Origins and Comparisons

The official game began as an activity aboard a Canadian couple’s yacht in 1954 (dubbed “the yacht game” and later amended to Yahtzee). They soon asked their friend Edwin Lowe (a toy enterpriser) to make some sets of the game that they could use as gifts. Lowe agreed, in exchange for the rights to the game. By 1956, Yahtzee was being marketed as a thinking-man’s dice game.

With such a simple concept, aren't you a little frustrated you didn't think of it first?

Yahtzee bears many resemblances to “Generala” and “Yacht,” dice games from different areas of the world. A consistently popular game for families, Yahtzee was owned by Lowe until Milton Bradley bought his company. Currently, Hasbro owns the game, and estimates 50 million sets sold each year.

So Many Dice

Ironically for me and my recent article, the concept of Yahtzee came from a type of “dice poker” game, and consists of five dice and a scorecard. Players attempt to roll a three-of-a-kind, four-of-a-kind, full house, straight, or a yahtzee (all five dice are the same amount) in order to score higher. The poker-themed combinations are recorded on the lower part of the scorecard, while the higher portion scores you on the sum of the dice. Sorry, no bluffing. That’s called Liar’s Dice.

And this is a wholesome game; there's no room for liars.

The best part of Yahtzee for mathematicians is the probabilities and score possibilities that come from the five dice, three-roll setup. The maximum score is 375, but if the players are using Yahtzee bonuses it can be as high as 1575 points. The lowest theoretical score is 5, but that would require some special strategies of the player.

Since every turn in Yahtzee is three rolls, the probability of a yahtzee (five of a kind) in one turn is 1 in 22 attempts. When thinking about specific yahtzees (like five 2’s), that extrapolates to 1 in 75.

My History with Yahtzee

As a small child, I had no idea such a game existed. I called it the Mickey game, because my family’s set was a Disney collector’s set with Mickey Mouse in his sorcerer getup all over it. In fact, the dice had Mickey in the sorcerer hat instead of 5’s. I didn’t really know the rules until later.

Math was never, and shall never, be my strong suit. But I do remember learning my multiplication tables on the dice from a Yahtzee set. First we would play a fun game, then my father would ask what 5 times 5 was. I initially answered, “It’s a yahtzee. I win!” But I got better.

Even ol' Spud Head seems to know the value of Yahtzee.

It was later still that I applied my mad Yahtzee skills to a casino table. Yep, that family-friendly game taught me the initial concepts of poker, as well as how to calculate the probabilities of craps. Essentially, craps is just Yahtzee with an unnecessarily complicated betting system.

Value of the Game

With all the substandard board games out there today (“Twilight Scene-It” anybody?), I still take comfort in two particular classics: Scrabble and Yahtzee. One teaches vocabulary and spelling, while the other is an entire class on statistical math.

Yahtzee is a game that kids will find fun because of the dice, but as they get older it will become more fun because they are thinking, and Lowe originally marketed Yahtzee as the “Fun Game that Makes Thinking Fun!”

Maybe Lowe should have played more Scrabble. Yahtzee sets go for $10 to $20 depending on the vender and the version. Look for my personal favorite, Elvis Yahtzee, and the elegant Super Mario Yahtzee.

Want some more about classic games? Check out these articles:

-“Ain’t” Is Not a Word: A Scrabble Guide For The Lazy

-Like Capture The Flag With Bombs: A Stratego Retrospective

-Computers Must Be Stopped: A Short Chess Retrospective

Hey look, movie toys of Alice actually exist. They look boring, but they exist.

