I FOUND one...

[pen_grunt]

For months, nay, YEARS I've been searching for this board game:

This board game is called "Reward". It's from around 1954.

It is special because:
• The object of the game, so far as we could tell, was to move a marble along the playing board, occasionally sliding down into valleys and lakes. Your opponent's marble may or may not have been chasing you. I'm not sure.
• It's a heck of a lot of fun to roll the marble down over the 3-D plastic landscape.
• Kids love it.
• We never could figure out the proper way to play it because...
• It has no discernible rules.
• Adults HATED it.
• My Grandmother hated it so much that one day she gave it away without telling us. Thus prompting a 15-year search for another like it.
• I've consulted "Toy Experts" and "Nostalgia Experts" (both of which have WAY cooler jobs than I'll ever have), and no one has even HEARD of this game.

I was starting to believe it was a figment of my imagination, but my memories were corroborated by my equally-nonsensical-game-adoring brother and sister. Both of whom remember loving it for the same reasons I did, cannot remember how it's actually SUPPOSED to be played, and recall Grandma saying triumphantly when we asked for it one holiday, "I HATED that game! I gave it away!"

I found it on eBay. Did I buy it? Nooo... I was (at the time) unwilling to pay $19.99 plus $7.95 shipping for it. In retrospect, I should have snapped it up.

Keep an eye out for one for me...it shall be my brother's next birthday present.
It'll go well with the original Star Trek Enterprise model kit from the 1960's that I got him a few years ago.

Comments

[pointedthings.livejournal.com]

Hey!!! My birthday is coming up. Why did you not think of this?!?!

[laurel]

Awesome!

My Grandma & Grandpa Krahn had this game and my brother and I would play it with our Grandpa when we were kids. I never did ask my Dad if he remembered it from his youth.

After my Grandpa passed away, I went through his stash of board games and other games thinking I'd want to keep some and this was one of them I wanted, but I don't think it was there. So either he donated it to a garage sale or my Dad's brother (and family) got to it first.

I'd forgotten it was named "Reward" and what the box looked like, but I remember putting marbles on that landscape. Don't remember much else other than that.

[pen-grunt.livejournal.com]

They probably gave it away for the same reason that my Grandmother did--they couldn't stand to play it with the kids anymore! I remember making up my own rules as I went along, which was more frustrating than the normal kids-make-up-the-rules scenario, because there weren't really terribly clear rules to begin with. I think the "good" white marbles was supposed to chase the "bad" black marble around the board? I swear it wasn't supposed to be a racial game, but it kinda sounds that way to describe it that way.

It's awesome that you remember it too! I've never, ever, ever run into anyone else that has even heard of the game. It's been impossible to find in thrift stores and such.

[pen-grunt.livejournal.com]

Well, I DID think about it...it was $30. At the time it seemed like a lot for an old board game. Now I wish I had gotten it for you or Chris!

[laurel]

I was with my Dad this afternoon at the Dome for a Twins game (sigh) and he remembered the game as being called "Billionaire" and having a gold rush sort of angle. That rang a stronger bell than the cover in your picture-- I suppose it's possible there were two (or more) different games that had marbles on plastic mountains, etc.

Or maybe the reason your game made no sense was 'cuz it was in the wrong box! (Well, stranger things have happened, but doubtful).

Now I should go search for Billionaire and see what I find.

[laurel]

A-ha! I found Billionaire. So it was a different game, but similar with the marbles and plastic terrain, etc.

I also found some "marble games" pages, though haven't spotted your game yet (nor Billionaire save for in this place). Only started looking tho.

I (heart) the internet.

[pen-grunt.livejournal.com]

From the eBay listing (I haven't been able to find info anywhere else) it looks like it was made by the same company--Happy Time. So it stands to reason that it would be similar.

Funny, after searching all this time and never finding anything remotely resembling Reward, it's weird that there is yet ANOTHER marble-mountain game.