This week I’m going to tell you about one of my favorite board games from my childhood. That childhood was way back there, kids, believe me.
This game could be played in the dark. In fact, it was intended to be played in the dark. It’s the Green Ghost Game by Transogram. The game was hours of creepy fun, provided you turned the lights on once in a while. You see, the Green Ghost Game glowed in the dark and had, to quote the instructions, “the mysterious power to recharge itself when exposed to light.”
I have often said, “Kids love things that glow in the dark.” You can quote me on that.
The board itself was the main glow in the dark piece, but Green Ghost had glowing eyes and a glowing finger that would point out how many spaces you could move and, eventually, which of the tiny ghosts was his son Kelly.
The board had legs to stand it on, so that when a player landed on a hole in the path they would fall through. It was also elevated so it could accommodate three underground crypts. In these crypts were bones or snakes or feathers and there were a number of cute, little ghosts, one of which was Green Ghost’s son. The players were to make their way around the board, opening the crypts with special skeleton keys, reach in and retrieve one of the little ghosts.
When all the ghosts had been collected, they would be placed on Green Ghost’s base and he would be given a spin. When he stopped, whichever ghost he was pointing at would be Kelly. The player who had found Kelly was the winner.
Pretty cool concept for a game.
My favorite part of the game, other than the glowing (I guess adults love things that glow in the dark, too), is the accessories. The player pieces consist of a cat, a mouse, a vulture and a bat. And there are the cool crypt doors with those skeleton keys. Best of all are the 3 dimensional items that dress the board: A haunted house, a craggy tree, and a wrecked ship. I used to like to get the board set up and glowing just to look at it.
What good, clean, creepy fun.
The game is somewhat far to find complete. I see there are a couple on eBay, but be prepared to spend a bit if you want one. They aren’t cheap.
There was a reissuing of the game as a 30th anniversary edition in 1995 or so, but it just wasn’t the same. The board didn’t glow. Nope. The reissue (see below) had a sheet of poster board with the design and the glowing material printed on it. That was attached to the plastic board. And the glowing finger and eyes of Green Ghost were stickers.
I don’t know why Marx, the reissuing company, didn’t use the glowing plastic. Probably less expensive the way they did it than to reproduce the same board as the original.
Hang on! That original board wasn’t radioactive, was it? No. It couldn’t have been. Could it?
Packing Peanuts!
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