13 Dead End Drive

Milton Bradley released 13 Dead End Drive in 1993, designed by Michael Marra, Andrew Berton, and David Wyman. The setup is gloriously morbid for a family game: a wealthy woman has died, and her would-be heirs are all crowded into the mansion at 13 Dead End Drive, each scheming to be the last one standing when the detective shows up. Instead of racing around a track, you spend the game trying to eliminate the other players' characters by springing the house's built-in traps.

Those traps were the whole point. A chandelier that dropped, a bookcase that toppled, a staircase, a suit-of-armor statue, and a fireplace trap door — each a little plastic mechanism you triggered by playing the right Trap Card while a rival's character stood on the wrong space. A Portrait Card system tracked which heir the fortune currently favored, so the pieces were constantly being bumped, bluffed, and shuffled into danger. A detective token crept steadily toward the door, and when it arrived the game ended on the spot — whoever's character held the favored position inherited everything.

The game supported two to four players, was aimed at ages nine and up, and leaned on bluffing and timing as much as luck. It was successful enough to earn a bigger, nastier sequel, 1313 Dead End Drive, in 2002, which crammed in sixteen heirs and a money-grabbing twist. The original stayed in the culture as one of the era's great 'wait, this is a KIDS' game?' titles, and it's still in print today through Winning Moves.