The Willow Game - By Tor Books 1988

Google.com

Like a lot of children who grew up in the 1980s I loved the film Willow starring Val Kilmer and Warwick Davies amongst others, It's right up there with Legend, The Never Ending Story, Troll and The Labyrinth on my list of all time favourite live action fantasy films from my childhood.

So when I spotted the board game I never even knew had been made, in a Charity Shop for £1.00 back in the late 1990's.

I just had to have it - turned out I got very lucky, the game was not only complete but in perfect condition!

The game differs slightly from the film in that the background of how Elora Danan, the baby of the prophecy came to be in the Nelwyn (Dwarf's ) village and instead begins at the point where the Nelwyn Willow Ufgood begins his quest to take the foundling child back to the Daikini (humans), where he feels she belongs.  

Queen Bavmorda - Google.com

In the game he is already aware that the child is the subject of the prophecy and will if not caught by the evil Sorceress Queen Bavmorda, become the Empress of Tir Asleen and end the Sorceress' reign of evil.

Nockmaar - Google.com

Before you start the game you must chose which side you want to be on; Good or Evil...

Boardgamegeek.com

If you choose Good then you must protect the baby from the Evil Queen and her minions and take her to safety.

Boardgamegeek.com

 If you chose Evil then you must find and capture the baby and take her to Castle Nockmaar where Queen Bavmorda resides.

General Kael - Google.com

The players on the Evil side, who's job it is to discover which player on the side of Good is hiding the baby, spend the game hunting for The child and fighting the players on the opposing side in order to capture the baby and take her back to their Queen.

http://willowufgood.wikia.com

As the game is set in a Land of Magic it is possible that during the course of the game Transformation Cards may be played which could find you being transformed into a Possum, Pig or even the fierce, two headed, fire breathing dragon known as an Eborsisk.

Eborosisk - monsterlegacy.net

The game is for 2 to 6 players, and you may play one or more characters from the film. One of the players on the side of  Good has the task of keeping the baby safe during game play.

The Good characters begin the game much weaker than those on the side of Evil, but as the game progresses they become stronger by finding Places of Power and Treasures which enable them to free captive prisoners who will in turn help them to protect Elora Danan, this is one way the side of Good can win the game. 

The other way to win is to become so powerful that they can defeat Queen Bavmorda in combat.

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🐵 Donkey Kong Board Game by Milton Bradley - 1982 🐵

Growing up in the 80s and frequenting Arcades as we all did in those days, it was impossible not to have heard of the platform game Donkey Kong.

http://gifsgallery.com/donkey+kong+gif

When home consoles became available it gave us all the ability to play our favourite Arcade games and even some of the most popular Arcade games which we always wanted to try but could never get a go on in the Arcade, without the need to have a load of coins to feed the machine with.

For those without access to Games Arcades or Home Consoles or just geeks like me, Milton Bradley had it covered when they launched a board game version of the Arcade hit!

I've already posted about my other Milton Bradley board game versions of popular Arcade games - Frogger from 1981 and Pac man from 1982. It seems like a weird concept at first, after all much of the Arcade games or even Home Console versions of these games comes from the difficulty, sense of achievement, sounds, music and speed in with the games move, but they oddly translate pretty well; this may of course depend on how big a Nerd you are, but meh I'm a pretty big one, and I like these versions for different reasons to why I like the Video Game versions but in some ways, just the same!

Anyway, on to game play and contents... The board is set out like the Video Game with the different levels and girders between each, for your Jumpman / Mario character counter to move up the board in an attempt to rescue The Lady / Pauline from the clutches of Donkey Kong. 

In keeping with the Video Game Donkey Kong throws Barrels and fireballs (once the barrels land at the bottom of the board)  in an attempt to hit and kill you.

The game features a large and quite dominating looking stand alone Donkey Kong, with a movable arm into which you place individual barrels which he then "throws" down the board. These barrels rolls are determined by throwing the "Donkey Die" which gives options for throwing barrels, or Donkey Kong taking a rest, so more more barrels or fireballs enter play until the next throw.

The game is for up to 4 players, each one has a different colour in order to differentiate while all the tokens are on the board. At the start of the game each player chooses one of the 4 Jumpman characters and is then dealt 3 cards before the game can begin.

The cards give players the ability to Jump or Smash the barrels with a hammer as you approach then, they also give the number of points you score when performing these acts as you move along and up the board. 

