tabletop time machine
1970 QUANDARY
Fifty years ago, almost to the month (May), the first issue of Games & Puzzles magazine appeared on the news stands. Its span of life, from 1972 to 1981, more or less coincided with a modern renaissance of British board games. Amongst a number of interesting and innovative two-player abstracts recorded in its pages was Quandary, first published by Spears Games in 1970 but with no mention of an author. It vaguely resembled other novel abstracts of its period, including Take the Brain and Trippples [sic], in being based on the idea of moving in such a way as to directly dictate or restrict your opponent’s next move – amechanism I don’t think had ever been exploited before. I suppose they could, in a sense, be described as maze games.