When I saw the vibrant cover of the 1900 The King’s Highway game by Parker Brothers, I loved it. Cats dressed up as bandits, wearing masks, holding up a stagecoach – grabbed my attention. As it did the royal victims, who were also cats, with their hands up.  The sign of ‘To Sumware, To Ware, and To Noware’ also caught my eye. As well as the horse with its head down – which seemed to be thinking, ‘not again.’

Recently in an online board game group there was a conversation about collecting board games for the beautiful and creative art. This was actually referring to new board games, and not old ones, but I had to agree with the statement. The art of the covers, and boards, is definitely one of the reasons that make these old games so much fun to collect.

The game play of old games is sometimes quite bland, compared to today’s games.  But the art, and the fact the themes often capture a point in history, make up for it.

When you lift the lid off the box, all that is inside is a spinner and game pieces. Although some obstacles are needed to overcome, it is a race game.  The board is pasted to the bottom of the box itself. Again, however, that art inside is captivating too.  Not as much though, as it is now people in costume.  What happened to the cats? Ha!

Nonetheless, cats or people dressed as bandits and robbing stage coaches still shares a story about a time in history.

The King’s Highway game will take players back to when there were extreme dangers while traveling. A highwayman was a robber who would often wait off the side of a road and ambush a passing stagecoach or other lone travelers.  They were most prevalent from the late 1600’s to the late 1700’s. It was not safe to travel in some areas. Horace Walpole (1717-1797), a well-known Englishman wrote: “One is forced to travel, even at noon, as if one was going to battle.” 

Eventually, Highwaymen were reigned in and the last recorded highwayman robbery occurred in 1831  (in England anyway) – the roads of America’s West were still a bit of a risk, but that is another part of history.

Anyway….. players each have 4 game pieces. The objective is to travel to the Inn at the center of the board. The first player to do so, with all 4 of his men, wins the game.

The obstacles in the game include the highwaymen. These are seen on various spaces of the board. Players can not pass a highwayman unless there is already a player’s game piece on that space with the highwayman, holding him ‘captive’ – and allowing for safe passage. Near the end of the game board is a space with Two Highwaymen. This indicates Two player’s pieces must occupy the space before any others can pass.

To win the game players must have exact spin. Only a bit of strategy is used in the game by players, and that is adjusting plays so that their captures of highwaymen benefits themselves more than their opponents.

The art, history, and just the fact it is an old game, makes it a wonderful addition to the game museum.