Pretty Pretty Princess

Pretty Pretty Princess was designed by Elizabeth Pacza at Meyer/Glass Design and first released in 1990 by Western Publishing. The premise was simple and irresistible to its audience: the board came loaded with real (plastic) costume jewelry in four colors, and you spun your way around collecting the pieces that matched yours — earrings, a necklace, a bracelet, and a ring — actually putting each piece on as you won it.

The prize everyone wanted was the crown, and the piece nobody wanted was the black ring. To win you had to be wearing a complete set in your color plus the crown — and crucially, not be stuck holding the black ring, which any spin could dump back onto you. That single cursed piece turned a gentle collecting game into something with real tension: you could be one spin from victory and then get saddled with the black ring and knocked out of contention. The game played two to four and was aimed at ages four and up.

Hasbro took over publishing in 1994, kept it going through the decade, and licensed Disney editions built around Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty. It drifted out of print for a stretch before Hasbro reissued it in 2020, with an original-look edition sold through Winning Moves. For a generation of kids it's remembered less as a game of strategy than as the pure delight of loading up on sparkly plastic and parading around the living room wearing every single piece.