There are also opportunities to avoid obstacles on the board, again these opportunities are played with the use of cards. It is also possible to loose points accrued by not having enough cards in play during your turn and your opponent also has the opportunity to take a card off you at various points in the game. This of course makes the game harder than if it was just a case of getting to the top of the board to win.

 The winner is the player who scores the most points while travelling across and up the board.

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🐸 Frogger Board Game by Milton Bradley - 1981 🐸

Another of my favourite games growing up was Frogger, which I'd play for hours on my Commodore 64 and oddly every time I went to an arcade too, I have no idea why I didn't try other games while there considering the amount of games to choose from, but for me, for a while Frogger was where it was at...

Just look at those graphics, is it any wonder that I was obsessed with getting my frog across that road?

This game still holds a special place in my heart, so my recent discovery of the existence of a Frogger Board Game was pretty mind blowing and once I had that knowledge I just had to get my hands on it, and yay I did too!

Anyone who's played the video game will not be surprised to learn that the object of the board game is to get your frog counter across the road to the safety area at the other side of the board.

Just like it's video game counterpart you have to avoid the cars that are moving across the road at the same time as your frog is attempting to cross.

Just like the video game both sides of the board have lily padded areas ( The Swamps) which are the safety areas, the black areas are Highways on which the cars you have to evade run, and the blue area in the centre of the board is the River which is where you place the coloured logs (red and yellow) where your frog can rest or leap from one to another to aid his journey across the board to safety.

At the time of purchase I'd stopped this game on Ebay and of course decided I had to have it, I hadn't seen another listing for this game and so decided I had to snap it up while I had the chance.

Unfortunately the listing stated that the cars were missing from the game, but they had been replaced with vintage matchbox cars instead, which I think adds to the appeal, as much as I would have loved to have found this game in it's entirety, little metal cars will do me just as well and definitely add to it's kitchness!

I did some research on this board game and discovered the section dedicated to this game on Board Game Geek  according to that site,  this is the second version of the game....

I found this cute close up of the frog counters on that site and had to share it as the photo's I've uploaded don't show the frogs in detail and as you can see from their photo, they are so darn cute!

BoardGameGeek.com

At times during the game you are able to move not only your frog counter but all the frog counters in play, this is determined by a throw of the die. The frog symbol on the die will bring this movement into effect. At any other time in the game you move only your counter. You have the ability to hinder an opponent's passage across the board, one way to do this is to move either a log or a car across the board using part or all of the number of moves dictated by your dice throw.

BoardGameGeek.com

Another photograph I found on that site, is a close up of the "logs" as you can see from the picture below, they are reversible with a fly symbol in the centre of each, on one side only. Like the video game, landing on the fly will give you a bonus - 2 extra spaces in which to move. The logs can be moved across the board or turned over to take a bonus (fly) out of play for a period of time.

BoardGameGeek.com

The image above shows the car pieces with which you can "squash" your opponent's frog, just like the cars in the video game. 

There is of course much more to game play than I've written about here but like all board games playing them is much more fun than reading or writing about them, plus if I was to tell you very nuance of play here, I'd totally spoil it for you when you play the game yourself! 

1983 Sindy Super Home

I was just looking through my Draft Posts and discovered these Assembly Plans for the 1983 Sindy Super home, 

I have no idea what I was doing with them as I don't even have a Sindy Super Home, but I thought well I'll post them anyway as they may be of help to somebody...

1983 Pedigree Sindy's Super Home No 44430

As not many people are fortunate enough to get their hands on a Sindy House still in it's box, it often leads to confusion as to which house you own, so to clarify and let you know if these plans will be of use to you, here's a little information on this house...

In 1981 Pedigree released the Sindy's Home, a three floored Town House with a rooftop garden. The house had a lift to access all floors and a separate spiral staircase with which to access the roof garden from the centre of the floor below.  

For some this spiral staircase proved to be problematic and so in 1983, following on from the success of their Sindy's House, Pedigree released their "new improved" Sindy House which they called the Sindy's Super Home.

This new Sindy House still had the lift for Sindy to reach the upper floors of her home but no longer had a spiral staircase, instead it now had a lift which reached every floor including the rooftop garden.

This gave a little extra floorspace in both the bedroom and garden's floors as there was no longer a hole for the staircase or an area of floor taken up by the staircase.

When assembled the Sindy's Super Home was over four feet high, two foot wide and had the option to extend it even further by adding additional floors and a stables to the side.

