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Clare Briggs

Clare Briggs is a famous cartoonist who lived from 1875 to 1930. Poems by Wilbur Nesbitt.

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6 Responses

  1. Jaybird says:
    December 16, 2022 at 12:14 am

    That was a real game. Looks like it was a Chutes and Ladders variant. It uses a spinner rather than a die and you move 1-6 paces forward and follow the directions on the hexagon. Hurray! Go forward! Boo! Go back!

    Moksha Patam came to England as “Snakes and Ladders” in the 1890s and Moksha Patam goes back *CENTURIES* as a game/teaching tool. Virtuous living makes you move forward, vicious living makes you go back. Be virtuous!

    And if you take all of the talking about virtue and vice out of the game, it just becomes a complicated racetrack.

    Or, I suppose, an allegory for the rat race.Report

    • fillyjonk in reply to Jaybird says:
      December 16, 2022 at 12:01 pm

      years ago, when my brother and I were kids, our dad bought a book full of large-size reproductions of vintage board games (the book was a coffee table type book). There was an extra sheet of punch-out tokens and the like to play the games and I am quite sure “Office Boy” was one of the ones in there. But yeah, we pretty quickly figured out that just like there are only about seven story plots, there are only about five ways to make a board game. Candyland is another that’s in a similar vein. Little kids love it because they can win. Many adults dislike it because it’s all luck and no strategy….Report

      • Jaybird in reply to fillyjonk says:
        December 16, 2022 at 12:21 pm

        Was it this one? (Get a copy for less than $20!)

        We’ve recently had a minor set of advancements in board game technology (I think that Ticket to Ride, Agricola, and One Night Werewolf are relatively recent, as these things go.)Report

        • fillyjonk in reply to Jaybird says:
          December 16, 2022 at 4:17 pm

          yes, that’s the one. I think there may actually still be a copy or two stashed away on a “present shelf” somewhere – he used to buy stuff ahead for gifts and sometimes forgot about it, or bought more than he actually had people to give to….Report

    • Kolohe in reply to Jaybird says:
      December 16, 2022 at 5:25 pm

      “Office Boy” also seems like a more specific board game of the type exemplified by the game “Life” (not to be confused with “The Game of LIfe” by the late great John Conway (RIP). (Which in fact I did when I bought my first computer for college in the early 90s)

      The board game life apparently goes back to the 1860s and called originally “The Checkered Game of Life”.

      I played a newer version of Life last Christmas with the nieces, and of course they made some changes for the times, but also changed the games dynamics somewhat substantially. (the one I remember most is there’s no more insurance. So no more ‘Car Accident!? (smug) But I’m insured! (/smug)’

      although, am I Mandela’ing that commercial? I can’t find it on the web and it’s not in this collection
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-o8Spa4isQReport

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