Did anyone here ever actually play the Mousetrap board game or use the cards in Operation?

I'm the reverse of you actually, as a child it never occurred to me that you could just build the mouse trap without playing the game. So I exclusively played it properly and now I feel a bit stupid.

Yes and yes. I followed the rules as a kid. I played the games with the full rules multiple times even, in defiance of everyone saying that everyone only does so once.

Looking at YouTube playthroughs for nostalgia, it looks like the game rules today have the trap set up to start? When I played, the rules were that you had to build it up slowly over the course of the game, one piece at a time, and only once it was built could it be activated. Yes, I played that way.

Yes we played the Mousetrap board game as kids. It was quite fun to be fair, even just playing with the mechanics solo was fun.

There were cards in Operation?

If there were, then they'd long been lost by the time that well used game found its way into my hands.

How would you even play operation without the cards? How is it scored, who wins?

This is how we played it: you take out as many organs as you can until you are buzzed and then it's the next player's turn. When you run out of organs, the player with the most wins.

I mean the fun part was just trying to get them out anyway.
- As someone who has absolutely no clue what this game is about, reading this comment was very confusing.

We did, for both games, although we didn’t play Operation much. It kind of lost its novelty fast, especially with the buzzer the TV commercials conveniently left out.

We played a lot of Mouse Trap, though. Everyone complaining about the trap not working half the time seems to have missed that that was the point. You might land in the trap zone and have one of your siblings get the chance to trap, but it wasn’t a guarantee that you’d be trapped. If it was going to work every time what was the need to even do all the building? At that point it’s just a game with an instant lose square. If the trap worked or failed you needed to reset it for the next attempt, and as part of that reset you could adjust or fix any parts that had failed. Or maybe try to subtly sabotage it again if you’re worried you might be next…

If it was going to work every time what was the need to even do all the building?

To see the little man get flipped into the pool. Duh.

I babysat a brother and sister in the early 90s and we played Mousetrap properly after dinner to kill time until bedtime. Worst babysitter ever.

Then I let them stay up past bedtime while we figured out the most cursed modifications/add-ons. Best babysitter ever.

(In truth, I remember that I had talked with the parents beforehand about "stated bedtime" versus "real bedtime".)

Everyone who owned Mouse Trap played it properly once, learned that the game itself was fucking lame, and then just proceeded to fuck around with the contraption part.

I've played Operation, but I guess I never played it right because I don't even remember cards being part of it. Or maybe I just played a newer version or something because you removed the parts based on spinning a thing.

Return question: Do you or do you not use the "Free Parking" rule in Monopoly? IE all money paid to the bank goes in the middle of the board or under the Free Parking spot and you can claim it all if you land directly on Free Parking.

We always did free parking, but I pretty much only ever played Monopoly with my best friend who lived around the corner, so if the game took a week, it wasn't a big deal.

It did not help that neither of us were willing to be vicious to the other. It was a very friendly monopoly game with occasional jabs.
Free parking rule is complete ass and makes the game take ages. People going bankrupt faster is a positive.
- Alternate Free Parking rule for faster gameplay: Landing on Free Parking immediately bankrupts the player. This rule is called "Expensive Parking."
I prefer Antimonopoly.

It's a real game, look it up.
- I remember we had that when I was a kid with all the other family board games, but I don't remember anyone ever playing it.
- I love how Wikipedia says the idea for anti-monopoly goes back to The Landlord's Game, which is what became Monopoly in the first place. 🤣
IMO, the "free parking rule" is necessary for a healthy game of Monopoly. Otherwise, the game will drag on for hours with players just slowly whittling away at each other's properties until eventually everybody has been completely bled out.

However, that's an intentional part of the game design; the original Monopoly was meant to showcase just how agonizing unchecked capitalistic greed can be, so games that run a long time with Pyrrhic victories are completely intended. But if you've got a life to live, you need to play with a few house rules to speed things along.
Not even once in my case.

Yeah, me and my cousins kept mousetrap working for an entire summer back in the eighties. I liked it a lot, but as others have said, it was beyond janky. It was the idea I liked tbh.

Operation, I had forgotten there were cards at all lol.

Yes to both, thought only a couple of times each...

Man I'm so fuckin glad you asked. We did! I'm not sure if we played the rules properly but I def remember trying.

I think we were missing pieces to this one and were bummed about it though

Very related clip -

https://youtu.be/mAjkt282XWo

The Mousetrap game was janky and barely worked. I don’t know if our Operation board still had cards by the time it got to me. I was the third, so… Mousetrap was new when I was a kid, so that came to me new in the box.

Yeah I had Mousetrap, and as others said it barely worked which sucked a lot of the fun out of it. Also don't remember there being cards in Operation, was it just to determine which body part you're supposed to remove or did they do something else?

Each player gets a hand of “specialist” cards at the start. Each turn a player draws a “doctor” card and attempts to retrieve the part on the card and if they are successful are awarded the money listed on the card. If they aren’t successful the player who has the specialist card gets to attempt it and wins the (larger) sum of money listed on the specialist card. In some versions of the game, there air no “specialist” cards, only “doctor” cards
I don't get this complaint. What didn't work? It always worked 100% for me.
- Maybe they improved quality control at some point (or decreased it before my time, idk), but as I recall, the issues were mostly with some of the later contraptions, like the diving board, the diver going into the tub, and the final cage itself.

I played both. And Hungry Hungry Hippo too. And The Game of Life.

All of those I only played max 3x before I switched to just using the props and dispensing with the game though.

Well I've finally met someone!

Mousetrap was lit, hell yeah

Just got my daughter operation for Christmas, played with the cards the very first time out.

So we haven't met, but ive definitely used the cards. Mousetrap I played with a lot, but I think only played by the full rules like maybe 10 times max.

Of course, we played the crap out of those games when they first came out. Back then kids didn't have ALL THE STUFF, games like that were coveted

I don't know what back then means. I grew up in the 80s and we just never did either. Mousetrap was awesome because it was this complicated machine, but triggering it was the fun part, so that's all we ever did. And Operation, you just went for the one you thought you could get.
- Well, you were poorly a disciplined child 😂

My brother tried before, but Mouse Trap seems to kind of suck as a game.

I didn't know Operation has cards...

I've played Operation straight by the rules several times. I don't think I've ever even seen a copy of Mousetrap that had all the pieces.

Sadly, I never learned any of those games. I was an only child that had nobody to teach me any of those sort of games as a kid.

I remember my parents bought me Chutes and Ladders when I was 5, apparently nobody realized it's meant as a multiplayer game. Trying to figure it out for myself, I got bored in like 10 minutes.

Monopoly? Go Fish? UNO? Hah, not a chance, nobody bothered to teach me any of those.

Oof, they bought you chutes and ladders (snakes and ladders where I grew up, I guess chutes makes a lot more sense) and never even played it with you..? Damn. I'm sorry
- Yeah, that is harsh. My grandmother played that and Candyland with me all the time. And as a parent now, I know what hell that was. Especially the latter.

Many, many times, yes. We always used the cards for Operation and played Mousetrap quite a bit when I was little.

I've played both but every copy of mouse trap I've ever had either didn't work or worked very shittily. Massive disappointment all the way around

Yes and yes.

Mousetrap was the shit until I lost the blue mouse and half the traps

Oh I loved it, but I don't know anyone who did anything but put it together and trigger it. And they went to the trouble of making a whole game around it that I've never met anyone who has ever played.