Image: Bloody Disgusting

There was a short time in board game history when games that included a VHS tape were the hottest commodity. They were high tech before computer games were commonplace, and far before we could play literally any game on our phones. 

The only drawback of these games was that once you’ve seen the video… you’ve seen the video, taking away the excitement from the second, or third, or fourth time around. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) they’ve all but faded from memory, partially due to the fact that most of us don’t even have a functioning VCR anymore. These will surely jog your memory, though!

1

‘Wayne’s World’

If you were a fan of the “Wayne’s World” sketch on Saturday Night Live and the subsequent movies that stemmed from it, you probably played this game at some point. There didn’t seem to be a real much of a point to the game, narrated by a floating mouth, but you got to hear Mike Myers and Dana Carvey argue with each other even though the two were clearly filmed from two different rooms. If that’s something you enjoy. 

It didn’t take any real skill to play either — the players read the questions while Wayne and Garth said “Way!” or “No way!” It’s actually kind of astounding that this game got past the brainstorming room.

Image: Mattel

2

‘Nightmare’

When you Google “VHS board games,” one of the first options that comes up is Nightmare, also known as Atmosfear. The somewhat confusing 1991 VHS game had a cult following and ended spawning sequel games and a 2004 revival game. It was an Australian game, but enjoyed quite a bit of success in the U.S. as well.

In this game, players had to collect six different keystones thus facing their fears and beating the “Gatekeeper” of the game. The Gatekeeper was a spooky man (who got spookier with each sequel) in a cloak, with an unidentified accent that was a little tough to understand.

Image: A Couple of Cowboys

3

‘America’s Funniest Home Videos’

Are you good at remembering details from things that you’ve seen only once? How about remembering different details from multiple videos of different guys getting hit in the crotch? Yeah? Well, then you probably would have killed it at the America’s Funniest Home Videos Game. 

The object of the game was to watch and remember clips the tape shows you, while moving around the board in order to be the first person to win $100,000. Other ways to move around the board included guessing which clips the other players found the funniest, or guessing which players wrote which captions.

Image: Parker Brothers

4

‘Star Trek: The Next Generation - A Klingon Challenge’

According to Complete Set, creators of the Star Trek: The Next Generation - A Klingon Challenge interactive game took a little inspiration from Nightmare when thinking up the setup of their game. Only instead of trying to beat the Gatekeeper, you’re playing against a Klingon named Kavok who took control of the Enterprise. 

Part of what kept people playing this game was the fact that it seemed downright impossible to beat Kavok, no matter how many times you played. While the sheer frustration may have kept you coming back, you probably wouldn’t have bought another near-impossible game. This is probably why a sequel game called Borg Q-Uest got shelved.

Image: Canada Games

5

‘221B Baker Street’

Ever wanted to be a detective, but didn’t want to deal with the whole, “having to go through police academy and be a cop for a while” deal? Well, 221B Baker Street was for you! This game took place in the Sherlock Holmes universe, and the VHS housed ten different mysteries broken up into three chapters that you had to solve.

While this game does actually sound super cool, and lasted a lot longer than the other games listed,  once you solved the cases, you couldn’t really play the game again. Were you able to check these games out from the library? You should have been able to.

Image: Gibson Games