Game: This Game is Bonkers!

Thread: Scan of the cards?

clemon79 — 2008-06-17T04:31:56+00:00

This was a childhood favorite of mine, and I was able to rescue a copy of the Parker Brother's version when I came home from work one day and saw someone throwing out a bunch of their boardgames. It is, however, missing three of the movement cards, and several of the movement cards and some of the large Lose! cards are kinda mutilated.

Recently I've figured out how to reliably print on glossy cardstock with my inkjet printer, so I'd like to print out a new set of cards for this. My question is, would someone who has a complete set be willing to scan and post the card set? I think it would fit on a single page, but it might be better to split it over two to allow for margins and such.

Anyhow, it would be much appreciated. Thanks very much!

-- Chris

Thread: Re: Memories of a Time Gone By

reapersaurus — 2008-05-10T22:25:12+00:00

soundpreacher wrote:
"Bonkers is fun, Bonkers is nice, Bonkers is never the same game twice."
Yeah, I haven't been able to find this commercial online anywhere yet.
At least the Dark Tower commercial is.

Fun game - underrated as a kids game that adults can have fun with.
The mechanics hold up after all this time (along with Dungeon Dice).

Thread: Memories of a Time Gone By

soundpreacher — 2008-05-10T20:08:31+00:00

I got a hold of this game for free yesterday, a game I had been wanting for the past 30 years (has it been that long already?). I snatched it up, all the while the old 1978 commercial jingle is running through my head...

"Bonkers is fun, Bonkers is nice, Bonkers is never the same game twice."

I explained to my family that this is kind of like a Fluxx board game; you could almost see the enthusiasm draining from their faces (I'm one of those people who actually enjoys Fluxx). Nevertheless, it made it into the house.

Let me begin by saying that this is not the best game for a two year old, no matter how badly he says he wants to play. We started out letting him move, then we were moving his piece for him, then we were "accidently" skipping his turn. As he didn't notice, I refuse to feel guilty.

The game got off to a really slow start. After a few laps around the board, my wife asked, "How many laps to win?" I explained that the game is over when you score 12 points. As she didn't have any points at all by that point, I could see that she was looking for a red light so she could jump out of this car. Just then, she got into a movement loop and scored a point, so the game got a little more fun.

It seemed like, at that point, every new card placed on the board led to one scoring loop or another; in a few turns, the score went from 1-0-0 to 6-4-2 (yes, the two-year-old scored, too!).

After that, it seemed like we were only using half the board; when we weren't in a loop, we were sent back to start (which is a score spot also), and began again.

This game was definitely worth every penny I paid for it - now I won't be asking Santa for this anymore!

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josephc4 — 2008-02-23T19:38:12+00:00

Who knew that people still played this?

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Sexy Amy — 2008-02-01T00:13:35+00:00

Bird's-eye view of 1989 board

Thread: Re: Different dice?

KneeGrinder — 2008-01-14T22:37:04+00:00

The 'serveral seconds to play the Lose! card' rule idea is intriguing, especially when playing with younger gamers. We recently had a 'vintage board game night', and some of the fun was seeing who could predict the fastest whether the player was going to score that turn. You had to actually get your piece to the unoccupied score space before you were credited with the score, and if you mis-counted, you lost a point.

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Dolphonic — 2007-04-26T17:45:21+00:00

Thread: Re: Different dice?

JonRock — 2007-04-26T01:09:00+00:00

I do play with this one house rule:

(a) When a player lands on a Score space, any other player has several seconds to decide that they want to play their Lose card on them *before* the actual scoring for that space takes place. If a Lose card is played, the net score is -1 instead of +1.

(b) When a player rolls boxcars, that's a point. There is no chance to play a Lose card to prevent it.

So, when several players are stacked up in the 10-11 point range, there's also a game of chicken before each player's roll. Should you play your Lose card now, to prevent even the chance of a boxcars point, or should you wait and see if the empty spaces on the board will do your job (keeping that player from scoring) for you? I call that fun.

Thread: Re: Different dice?

nerman8r — 2007-04-25T06:37:47+00:00

Interesting observation.

I don't think I would play with the boxcars rule, anyway. Seems kind of arbitrary and pointless.

Thread: Re: Bonkers! Gameplay on Halloween

JonRock — 2007-04-25T02:44:50+00:00

You've got at least two rules wrong, and your "fixes" are working against each other!

You only play one card per turn, and "roll again" is NOT "take another turn". Playing more than one card per turn is only speeding up the arrival at the point where everyone is going back to the same Score space over and over because of the instructions on the board. In the initial turns of the game, each person really gets at most 2 points, because the second time they roll out of Start they land on a the second blank space of their turn and can't play a second card and stop.

Secondly, and possibly more significantly, if you create an infinite loop, you go to the forwardmost space *in the loop*, NOT to a Score space. This is good for you! You get a point, but (a) you deny that point to others (because they must roll again and leave the loop when they get to the space you are in) and (b) you are not on a "real" Score space, so you can be ready to jump back onto the "real" Score spaces when they are occupied by other players.

