CREATURE FEATURES (Athol Research Co., 1975)

 

Here's a wonderful board game that you may not have heard of, but it's much-beloved by those who owned it back in the day.  It wasn't exactly a mainstream item (you will soon see why), but it takes the basic idea of "Monopoly," and makes it awesome (later versions of the instruction sheet even began with "THIS GAME PLAYS LIKE MONOPOLY").

"Monopoly," of course, is the Dr. Seuss book of board games.  Everyone thinks they love it until they have to deal with it--in the case of "Monopoly," you end up bogged down in a mind-numbingly endless session with an overly-competitive sibling (or former friend that you'll no longer speak to), all the while praying for bankruptcy.  In the case of Seuss--especially if you are reading aloud--on your 400th made-up nonsense word and sing-song rhyme, you are praying for a more permanent end.  Anyhow, this game fixes all that, and adds a dash of humor that FAMOUS MONSTERS magazine would be proud of.  

Named after the long-running CREATURE FEATURES movie show, this game can be pretty expensive these days (a super-minty copy can run into three to four hundred dollars).  One of the reasons is shown in the above photo--this game is very heavy on cards.  Lots and lots of cards.  Which as you might guess, often get lost.  

Besides the cards that take the place of properties, Chance, and Community Chest, there are two sets of small punch-out tokens, called Ghoul Star and Tombstone Award cards (seen above).  These are very often incomplete.  The property cards are the coolest, though:

Instead of streets, you as a movie producer assemble movie monsters with their respective stars, and see if your films find success.  What a great idea!

Then, of course, you continue to go around the board, being influenced by the spaces you land on, and by drawing cards, just like...you know, that other game.  

Box back!

What I really wonder though is how long they got away with all of this.  I'm sure this game was sold in monster magazines and in specialty shops, but it was only a matter of time until the myriad license holders caught up with this Roger Rabbit of board games, and it came to a crashing end.  I mean, imagine if this game were coming out today.  It would probably have lots of made-up monsters wedged between a few licensed ones, and just fail completely.

And who's going to think to include the second-best card of all? Some game store neckbeard would ask what that was, and I'd slap him. 

Like many vintage collectibles, this is the sort of thing that we don't need to come back, because it would never hold a candle to the original, so let's not try.  If you want one, I'd recommend watching  auctions, and maybe buying two reasonably-priced incomplete copies over a period of time, then putting them together to make one complete one.  It's probably the cheapest way to go, and you can always sell your leftover parts to get some of your money back.

If you do own a copy of this game, the most common thing to be missing are the instructions, so let's remedy that with the following scan-as-PDF:

Creature Feature Instructions

The second most common thing to be absent are the small token cards called Ghoul Star and Tombstone Awards:

Sample (don't print this photo, it won't
be the correct size, see below)

I scanned some, and luckily they are printed in only red ink, so you can print these on normal cardstock and trim them out, and you'll be good to go.  This file is also a PDF, which should keep the size correct:

Creature Feature Ghoul Star & Tombstone Award Cards

This game is one of the most unique standout pieces of any monster collection.  When I first discovered it, I wanted to quickly dismiss it as an unauthorized Godzilla collectible, but it quickly won me over.  It gets a giant Sphinx Seal of Approval--if for no other reason, it's made with so much genuine love for the subject matter! And that, my friends, is a rarity these days.