A few days ago Rathgar’s Collectibles discovered an interesting artifact called Nightmare: The Video Board Game. Nightmare is a type of plaything known as a VCR game, meaning it’s played not just with a board but a VHS tape as well. The idea is to leave the tape running while you and your friends play and a character known as “The Gatekeeper” will occasionally interrupt to offer vague threats, challenges, and rewards to the players. The tape also serves as a game timer since, sixty minutes in, The Gatekeeper will pipe up one last time to announce that you’ve failed your task and he is the winner, leaving you and your mates to wonder why you bothered playing at all. As an avid collector of both gimmicky vintage board games and rare VHS tapes, this concept intrigued me. After some brief research I discovered that although Nightmare (also known as Atmosfear) was among the first wave of VCR games and largely considered one of the better ones, it is far from alone. Quite a number of companies took a swing at this strange fad and produced some very interesting titles as a result. So, because the alternative is leaving the house and behaving like a functional adult (not likely), I’ve decided to spend a great chunk of my time researching a bunch of children’s toys from the eighties and nineties that you’ve never heard of. Here are a few of the VCR board games that intrigued me the most.

Doorways to Horror (1986)

During my research into this strange gaming fad I discovered that a great number of these titles are based on existing properties like Star Trek, WWF, and even the Three Stooges. It makes sense. These games are sold almost entirely on their relation to recognizable media with the game itself seemingly thrown together by a couple interns who have only a passing familiarity with board games or film. Doorways to Horror wasn’t content to settle for one notable property though. The designers behind this game realized that a great deal of recognizable characters exist in the public domain. In truth, the idea was brilliant: use classic movie monsters that customers will already be familiar with but don’t cost money to license. The execution, however, left a little to be desired.

In the game you’re tasked with defeating a series of monsters such as mummies and vampires. The VHS tape features a wide array of clips from public domain films to illustrate the action, all voiced-over by an unexpectedly upbeat narrator who just can’t help but spurt out a never-ending stream of “jokes.” A number of the clips seem to have been included purely for the sake of allowing him to make bad puns, leading me to believe this entire project is just an excuse for someone’s dad to spend an hour riffing on old horror films. This theory is solidified by the fact that it doesn’t seem as if whoever wrote the script has actually seen these movies, or possibly any movie at all. Easily distinguishable creatures like zombies and robots are constantly mistaken for one another, common wildlife are referred to as monsters, and the narrator at one point just drops the entire premise of the game to stop and admire a vampire’s seductiveness. In a particularly baffling scene, the narrator describes an incoming werewolf attack, despite the fact that displayed onscreen is a small group of German Shepherds and the clip in question doesn’t come from a horror film at all, but rather a Rin Tin Tin movie. If I’m making this game sound terrible then I apologize, because it most certainly is not. If you’d like a good laugh and a healthy dose of dad jokes you can find the video online, free to stream in its entirety. You can snag a full copy of the game for about thirty dollars if you’d like, but personally I’d recommend just watching the tape.

The VCR WrestleMania Game (1987)

The WWF has never shied away from gimmick or camp, which makes it a perfect candidate for this fad. The game opens up with each player drawing a card and reading it out loud. The cards say things like “It’s time to shuffle the cards and I’ll be the one holding the ace of spades.” The purpose of this step is to put you in the mindset of a professional wrestler taunting his opponent. It has no actual bearing on the game whatsoever.

The gameplay for this one is fairly typical. It’s stupidly complicated, as are most of these games, but ultimately amounts to rolling dice to determine movement and occasionally landing on a space that instructs you to play a portion of the included tape. Sadly, the tape is just two hours of clips from old matches, each one only a few seconds long. There is no original content included. At the end of each clip either the red or blue player is instructed to move their piece and the idea is to outlast your opponent, with the first to get pinned three times declared the loser. Although all these games seem to be poorly reviewed, this one is among the worst with most complaining that it’s overly complicated, boring, and little more than a greatest hits tape with a board thrown in. That said, I found several cases of wrestling fans and inebriated nerds having an absolute blast with it. So if you’re a lover of classic wrestling or a high-functioning alcoholic this one might be worth checking out.

Skull and Crossbones (1988)

The premise of Skull and Crossbones is pretty straightforward. You and your pals have mutinied against your evil captain and now intend to discover the buried treasure before he does. It seems you may not have been giving Captain Skull enough credit though, as you and your mates can’t even manage to walk in a straight line now that you’ve gone independent. The bulk of the game is spent wandering off in one direction for awhile before pulling a movement card that insists you go a different way. Occasionally Captain Skull will interrupt from the TV and make commands that further confuse your path-finding because, mutineers or not, you still recognize the captain as an authority figure and wouldn’t dream of ignoring his instruction.

The goal here is to check each treasure chest in search of the prize that matches the colour of your playing piece. Apparently finding hidden treasure on this island is absurdly easy, but finding the gems that match your socks is the real struggle.

As per usual the VHS tape functions as a timer with some sound effects to set the mood. Every so often Captain Skull (or his parrot, for some reason) will pop out to complicate the gameplay. Usually you’re instructed to toss out a few cards, make specific movements, or otherwise make the game more difficult on yourself for no apparent reason. Despite his depiction as an evil, greedy pirate intent on destroying you and your friends, Captain Skull dishes out fairly benign punishments when he gets ahold of you, which he does with alarming regularity and ease. At one point he instructs you to play the game with one hand covering your eye to simulate his own eyepatch, leading me to suspect he’s hurt by your betrayal and only wants you to sympathize with how hard it’s been for him to manage his pirate crew. As with most of these games you can stream the entire video online for free. However, the game’s instructions are sure to point out that you don’t actually have to watch the tape to play the game. If the game itself is advising you not to watch it then I wouldn’t waste my time.

