Is that how they used to advertise Mouse Trap. It rings a bell with me anyway. Anyway, a trip to the nephews for his birthday rustled this game up as a present. And it has changed from my youth. Not only have the graphics been slightly more cartoonified, there seems to be a few tweeks to the game play, to improve what was previously a potentially interminable endgame*.
Tweeks include a sop to the number of players. In the old days, when played with four people, the add a piece squares would be hit by the second straight, leaving you ages before you actually got to unleash the trap. But the most significant change is the addition of cheese. I think most games would be improved by the addition of cheese, however these cheeses are sadly cardboard in nature. Nevertheless when gained they allow you to roll the dice and move someone else’s piece. Thus increasing the chances that you would be on turn crank, and they would be under the trap. Not increasing it by much (1/6), but the odds of both being in the right place in a two player game were 1/18, which given probability, was a little bit frustrating.
Of course the Helping Hand bit still doesn’t work properly. And the stairs are now blue. And six year old children still do not understand the concepts of
a) enough
b) losing gracefully.
*Yes, I know I am talking about Mouse Trap, and I know that a game of luck does not really have an endgame per se. It does appear that the main job of Mouse Trap’s device is to distract you from the completely arbritrary nature of the game.