Most of the game revolves around arranging to NOT be on a Score space when the instruction cards on the board reach critical mass, so that you can be the one to get 6 points in one turn by bouncing off of everyone ELSE sitting on the Score spaces. (Yes, six is about average for the biggest turn of the game--getting your first six points means the game is almost over.) If you can do this while also convincing your opponents to spend their Go To Lose cards on each other so that you can be free for the "big turn" win, you get it. Just because this is a 10 minute game (my brothers and I once played four games in half an hour), don't make the mistake of thinking it's broken as written.

Thread: Re: User Review

JonRock — 2007-04-25T02:11:31+00:00

Major nitpick: your turn does not end if you land on a Score space *which has another player on it*. You score and roll again.

The primary strategy of the game is to manage your available instruction cards so that you land on Score spaces only when someone else is there to "bounce off of" and avoid landing there if you would end up being the "bouncee".

Thread: Re: Different dice?

JonRock — 2007-04-25T02:08:38+00:00

In addition to removing the bell curve of the 2d6 roll, moving to a single die would significantly alter or eliminate the "1 point for boxcars" rule.

Plus, using 2d6 is thematically correct: from the last Score space, the Lose space and a Go To Lose space are 7 and 11 spaces away, respectively.

Thread: Re: Different dice?

nerman8r — 2006-09-29T05:29:08+00:00

Heheh. Yes, of course. The board. Yes.

*cough*

Thread: Re: Different dice?

Rubric — 2006-09-28T23:19:46+00:00

nerman8r wrote:
I haven't played this game, but just looking at the instructions, it seems to me it would be improved by changing the dice. Rolling two six siders seems like it would make the game completely unpredictable, and kind of inane. Rolling 1 die, or an 8 sider, or even two four siders might help?

I think rolling one die would actually make it MORE unpredictable. At least with two dice, you have that bell curve probability that allows you to expect certain numbers (6 to 8) more than others.

Either way, though, this is primarily a children's game. I've played it several times in the last few months with my kids, and I can tell you there are basically no non-obvious decisions in the game. It's fun, in fact it's way more fun than most other roll-and-move games, but I don't think there is enough depth to worry about the dice. The biggest indicator of who will win is seating order. Going last is an advantage.

Sadly, the copy I just got at a thrift store is incomplete, so I might not ever try it out.

As long as you have the board, the other components would be trivial to create. I can send you a card list if necessary.

Thread: Different dice?

nerman8r — 2006-09-28T22:41:23+00:00

I haven't played this game, but just looking at the instructions, it seems to me it would be improved by changing the dice. Rolling two six siders seems like it would make the game completely unpredictable, and kind of inane. Rolling 1 die, or an 8 sider, or even two four siders might help?

Any thoughts? Has anyone tried this?

Sadly, the copy I just got at a thrift store is incomplete, so I might not ever try it out.

Thread: Re: Session Report

mrspank — 2006-07-03T08:34:07+00:00

Nice report. I just played this one again for the first time in 20+ years. My kids had a pretty good time... and so did I surprisingly!

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diehard4life — 2006-03-20T02:35:02+00:00

A detail from the back of the box: With the Lyrics of the song from the commercial. This song was really catchy, and the reason I asked for the game as a kid. I can still sing it!

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diehard4life — 2006-03-20T02:33:03+00:00

The Complete Rules

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diehard4life — 2006-03-20T02:18:37+00:00

The Scoring Track and Card Tray

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diehard4life — 2006-03-20T02:02:11+00:00

Track Cards: Roll Again, Score, Etc.

Thread: Re: Bonkers! Gameplay on Halloween

Der Das — 2005-11-02T13:38:27+00:00

As a kid, the urge to go forward and race around the track is quite strong.

The traps and go-again situations are what makes the game. If you implement a draw pile to play from, the game becomes random. I don't see traps as a problem anyway as they break your turn.

The "Start" problem is a real one however. It can lead to a runaway player with others merely playing catch-up. (Maybe those rectangular 'lose' cards everyone gets were created to remedy this?)

I haven't played this game for quite some time, but if I remember correctly we created an effective house rule for the problem:
The "Start" space only becomes a scoring space when the first player lands on it after completing a full revolution around the track.

Another possible solution could be to deal each player only 1 route-card at the start of the game. After playing the first few turns you get to draw 2 cards from the pile. When your hand becomes 4, the original rules apply and 1 card is drawn to replenish your hand.
I think this could create a more random starting layout as a basis for play, but I haven't tried this variant so you'll have to see if this works for your group.

Cheers and have fun.