VCR California Games (1988)

The ultimate goal of VCR California Games is to make enough money to quit and go home. Even the creators of this game know that the best reward they can offer is the ability to not have to play anymore. The plot centers around a group of friends on a roadtrip who have run out of money. In order to make enough cash to return home you must spend your time skateboarding, surfing, and doing whatever else kids in the late eighties considered totally radical. How this earns you money is never made clear, but it seems to be working nonetheless.

The game progresses largely without the tape, which only comes into play when landing on special spaces scattered across the board. If you stop on one of these spaces you’ll be instructed to unpause the video, which will play a brief clip of an athlete attempting a trick of some sort. If he’s successful you get money. If he fails you lose money. My favorite part of this video is that every now and then you’ll see some mundane scene like women wandering across the beach. You’ll stare closely at the screen, waiting to see what sort of crazy stunt they’re about to pull and then… nothing. The screen informs you that there’s no event today and nothing is going to happen. Please return to the game.

I have to admit that this is among my least favorite of the games listed here because, like Wrestle Mania, the tape is pretty much an afterthought composed entirely of pre-existing clips that have little more bearing on the game than a coin flip would. At least Wrestle Mania has a sense of style and theming though. VCR California Games should only appeal to those looking to chase down a bit of a nostalgia high. Even then there are better ways to do it.

Rap Rat: The Video Board Game (1992)

Rap Rat is horrible.

In my first draft of this article that sentence was the only thing I could come up with to describe this game. I sat in silence for some time, staring at the silent keyboard, begging my brain to produce words that would adequately describe what I had seen. But there are none. Nothing more can or should be said. Rap Rat is horrible. He’s loud, obnoxious, and terrifying. I am definitely not joking when I say Rap Rat is more frightening than the host of any horror-themed VCR game I came across in my research. The fact that this creature was designed to be viewed by children sickens me. The commercial for this game sickens me. Rap Rat himself sickens me. Look at it.

I mean… just look at it.

Dragon Strike (1993)

I hate to be so negative about a fad that I truly do find fascinating, but the fact of the matter is that there was hardly a VCR game produced which received a positive response. One of the few exceptions is Dragon Strike, a Dungeons and Dragons adaptation, and I have to admit it looks pretty damned cool. How did this game manage to succeed with the VHS gimmick where almost no other game did? Well, by not doing it at all, that’s how. Don’t be fooled by the box-art or the advertising for this game, it is not really a VCR game. The included tape is a non-interactive video tutorial intended to teach newbies how to play the game, and it sort of managed to fail at doing even that much.

The video, intended to teach you how to play the game, was created before the actual game was completed. You may recognize this as a bad idea, but the creators of Dragon Strike did not. The video contradicts the instruction book on several occasions and features elements such as certain monster pieces that are not present in the official release of the game. If its intention is to explain the rules as it claims then it fails spectacularly. That said, it’s a fun watch and the special effects are genuinely impressive considering its age.

The actual game is sort of a stripped-down version of classic D&D. You choose one of five races to play as, each with a variety of unique skills or spells. There are a number of adventures to play out on four different game boards and even a relatively complex combat system. Overall, a pretty entertaining game for anyone who wants to give roleplaying games a try but is put off by their complexity.

Although TSR did begin production on a sequel, it was never released. That’s probably just as well since there are a number of excellent Dungeons and Dragons games available to play either with pen and paper or on PC. Still, I’m a real sucker for unique toys like this one and I’m glad to see the company had a go at the VCR game at least once, even if it’s really just a standard board game with an instructional video tape.

Star Wars: The Interactive Video Board Game (1996)

This one functions a lot like Nightmare, but with the added bonus of being affiliated with a major franchise. Released in 1996, it explores a plot in which you and your friends must infiltrate the Death Star II and destroy it before Darth Vader can stop you. The tape features scenes from the original film as well as new music and new material starring the original cast. A brand new set was even built just for the recording. Most fascinating to me is the fact that this little-known game introduced four characters who were later added to the Star Wars extended canon, appearing in the Wizards of the Coast RPGs and Marvel Star Wars comic books. Unfortunately, this game was ultimately little more than a knock-off of Nightmare and by all accounts not very good. Apparently it is an improvement on its predecessor, adding to the gameplay, concept, and even production values (the board is three-dimensional and much more impressive than Nightmare’s) but it wasn’t enough. The planned sequel was cancelled and the game faded into obscurity.

That’s all I’ve got to say about VCR board games for today, but I’ll hope you’ll do me a little favor before you go. This article is 2,519 words long and took me two days to research and write. That’s time I could have spent playing with my massive collection of toys meant for children. I chose to write this instead, and I did it just for you, dear fan. If you’d like to thank me for my martyrdom there are a few things you could do that would help me immensely and only take a few seconds from your day. The first is to simply leave a comment below letting me know that you read the article and enjoyed it. Alternatively you can just type “your a dickbag” because search algorithms won’t know the difference as long as there’s user interaction. Secondly, please consider sharing this article on social media. It only takes a moment and makes a big difference for the site. Lastly, consider tossing me some spare change on patreon.com/rathgarjones so I can buy some new toys without having to go to my stupid job. If you’d like to read more articles from Rathgar’s Collectibles you can find those here.

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