Wuzzles

Game: Wuzzles
Manufacturer: Milton Bradley
Year: 1985

Personal History:
The Wuzzles was a cartoon property in the 80's which featured characters that were combinations of two different animals. I remember very little of the actual show, however I did own a lot of the merchandise as a kid, including bed sheets, stuffed animals, action figures, colorforms, books, etc.

I found this copy of the Wuzzles game at a local thrift store for four dollars. Finding vintage games like this in my area has become difficult lately, and I attribute this to a higher number of people who are looking for them. I can personally name five new people who have begun searching for board games in the same stores I shop in in just the past two years. There's only so many places for the cool older stuff to hide anymore unfortunately. But, that just makes picks like this feel extra sweet. I was happy to grab this little nugget of childhood.

Condition:
The box has some general wear and a little dishing, which is typical of games like this. There's also a price sticker on one edge which is unlikely to come off cleanly. The biggest issue is that one of the wedge pieces (described below) is missing. Technically this would stop you from playing it with four players, however if necessary any placeholder, like a penny or something, would work just fine.

Gameplay:
Each player chooses one of the four character pawns and places it on the starting space. The ultimate goal of the game is to assemble a gift for Eleroo's birthday, and take the assembled gift to his house. Each player, on her turn, spins the spinner and moves her pawn in either direction along the path to the next space of the indicated color. If the spinner indicates a gift then the player moves to the next gift space along the path.

When a player lands on a gift space she takes a wedge shaped "Gift Token". Gift Tokens feature the character's face on the back, and each gift space has one token for each character. Once a player collects her character's gift token she moves on towards the next gift space.

Collecting all four Gift Tokens allows the player to assemble a complete gift, and then head along the remainder of the board towards Eleroo's house. The final leg of the path takes the player through spaces occupied by "Creepasaurs". If a player lands on one of the three Creepasaur spaces she must place one of her tokens on the "Croc" space, Croc being a large crocodile character.

If a player has lost a piece of their gift they must backtrack to the Croc space to get it back, and then continue once again along the path, hopefully avoiding the Creepasaurs.

The first player to collect all four parts of their gift and safely take it to Eleroo's house is the winner of the game.

So How Is It?:
Before I start picking this game apart I'd like to first say thank you to those of you who read this blog regularly and have hung in there during my absence. I had a very serious medical issue come up suddenly in early December which put me out of commission (almost permanently), and I'm only now really getting back to something like normal.  Writing on this page has always been a hobby, and I've always said I'll continue to do it as long as I still enjoy it. Which I still do.

Second, my daughter is now almost three years old, which almost seems impossible but it's true. That being the case, she's now starting to understand basic gaming principles like taking turns, moving a pawn according to a spinner, and reaching simple objectives. This means that on games like this one she will be my play buddy, and also you should expect games for the very young to appear here more often. Sometimes this will run counter to the actual age requirements, but whatever.

So, onto the Wuzzles game. First, while I'm usually all for ridiculous board embellishments, the large mountain construction in the center of the board here is really just a giant irritant. It's so large that it obscures view and forces you to rotate the board, move around the table or remove it to see where you're going. It's just too big and does nothing to add to the game, and honestly doesn't even look that nice.

The game itself is half fine. The early part of spinning the spinner and trying to hunt down the pieces is fine, if boring. My daughter is a little younger than the target audience and didn't totally grasp why she was trying to get the pieces, but she was able to move according to the spin and identify which pieces to collect when it was time. There's some very basic decision making in that the spin will often take you past gifts you still need, and with the subsequent spin the player needs to decide between backtracking or moving closer to the next girt. Other than that, however, the game is totally on rails and does not need your input.

After the player has collected her four gift tokens though it becomes an overly long and complicated slog. The gift grabbing beginning is so basic that only very little ones will appreciate it, and once all of the pieces are gotten a straightforward race to the end should have been enough. The introduction of the bad guys near the end, and a possible need to backtrack again just make the game feel like it lasts forever, and since you're not doing anything new or making any decisions at that point all you want is for it to end. My daughter drifted off shortly after collecting all of the pieces, and neither of us were all that interested in fighting the bad guys.

So unfortunately, as colorful and fun as this game seems, it's a draggy, nearly brainless dud. Still, it was nice to see the Wuzzles again. Maybe I can scare up some episodes on the internet to show my daughter.

Final Verdict:
A simple kids game that became overly complicated and painfully lengthened by an unnecessary second act. It's 3-D element is also more of an eyesore than an eye catcher. It scores a "Poor" 2/5.