Thread: Bonkers! Gameplay on Halloween

Dementomstie — 2005-11-01T21:58:32+00:00

Last night(Halloween) we brought out this old classic. I remember it being really fun when I was a kid, but now that I'm older my friends and I discovered it's a bit in need of tweaking.
Our first game we played by the rules given on the rule sheet. This included, as did all our games, the rule that says "If you land on a SCORE! space you and someone else is already there, your score a point and then roll again." This meant that if anyone made a score on thier first turn while other people were on start and they made themselves go back to start they automatically went again. I believe that in this first game we had one of the players score 4 points in a single turn. This became an excercise of getting to Start because no matter what you rolled you always got at least one point, and usually 2 or 3 because of other people already being on the Score space.
For our second game we implemented a rule that said you could place as many tiles as you had in your hand until you ran out, this meant that you didn't have just the one tile you play but you could play up to 4 tiles as long as you didn't land on an unoccupied SCORE! space. I think my friend Andrew scored 5 points before the rest of us even got to go once. This lead to an even more crowded area in front of the Start space, and again all tiles lead to the first two score pads.
Our third game we decided to tweak the rules again saying you could place up to two tiles, but if you landed on an empty space again you just stopped and didn't play anything. This lead to a little more spacing in the tiles, but tile placement meant that if you were between the second and third score tiles you always scored a point. I had 2 points compared to Andrew and Erazm's 10 points each. On one turn I landed on the second score position where Andrew was already and rolled something that just lead(led?) back to that same score pad. I did this over and over, litterally there was no way to un-do this. The rules allow for a rule that says if you roll and land on a space that says "Ahead 3" and that causes you to land on "Back 3" you are to go ahead to score, but there's nothing in the rules about what happens when you keep landing on score and keep going again because no matter what you do you can't get away from it because someone else is already there.
The next time I play this with these same people I'm going to implement a rule that if you land on score and someone else is already there you don't get to go again, because that's just unfair. We might also play that you have no tiles in your hand and that you just play what you draw from the draw pile, that would probably eliminate traps of the kind we were getting.
Overall I still like this game a great deal, but I can now see where the problems are that I never saw when I was a kid.

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belial1134 — 2004-12-30T14:38:39+00:00

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belial1134 — 2004-12-05T14:35:03+00:00

Thread: Session Report

PieMan — 2004-10-18T15:31:20+00:00

While visiting my in-laws for Canadian Thanksgiving weekend (2nd weekend in October), my kids pulled out this one. My brother owned it when I was a kid too, so I don't mind seeing it occasionally. It's light, it's funny, it's goofy, and it's "never the same game twice".

So, I got off to an early lead in this (6-4-2). My daughter & son then starting building some 'Go to Lose' loops, and it was 8-3-0! Then, JUST as I'm thinking the game is in the bag, they both hit my on separate turns with their LOSE cards, and I'm COASTIN' home. Nothin' left to stop this easy train! (10-6-1 lead, AFTER my go to lose)

Suddenly, however, I can't get out of these silly 'Go to Lose' traps set by the kids! After falling down to 8-7-5, though, I'm back up, I'm cruising again, racing against my daughter whose been 2nd all game (11-10-6).

Then, the wheels fall off. We'd been trash-talking the 5-year-old all game, and suddenly, the dice are SMOKIN' for him! Powerless to stop him, he ROLLS over us, using the fact that we are on different SCORE! squares, and beats us to the punch!

WOW. I've never seen anyone make up so much ground, coming from behind by 11 to win. I know it's a wild & wacky game, but WOW! We haven't lived that one down, as he beat us again right away, and has been talking "SMACK" ever since.

Thread: User Review

teaguewebb — 2004-09-04T20:52:33+00:00

Bonkers is a light roll-and-move-and-try-to-land-on-the-right-space game with a twist: The players get to affect the way movement on the board happens.

The board has a track of spaces, including three Score spaces and one Lose space with many empty spaces in between. Each non-Score or Lose space has an area beside it where the players play movement cards (more on those later).

Setup consists of dealing 4 movement cards and one Go To Lose card to each player. The movement cards will be replenished as they are played, but the Go To Lose cards can only be used once per game.

A turn consists of rolling the dice and moving the number of spaces indicated, with the intention of getting to a Score space. If you land on a space with no movement card, you must play a movement card there and follow its directions. If there is a movement card there already, you must follow its directions. Any time you arrive at a space with a movement card already there, you must follow its directions, until you land on a space with no movement card or a Score or the Lose space. You are only allowed to play one movement card per turn. If you land on a Score or Lose space, your turn ends, even if you haven't played a movement card yet.

The object is to get to 10 points first. You score points in several ways:

1) Land on a Score space.
2) Create a loop of two or more movement cards.
3) Roll double 6s

If you land on Lose, you lose a point, and your turn ends. If someone plays their Go To Lose card on you, which can be done at any time, you go to Lose immediately.

A few examples of movement cards:

1) Ahead x spaces (x can be 1-15)
2) Back x spaces (x can be 1-15)
3) Go to nearest score
4) Roll Again
5) Exchange cards (allows player to take a movement card from any other space on the board and put it where they are, replacing it with this card for the next player to land on that space)

My Thoughts- What can I say? I loved this game growing up, and I still enjoy it now and then with the family. A house rule we use is that, when scoring, the player must yell "Score!" like an excited hockey announcer. I rate it a 7.

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teaguewebb — 2004-09-02T00:17:38+00:00