Off with their heads - The True Game of Life and Death

Off with their heads

The classic struggle to hang one another in a battle of wits that only ends when you’ve got them by the neck.

All you have to do is spell their word, before they spell yours! Of course for every wrong guess the noose tightens just a bit, so make every guess count. Don’t worry; they have to fight their own demise by spelling your word correctly too. It‘s a struggle of executioner versus executioner, may the best word guesser win. It’s like Wheel of Fortune, but the penalty for picking the wrong letters is death by asphyxiation, so grab a buddy, grab your brain, and dare to stare death in the face and spell your own fate. Tighten the noose, letter by letter, turn by turn of your executioners dial




[video link to Youtube orig commercial w. Vincent Price]

A little history on the maker..
Milton Bradley Company. Milton Bradley, a lithographer, started business in 1860 in Springfield, MA. He enjoyed early success when he packaged a series of games, including THE CHECKERED GAME OF LIFE, in a pocket-sized game pack (the country's first "travel" game) designed for soldiers during the Civil War.

Following the end of the depression in 1879, Milton Bradley kept pace with the rapid changes in theories of education, and his company produced school supplies and optical toys in addition to educational games for youngsters and their families. His was the most prolific company of the period, and by 1900 he had incorporated, with offices in New York, Kansas, Atlanta, San Francisco, and Philadelphia.

The Milton Bradley story is a great American success story. In addition to its early successes and its television games, Milton Bradley introduced many other games which have become classics, including: HANGMAN, BATTLESHIP, CONCENTRATION, CONNECT FOUR, THE GAME OF INDIA, THE GAME OF LIFE, MOUSETRAP, OPERATION, PASSWORD, RACKO, SIMON, STRATEGO, TWISTER, and YAHTZEE (which it acquired when it bought the E.S. Lowe Company).

In 1984, the Milton Bradley Company was bought by Hasbro, ending 124 years of family ownership; the company continues to manufacture games at its Springfield plant.
Thanks from TheBigGameHunter.com

So, own a piece of vintage board game history, and watch your friends swing by their wits. I loved this game as a child, and it is one of the great ‘edutainment’ style games that make learning fun by adding an element of danger for not having good vocabulary. It’s a fun all ages game, that is easy to set up, a great way to teach children better vocabulary while also appealing to their imagination and encouraging them to be intuitive as well. The classics never die, and this day and age with the advent of television and internet, it’s always good to take a technological break, and get back to the classic, sit down, person to person, eye to eye board game where you can sit there and watch them sweat, live and in person. Watch the fear go up with every turn of the dial. Well, I got to go, I think I have this one figured out.. T_E E_D