It’s been a long week of finals for me, and after all that I realized I had one last assignment to complete: Do a write-up for toys based off of Tim Burton’s new movie, Alice in Wonderland. Perhaps you’ve heard of it? It’s not exactly a sequel to the classic Disney movie of the same name, nor is it quite a sequel to the Lewis Carroll books (which your kids really should read). It’s just another one of Tim Burton’s “I’m weird and here’s my movie” movies. I haven’t seen it either, so I have nothing to say about it one way or another, though the Rotten Tomatoes score could be a helpful guide…

Down the Rabbit Hole I Go…

Anyway, that’s not why I’m here today. As I stated, I needed to find toys based on the movie, so using my best judgment on the subject matter I promptly grabbed Other Chris and went to Hot Topic. To my vast surprise, I found very, very little in the way of Alice in Wonderland merchandise save for some shirts with the Mad Hatter on them, some blankets with the Mad Hatter on them, and a costume for a very “not-child-friendly” Alice that isn’t from any licensed version of the material. My journey wasn’t a complete loss though as I did manage to find a jewelry box with the Red Queen on it and yet more pictures of Johnny Depp’s Mad Hatter. But a jewelry box a toy does not make.

Disheartened, I went searching elsewhere, this time at Toys R’ Us, believing it to be the same wonderland (oh pun) I remembered from my childhood. I won’t get into the entirety of my exploits, but I had to ask where the Alice in Wonderland toys were, assuming any existed. I got a “no” answer which quickly turned in to a “Actually yes, come this way” answer with enough patience. Still, no real toys were found. I discovered yet another few items with Johnny Depp on them, but finally there was something with the titular character’s visage on the front: A hairbrush. Oh joy! It was meant to go along with the Mad Hatter mirror and the Red Queen compact, but hey! Still something with Alice on the front! And yet, no real toys, save for a couple plush characters from a “not-the-movie-version” of Alice. They did, however, look adorable.

See? Adorable!

My final stop was a long shot but still. There was a Barnes & Noble next door to the Toys R’ Us, so I gave it a try. Among the vast amount of books for Alice in Wonderland, including the original book, the novelized version of the new movie, and some other authors’ twisted versions of the story that make Burton look sane and American McGee’s Alice look fairly tame, I found an actual “toy” based on the movie: Yahtzee!

Hey, yeah, because I see the connection there...kind of?

Wait, what? After all that searching the best I could find at a major retailer was an Alice in Wonderland themed Yahtzee game? Okay, I’ll take what I can get I suppose. What made it special was the dice had pictures on each side relating to things from the world, such as a teacup, a hat, and a scroll. So really, there was nothing remotely special about it other than it said it was related to the movie.

This wouldn’t do. Oh no, not for me. I looked online for anything else I may have missed and sure enough, there are official movie toys. Be@rbricks has a line of figures based on the movie with Alice, Mad Hatter, and Cheshire Cat figures, but that’s about it. If you collect those, then these are certainly part of your collection now. Otherwise there are the ultra detailed figures like the one I posted at the top of the article, which surprisingly only cost a little over $20. It doesn’t look like you can do much with it except look with awe at your purchase, but hey, at least you aren’t breaking the bank. And at least there are options for characters other than the Mad Hatter.

They look just like all the other Be@rbricks figures, but this time they're painted like characters from the new Tim Burton movie. Wacky!

Thus ends my quest. I’m rather disappointed with this, since I expected a journey down the rabbit hole of sorts. Lucky for me, the mall did have the Easter Bunny sitting alone waiting for pictures, so my day wasn’t a complete white-rabbit-less loss.

Only two of the twelve nominees will make the final cut, but they will be in good company with the best toys of all time.

This year’s nominees are:

• the baby doll
• Clue®
• the dollhouse
• Flexible Flyer® Sled
• The Game of Life®
• Hot Wheels®
• Magic 8 Ball®
• Rubik’s Cube®
• skateboard
• Thomas the Tank Engine™
• Wiffle Ball® and
• Yahtzee®

Note how several entries are not name-brand toys, but classic toy types.  In my mind, this really reveals the authenticity of this Hall of Fame, and shows how the Strong National Museum of Play has our memories at heart.

I’m voting for the Magic 8 Ball.