A copy of this game issued about 1957 was donated to the Museum in 1981. Parker Brothers had been publishing a "Wide World" boardgame since 1896. The company modified that game and in the 1930s issued a new version of the game, indicating that the game was based upon a book by Hendrik van Loon.
This book appealed to both children and adults in its early years of publication and received considerable interest. Hendrik van Loon first authored the book titled The Story of Mankind in the 1920s. He also wrote a number of other books and articles based upon his travels. Although van Loon died in the 1940s, his son continued to update The Story of Mankind into the 1990s. There are many editions available. Ostensibly because of the popularity of the book, in the 1930s Parker Brothers concluded an agreement with van Loon and used van Loon's name for advertising purposes for the later editions of their Wide World Game. It has been assumed that van Loon had little to do with the game as such, and the game is purely an updated design and implementation of Parker Brothers based upon their earlier game.
The 1957 version in the collection (in the photograph above) has a feature which was not part of earlier versions of the game - metal game pieces in the shape of jet airplanes - used by the players in the game to mark their progress on the board. These game pieces can be seen placed as a group on the bottom center of the board.
The game board, folds in half, and when open is 42.5cm long x 67.4cm wide x .3cm thick. It is backed by a blue textured paper which includes the game logo which can be seen on the front of the board in the photograph. The playing surface of the opened board is a stylized map of the world divided into 240 squares.
The intent of each player is to travel around the world going to various destinations collecting various products. The game is for 2 to 6 players, and each player uses an ivory colored die with black dots (1.2cm cube) to determine the number of square spaces to be moved on the board at each turn. When "landing" on a square with a "red circle" a player picks a "Travel Agent Card" from the pile and follows the instructions on the card. These cards "send" players to various destinations on the game board. At destinations, players can accumulate points toward winning the games. The game includes three types of cards for this purpose:
Travel Agent Cards (8.2cm long x 5.6cm wide) 28 red cards with a luggage sketch on the back, and movement instructions on the front.
Destination Cards (8.2cm long x 5.6cm wide) 20 blue cards with sketch of a globe and and airplane on the back, and the name of a destination with information about that destination printed on the front. These destination correspond to the blue circles on the game board.
Product Cards (4.8cm long x 7cm wide) 56 green cards with a sketch of some object such as a pineapple or a bunch of bananas on the back, and information about various products and points a player earns by collecting the card.
The jet airplanes are each 2.8cm long x 1.2cm wide x 2.cm high, and each plane sits on a pedestal. There are 6 planes, one in each color - red, green, blue, yellow, black, silver. The planes are made of metal.
(The following instructions for play of the game were copyrighted by Parker Brothers, Inc. for the 1957 edition.)
Each player selects a plane which he places on the starting place on the board and takes one of the 6 dice. Each player throws a die and the player throwing the highest number goes first. In case of a tie, the players who tied throw again until one of them throws a higher number than the others.
The Product Cards and the Travel Agent Cards are shuffled and placed FACE DOWN in separate piles on the table where they can be conveniently reached by all players. The Destination Cards are then shuffled and are dealt FACE DOWN. If six are playing, 3 cards are dealt to each player. If five are playing, 4 cards are dealt to each player. If four or fewer players are playing, 5 cards are dealt to each player. Extra Destination Cards are put aside and are not used in the game.
Players are NOT allowed to look at their Destination Cards, but simply place these FACE DOWN in a pile in front of them. When the set up is complete, each player may turn over the top Destination Card from their pile so they may see their first destination. All players then examine the map on the game board to determine where is their destination.
The player who won the dice throw will go first, and will move his plane in the direction of his first destination as shown on his exposed Destination Card. Each square on the board is counted as one space. A player may move in any one direction vertically, horizontally, or diagonally, but may not change direction on any one move. The player now throws his die and moves the number of squares on the board corresponding to the number thrown on the die - except if a 6 is thrown.
When a player throws a 6, he does not more six spaces, but draws the top card from the Travel Agent Cards and moves according to the instructions printed on that card. The player then returns that card to the bottom of the Travel Agent Cards and the turn passes to the next player.
Players must move the full count shown on the die except on the throw on which he reaches his destination. For example, If a player one space away from his destination throws a 3, he then moves to his destination, and disregards the extra count. When the first player has completed his move, other players follow in turn around the table. Once a player has left the starting space, he may not return to or use this space until after he has reach his last destination.
On reaching a destination (indicated on the board by a BLUE circle), a player draws the top two cards from the Product Card pile, looks at the drawn cards, and places them face down in front of him. He then turns up his next destination card and on his following turn heads for his new destination. As a player accumulates additionalProduct Cards after looking at these, he places these on the top of HIS Product Card pile FACE DOWN. It is necessary for each player to remember the top two products and the countries from which they came, as a player may be asked to identify them during subsequent play of the game. If a player cannot give the correct answer without looking, he will lose these cards. Each Product Card represents a number of points - points which are used to determine of winner of the game.
A player who lands on a square which is occupied by an opponent's plane, "bumps" that opponent's play 5 spaces in a straight line in any direction (horizontally, vertically, or diagonally). If the "bumped" plane lands on an occupied square, he also "bumps" the plane which is there. Thus, it is possible for several planes to be moved on the same play. If a player lands by exact count or is "bumped" to any square which directs him to fly to another location on the map, he must do so immediately on that same turn. Such a move does not change his destination, towards which he continues on his next turn.
RED circles on the board indicate Travel Agent stations. A player landing on a RED circle by exact count draws a Travel Agent Card and immediately follows the instructions printed on it. A player who is "bumped" onto a Travel Agent station does NOT draw a Travel Agent Card.
WINNING THE GAME: Once a player has reach all of the destinations on the cards which were dealt to him, he returns to the space marked FINISH, which he must enter by EXACT count. The first player reaching FINISH receives a bonus of 5 points and the game ends. However, each player then adds up the points on the Product Cards which he has collected during the game and the player with the highest score is the winner.
Last update March 24, 2010