This Is How I Would Change Classic Board Games If You Gave Me the Power (You Won't Regret It, I Swear!)

Antiquated nuclear-family fun time FTW!

Board games have taken over my brain. My children insisted on playing lots of them this weekend while we were snowed in during the Great Nemo. Also, I happen to enjoy board games quite a bit. Also, Toy Fair 2013 starts today in New York City. It's fate! Or something like that.

Another reason they've been on my mind: There's been a recent blitz of board game modernization sullying the world of classic recreation. In December, "Scrabble researcher" Joshua Lewis proposed recalibrating the value of certain tiles in the popular word competition. He based this suggestion on a piece of software he wrote that analyzed the tiles' values based on current letter usage. (If you're in the mood for a good geek-gasm via a semi-in-depth debate on why this is a bad idea from an equity value standpoint, check out Slate's article on the subject.) Even though Hasbro and Mattel (the game's owners in North America and overseas, respectively) have stated they have absolutely no plans to implement this proposal, panicked players are in a tizzy (current word value: 26; word value under Lewis' proposed system: 18) over this threatened alphabetic reformation.

Next, Monopoly decided to dump one of its original gamepieces, that oppressive symbol of Donna Reed–style domesticity: the iron. In its place, the folks who voted for this upheaval annointed another symbol of domesticity (if your domesticity involves living a sad, miserable life):

And ... buh-bye.

I didn't mind this development quite as much, because I share absolutely no kinship with the wrinkle-averse community. I even organized a highly successful one-woman Twitter campaign — consisting of exactly three (devastatingly powerful) tweets that propelled me to Klout "Influencer" status on the topic of "irons" — to permanently shut down this mini permanent press. That's right, it was all me, though I would have preferred the robot or the guitar — or even a shrunken King Richard III head — to this feline Mephistopheles who will probably always land on Baltic no matter how you roll the dice.

But is it our place to reconstruct the BINGO zeitgeist? By collectively rejecting the iron, am I, and the rest of the game-playing world, symbolically spurning the full-time homemaker in favor of the cubicle feminist? Has it become a 21st-century mandate to bring more fucking cats into this world, no matter WHAT THE COST?

Maybe all of these things are true, maybe none of them. But at any rate, let's just be done with it and bring ALL of our favorite old-time amusements up to date in the name of political correctness and contemporary cultural standards. I'm a modern lady, and I demand my diversions follow suit. Besides, don't you know that change is good? You should know that. I'm a gentle reminder of such things.

Here are some of my ideas. I'm warning you: They're very, very good.

Candy Land


I personally love this game's current incarnation for its blatant "fuck you" to the food pyramid, but it will also likely be the downfall of the human race. You're a stupidhead if you still bake cupcakes for your kid's school birthday party (there are stringent anti-obesity policies that condemn such overtures) or if you don't turn in ALL of your Halloween candy to a local dentist who participates in the nationally endorsed "Milk Duds for Molars" buyback programs. 

It's time to reflect these nutritional edicts in our game play and replace the nefarious Molasses Swamp, Gumdrop Mountain, and Licorice Castle with Tofu Turret, Alfalfa Sprout Forest, and Edamame Ecosystem.  Or just rename the game "Eye Candy Land" and make every destination Kate Upton.

Connect 4

If you say you don't remember this commercial, you're either lying or ... you're lying. 

But more important that that: Four is a number for simpletons. I think even armchair numerologist Louis Farrakhan would agree. How are today's young brainiacs going to win their Westinghouses (or Intels, or whatever they're called these days) unless we give them something a little meatier to work with? Let's try "Connect the World's Largest Prime Number" and watch those SAT scores shoot up through the stratosphere like Ahmadinejad sending a monkey into space. Who's comin' with me?

Trouble

Ruh-roh.

In my revamped version, you still work your way around the board by indulging the addictively tactile sensation of pressing down on the plastic dome in the center, but every time you "roll" a predetermined number (say, a 5, as shown here), you get in trouble. Like, REAL trouble. Because nothing re-creates your childhood like the guilt and shame of unreasonable, randomly applied punishments. 

Maybe when that 5 pops into play, your significant other gets to yell at you for 15 minutes about something that's been on his/her mind but hasn't yet been broached during normal, healthy, constructive conversation. Or perhaps a much-loved privilege is taken away: "No drunk-tweeting for a week" will cleanse your soul and teach you a valuable life lesson. You'll find yourself looking forward to Game Night strictly for self-flagellation purposes.

Perfection

This kid doesn't follow the 80-20 rule. I hate this kid.

In my new-and-improved Perfection, the game board is shaped like a giant BlackBerry or iPhone or whatever personal mobile device people use to stay organized (I still use an old-fashioned Day Runner, so I can't speak to this). Players must try to cram as many tasks, to-dos, goals, emails, Facebook friends, Botox injections, bank deposits, job promotions, trophy spouses, and life goals as possible into the "unit" as they can in 60 seconds. When time's up, the whole thing explodes, because perfection is impossible. Can't you be satisfied with "good enough," people?

Sorry

Everyone's always apologizing for something. Especially women. All "sorry" does is remind me of Hayden Christiansen as the infuriatingly irritating Stephen Glass in Shattered Glass. New game play stays pretty much the same logistically, except no one does any fucking apologizing, for any reason.

Cootie/The Game of Life

I didn't know too many people who owned Cootie, but my family did. Perhaps you remember it by the gigantic demonic louse that graced its packaging. Here's a box you could find on shelves shortly after its 1949 debut:

Being a child of the '80s, however, my cooties were contained in this box:

But while no one liked to admit to owning Cootie (we only broke it out in front of friends when all other resources had been exhausted), EVERYONE copped to playing the Game of Life, aka LIFE. This monster made me think that if I was going to make it big when I grew up, I'd have to have four children, own (and subsequently sell) a cattle ranch, and command a lawyer's salary, please:

Now that I'm actually a grownup playing the REAL game of life, I've come up with a brilliant co-branding strategy: Combine the two and call it "The Game of Lice." Because what is life, really, if not a relentless parasite that sucks everything out of you and makes you constantly scratch your head in bewilderment. Amirite, brahs?!