 with a Ball: 5 Steps (with Pictures) - wikiHow

And of course the game where even the unathletic kids have fun is KICKBALL
https://www.digipen.edu/fileadmin/website_data/gallery/game_websites/kickball/htm/rules.htm

2 hand touch football

Tether-ball, with rackets.

Ultimate Frisbee

Street Hockey. I still have floaters in my eye from catching a puck with my face.



Games I didn't like, were Freeze Tag, cause kids played favorites. Same with tag in general. Dodgeball wasn't fun cause the same kids were always out quick. We did some 4 square ball, but it was really boring, same with hopscotch.

 

[Tintin]

Marbles
Monopoly
Pictionary
Cluedo
Scattegories
Cat and Mouse
Mousetrap
Frisbee
The classic Commodore 64, Atari, Super Nintendo etc. games

 

[Reborn]

Sadly, we were so broke, my imaginary friend wouldn't even let me play with his imaginary toys.
I am being serious.

 

[Tintin]

How I could I forget thee, LEGO?! Forgive me!

 

[Hellooo]

Dominos, horse, double dutch jump roping.

 

[Reborn]

How I could I forget thee, LEGO?! Forgive me!

I was going to go with that one too.
Still couldn't afford them.
But they were fun.

 

[Test_F_i_2_Luv]

Hey everyone,

What games and toys did you enjoy when you were a kid... and maybe even still enjoy them today? Feel free to name anything from hopscotch to jumping rope to classic video, board, and card games or toys.

Although I was never artistic enough to be able to build things on my own, I used to like watching my siblings play with Tinker Toys, Lego, Lincoln Logs, and Transformers. One of my siblings has even kept some of the creations built in on childhood and has them displayed at home. I also have fond memories of playing Connect Four, Hungry Hungry Hippos, Hi Ho Cherry Oh, and on rainy days, my family would play Monopoly (defeating my Dad, who ALWAYS won, was one of my biggest childhood achievements. )

I had forgotten about Lincoln Logs. I found a picture that looks very similar to what I had. I thought the lid was blue, but I might be wrong. The actual bucket part was made of a hard cardboard.



I had Legos too.

I had quite a few Matchbox(and other types) of little die-cast cars.

I also had a game called Titanic(British version, below, had a different name...but same picture on the box). Think I bought it at a rummage sale or flee market.



My folks played Trivial Pursuit, but wouldn't let me join.

I've never been coordinated enough to play video games, but I did enjoy watching one of siblings who was especially good at games (and now, in fact, designs them for a living.) I spent many hours watching Spider Fighter, Pitfall (I got a kick of watching the player jump onto the alligator's heads without getting swallowed alive... and then collecting gold and silver bars), and Pac-Man. Once upon a time, I even played Lazer Tag... Back when the earth was still flat. Just kidding!

What about the rest of you? What were your favorite childhood past-times?

Atari...I remember Centipede & Pitfall. Lots of destroyed joysticks.

Then in the later 80's SkyShark & Lee Traveno Golf on Nintendo.

 

[Test_F_i_2_Luv]

How I could I forget thee, LEGO?! Forgive me!

:: Shaking Head ::

Dunno, man, you've really crossed the line this time!

 

[Grace-Like-Rain]

Many hours spent with this one:

 

[cinder]

Now you make me want to sing all the songs from the stupid commercials. Sometimes having a wonderful memory is not so wonderful. We had an Intellivision, it died but it was way more fun than most of the later video game systems were.

 

[seoulsearch]

How I could I forget thee, LEGO?! Forgive me!

I don't have any talent with Lego myself, but I LOVE seeing what others can do with them. I recently went to a local shopping center and the best part was seeing a huge "town" with several different squares and themes (including about 3 running trains) by the local Lego club. It. Was. Awesome. ("Everything Is Awesome!!!") My favorites are the Lego people and little details, like miniature beakers in the mad scientist labs, teepees with "stitching", windows that really open, etc.

I have a good friend whose son and and husband collect Star Wars Lego as a hobby. I was blown away when they showed me their Death Star, complete with elevator, "conference room" with moving chairs, and even the rope and ledges onto which Luke swung Leia to safety. Totally. Cool!

 

[seoulsearch]

Sadly, we were so broke, my imaginary friend wouldn't even let me play with his imaginary toys.
I am being serious.

Posts like this make me sad. At this time of year when there are so many good causes and so many chances to help out needy families, buy toys for children who otherwise wouldn't get anything, etc., a post like this makes me want to start a group that buys nostalgic toys for grown-up kids who were never able to have them when they were little.

People might think it's stupid but I think it would be really cool... and I'm pretty sure that some of the recipients would still hop up and down like a little kid (especially if no one was looking) when they unwrapped their gift.

At least, I know I would.

 

[zeroturbulence]

This thread actually makes me sad. There were a few toys that I loved dearly and they're all long gone.

One particular toy that I loved in kindergarten was accidentally broken by someone and it was by far my favorite toy and no one cared or understood why I was crying about it. It was a small helicopter that had multi-colored rotor blades which spun around and made cool rainbow colors when you wound it up or rolled it along the floor (I don't remember which) and i used to love watching the rotor colors as they spun. Someone stepped on it and the blades snapped off and wasn't fixable. I still remember how sad it made me.

It was similar to this one, but had multi-color blades: