Where were we? When last we left our intrepid hero (me), we were taking a long trip down memory lane to find out what toys managed to really stick with me after all these years. What really did it for a kid from Montreal growing up in the 80s and 90s. Last week we talked about a Playskool Space Station that, despite being made for 3 year old’s prominently featured laser cannons as well as the Toad Croaker from Bucky O’Hare, which made a frog sound when you stomped it down on a flat surface.
Let’s see how far the rabbit hole goes.
Fireball Island from Milton Bradley
What in the holy hell is this? This game is worth 700$ USD now? That’s near a thousand dollars in my Canadian funny-money. My family owned this thing with all the pieces! I need to take a minute here knowing that I am now in the group of people who had a thing worth a nice amount of cash that ended up in the trash.
Breathe.
Ok. So Fireball Island was basically Snakes and Ladders with cards if I remember correctly. Everyone took turns rolling a die and trying to get to the top of the board, and other players could hit their opponents with fireballs to send them back down to the beginning of a track. Other card effects involved switching places and the like with other players.
What set Fireball Island apart in a big way was the board itself. It was a massive 3D plastic monstrosity with an ornate plastic idol at the top of it. The “fireball” mechanic involved actually rolling marbles down along the winding paths of the board to knock other players down. The commercial gives you a pretty good idea of how cool the board was.
The board was so cool that I distinctly remember just playing out adventures on it using the explorer pieces instead of actually playing the game. Pink explorer game piece (the girl, obvs, I was 9) would get kidnapped by spooky cultists and need rescuing. Other game pieces would embark to the top to rescue “her”. The whole thing was pretty much designed to be an Indiana Jones play set.
It was amazing. ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