 It was also much more sturdy as the floors were replaced with plastic ones, and much more versatile as you could put it together in a variety of ways, depending on how much room you have and your own personal taste.

If you click on the pictures, it'll enlarge them so you can save and print them.

Enjoy,

(¯`*•. 1982 Twirly Curls Barbie ¸.•*´¯)

I remember how happy I was to receive Twirly Curls Barbie for Christmas.

 I was seven years old when this doll was released and I guess I was very susceptible to advertising because I can still sing the jingle word for word, I must have sung it so much then that the words have been embedded into my brain more than thirty years later!

We were sleeping over at Nan's that year and I'd already woken up early, gone down my pillowcase -we always had a pillowcase full of presents instead of a stocking.

 I was sitting up in bed surrounded by wrapping paper, munching on the satsuma I'd found at the bottom and looking forward to starting the day smelling of my new Victoria Plum rose scented talcum powder when my Nan came into the room with a cup of tea, some biscuits and a surprise present for me!

I was so excited, it was box shaped, rattled slightly and I couldn't wait to find out what was inside it,

 I eagerly ripped off the paper and "Oh my..."  

There she was beautiful smiling Twirly Curls herself and even better than that ... she was MINE!!

Ebay.co.uk

I've found a copy of the advert, which may be of interest to you, I felt like a little girl again watching it and of course it brought back memories of Christmas when it was still magical - unfortunately the video is not great quality but well it is 32 years old! 

My Twirly Curls has remained one of my prized possession, although over the years I have lost the items she came with and of course her earrings and ring... I put the loss of the chair, brushes and "Twirler" as being in the boxes with my other dolls, dollhouses & furniture which all went missing during our move to Wales, it saddens me but at least I still have my girl.

`

I decided a few years back - around 2008 - to take her out of storage and photograph her so I could upload her photo' to my Flickr Photostream, I was surprised to discover that I was one of those little girls that chew on their Barbie doll's faces - WTF??

I have absolutely no memory of ever doing this and cannot think of one reason when I would have felt the need to do so?!

This of course began a quest to find another, but one in perfect condition... The plan was not to replace my original - that could never happen as I have way too many happy memories wrapped up in her, but to have another as she should have been kept, so I began looking...

Twirly Curls & Ooak Pube Job Barbie

During my teens I went through a phase of doing "hair wraps" I used Twirly as a model for practice, she's still wearing the wrap that started it all!

I took a comparison pic' of her next to the "Pube Job Barbie" I made - Don't ask!

I find it very weird how much the face has changed in just over a decade - I also find it weird why Mattel keep changing the faces I'd love to know why they do.

Anyhoo, my quest came to an end a few months ago, when I won this little girl at the starting price.

Ebay Listing Photo

Even better she came with her "Twirling Wand", Chair, Outfit, Brush and even her Comb!

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*¸,ø¤º My 2 Almost Dead Kamar E.Ts º¤ø,¸*

These 2 guys turned up in my bedroom one day back in 1989 and I still have no idea who put them there!


They were in much better condition then tho' :(

One still had the ET label on his wrist...the label on them has copyright Copyright Kamar, Made in Taiwan, 1982 Universal City Studios Inc...


Poor things have seen better days :( looks like I'm gonna have to crack open the old Daler Rowney's and spruce them up!

🍓 🍰 Re-Rooted Strawberry Shortcake Doll 🍓 🍰

Demonic Angel 1975

Re-Rooted Strawberry Shortcake Doll

Hair was an absolute mess when I got her, chopped to pieces so I re-rooted her with some vintage Barbie Refill Saran I had ...

It's slightly different in colour & I have made it a little longer than her original hair.

I have also added extra to it so it is thicker and fuller than the original and also so much Softer!

Strawberry scent added to hair.

Paint on mouth is a little chipped so maybe she could do with a touch up but I wasn't feeling that brave!

Hat and Dress are original items.

April 26, 2009

Sekiguchi Kiki Monchichi

I had a couple of small ones of these when I was a kid... and also "clip-on" ones, they had arms outstretched to be clipped onto things...we used to call them cheekaboos !! No idea why tho'!!

I did have a larger one too, which I bought when I was on holiday in France.

This one is also from France... I bought him last year to replace the one I used to have!

He's holding a bottle up to his mouth...awww!

These Vintage little guys cost me a grand total of 50p!

Close up!
The one on the left (the larger of the 2) has a dummy in his right hand.

Rabbit Version, he can either suck his thumb or chew his carrot!