PixlBit

My month to month theme is largely for reading, but I've tried to think of gaming as well. Oh course, before Pong in '72 or thereabouts, there was no video games available to the wider public. It seems to me the 50s were all about board games and the 60s . . .  maybe pinball? I know both have existed long before that and after but I need to center on something for those decades. In any case, I came up with a list of board games for the 60s I'm interested in and a few pinball tables I can actually play in digital recreations (I may actually go to an arcade too and play some real style). 

Board games: 

Stratego which I played as a youth in the 70s but was created in '61. It's like a strategic war game simplified to almost checkers. I enjoyed it as a kid and picked up a copy to revisit. 

The Game of Life existed before the 60s but the version most known was ironed out in 1960. I played it as a kid, amongst many others, in the 70s. It's a fun game on a path through the traditional periods of a typical modern person. I wonder when moving along a path in a board game was created. It's what they use for Mario Party which feels similar in that you move along a path and land on places that start a mini-game. The Game of Life had spinners on the board and other raised objects, making it unique at the time. I hope to come across a copy or play the digital version on Xbox. 

All-Star Baseball (1968) was a game I remembered as Strato-Matic Baseball but really wasn't. All-Star Baseball uses spinners and a circular disc representing a player and his stats. Spin the arrow and see what is the result of the pitch. I loved this game as a 70s kid. 

Avalon Hill strategy war games were my interest as a 80s teen, and so seeing so many of them on a list of 60s board games on boardgamegeek.com got me exited. Whether I'll get any of these is uncertain because a lot of them are collector's items now and pricey. But they are fun to look at anyway. I'm also interested in board games about trains and air battles.

There were a surprising number of board games based on TV shows in the 60s I saw.  I'm really only interested in the Star Trek and Thunderbirds ones, but I'll likely never get them. I saw the Thunderbirds one at a con last year and it was going for $150.

And now for Pinball. 

As I mentioned before, Central Park ('66) is playable on Pinball Arcade right now. It's also playable on The Pinball Hall of Fame: Gottlieb Collection for Xbox/PS2/NGC/Wii.  And, surprisingly, that is all I could find for playable 60s pinball on consoles. I'll have to visit an arcade to find more. 

Electromechanical amusements are another thing that's interesting to me and which existed in the 60s style arcade alongside pinball machines. Penny Arcades I think they might have been called. If you watch the Mission Impossible TV show, there's a scene in an arcade featuring what looks like Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots before it became a game you could take home. I have to think about how weave those sorts of things into my 60s gaming. 

Any ideas?