Now, before we get into this very special Super Bowl edition of Games from the Crypt I have to issue a disclaimer. I am almost completely ignorant of the sport most of the world calls American Football. The only reason I know that the Super Bowl is this weekend is because I was in the grocery store a few days ago and they were setting up this VW bus-sized display of junk food, crap beer, and toxic sodas festooned with “Super Bowl XXVIVXX” imagery all over it. That and I noticed that the electronics retailers are all trying to encourage people to part with thousands of dollars for new million-inch LED TVs for football fans to watch the big game. I couldn’t tell you who the participating teams are- did the Atlanta Falcons make it this year? How about the Dallas Cowboys? I am clearly out of my league here.
Everything I do know about football comes primarily from four sources. My earliest football memories came from the old Mattel handheld electronic football game, where red LEDs squared off on the grid iron and bleeped and blooped. It was minimalist, to say the least. Then there was TECMO BOWL, the classic NES game gave me a reasonable feel for the rules and how the game is played. Everybody loved TECMO BOWL, even little fat nerd kids like me that wouldn’t go within a hundred yards of a football field. Games Workshop’s BLOOD BOWL really had very little to do with the sport and it just made me wonder how much more interesting it would be played between dwarves and orcs instead of animal abusers and ill-behaved millionaire playboys.
But the other game that taught me about football- one that some would ignorantly call a “toy” although it clearly fits the definition of a tabletop board game- actually dovetails very neatly into my idea of incorporating more technology into tabletop games and was actually quite ahead of its time when it was first introduced in the 1940s. Hear that irritatingly loud, metallic buzz? Are you ready for some Electric Football?
For those who may be too young to remember it or those who may have strived all of their lives to forget it, Electric Football typically came in this gigantic flat box that was usually the biggest Christmas present under the tree. It had a big field that was really just a screen printed sheet of metal, and it usually had some cardboard pieces that you stuck on it to make it look something like a stadium. You got two teams in the box, and I think they were usually keyed to whoever won the Super Bowl the previous year. I think the teams I had were the Dallas Cowboys and the Steelers. Maybe, I don’t remember. It could have been the Rams.
The players were these little plastic miniatures- fully painted, no less- in dramatic football poses. Some of them had these green bases that had these dials on them (predating click-base miniatures). Turning the dial changed the position of three spikes on the bottom. There was also a quarterback figure, this weird yellow thing with what looked like a Jai Alai bat and a leg on a pivot. You stuck a teeny, tiny little foam football on his mutant arm or leg and by pulling it back, he’d throw or kick it downfield. Hopefully, you were a good enough shot to hit one of your players and he became the ball carrier. You could also kick a field goal with him if you got the aiming down. But more often, the ball wound up flying off the table and got lost in the carpet somewhere. It’s a good thing they gave you a sheet of extra footballs.
Strategy was a huge concern in Electric Football, and it frankly makes calling games like CAYLUS or RACE FOR THE GALAXY “strategic” ridiculous. You had to plan out how your guys were going to move, which required going through and adjusting those dials. Once you and your opponent got them all lined up on the yard line, it was time to hit the switch. They don’t call it Electric Football for nothing- you had to plug this baby into the wall. Once the power of electricity and awesomeness hit that big metal sheet, it vibrated. Loudly. Almost like the sound you hear when you’re standing way to close to a substation.
All the tiny football players shook and shimmied, often going in strange, unplanned for directions. Those little spikes kind of guided them, but more often than not Electric Football decided for you where they were going to go. What’s worse, your “rookie” players didn’t have dials at all and they just sort of figured out which way they were going on their own. The result was often pandemonium, with little football guys skittering all over the place. Your defensive line would sometimes wind up circling around and running back to a corner. The ball carrier would sometimes make these miraculous runs where he was actually moving toward the goal line and it was probably more exciting to cheer that little man on that it was to play the last eight or nine Reiner Knizia games.
The funny thing is that I’m not sure that I ever played a full, four-quarter game of Electric Football. It may be because there’s only so much Electric Football that my mind can handle, but it could also be because it was really hard to ever score and inevitably it was pretty frustrating to watch your best laid plans go down in flames when your ball carrier decided it was best to run backwards. But that was part of the strategy of the game- don’t count on anything working out. There’s a life lesson here that Electric Football teaches us.
