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As you may have heard, Netflix has announced a reboot of the ground-breaking TV sitcom, Full House. Since that makes Full House kind of topical, and since my brain is fried and I can’t think of anything to write about, this seems like a good time to repost my review of the Full House board game from an old incarnation of The Death Cookie:Â
I usually don’t pay a lot of attention to the dealer’s room at conventions. For the most part, it’s the same crap you find at every game/comic shop in the world. So I usually take a quick walk-through, decide there’s nothing there I need, and go about my business. Lucky for me, Hex Marketing Director Carter Newton is more thorough. He’s the one who first noticed that the dealer across the aisle from the Hex booth had a NEAR MINT copy of The Full House Board Game.
After sending Ross Fulton over to inquire about the price, I was amazed to find that the dealer was willing to part with the game for a measly five bucks. Though I felt a bit guilty paying such a low price for such a sought-after game, I realized that if I didn’t snatch it up, someone else would.
During the game you travel around the board to places like the movie theater, the school, the park, and the TV station. At each location, you draw a card. Some have instructions that move you to other locations, or allow you to take cards from other players (how rude!). Most, however, feature pictures of members of the extended Tanner family: DJ, Stephanie, Danny, Michelle, Jesse, Becky, and the Twins. The object of the game is to get character cards for all six family members and “bring them all home for a Full House.”
If you’re a fan of the show like I am, you’ll notice that Joey is conspicuously missing from the character cards. Don’t worry–while the instructions don’t make it explicit, it soon becomes clear that you’re playing Joey. The most obvious clue is that some of the spaces instruct players to “Tell A Joey Joke.” Don’t worry–the makers of this game realize that not everyone can be as funny as Dave Coulier, so they’ve provided a set of Joey Joke Cards. If you land on a joke space, you draw a card and tell the joke. The set includes such classics as: “My uncle stayed in college so long, when he graduated they gave him a gold watch.” Funny, Funny Stuff!
Try as I might, I have yet to convince someone to play the game with me, so I can’t really comment on gameplay, but the basic design looks good. There are, however, a few problems. For one, some cards allow you to take character cards from another player, which goes against the spirit of the show–if you’ve ever seen a single episode, you know that it’s wrong to take things that don’t belong to you. Also, eventually someone’s going to win the game, which could make the other players feel bad. They could have solved both of these problems by letting all the players take turns moving the same game piece and sharing whatever cards get collected. That way, everybody wins! If the designers insist on a competitive game, they should have at least included a “Winner Hugs All” rule.
While I have a few minor complaints about the game, I’m going to give it 5 stars. The designers made the best board game they could, and that’s all we can really ask. The Tanner family taught me that.
