Series by Series - My Favourite Games, '90s Edition

 "My favourite game?" It's a question that could have several different responses. Resident Evil. Kerplunk. That song by The Cardigans where the video had her driving. But there was always games that would pop up on The Crystal Maze where young me, and old me, would pay a little more attention. Games that I would enjoy watching being played a little more than others. Maybe I found them more creative or just more fun. So, here's some games I just felt outranked the rest of each series offerings.

Series One (1990) - Timebomb

The first series, none of the games were all that complex. It was a new production so everything felt a little bit simplistic. Whether it was simply dropping a ball bearing in a hole with utmost precision, or having to identify objects by touch alone, the games weren't yet the most imaginative. So my choice for series one is the game that went a bit further in setting a scene. Timebomb saw the contestant have to connect coloured wires to pictures of objects to create a link. For example, a yellow wire to a picture of some pages. Yellow Pages. But rather than just have a timer counting down the time allotted for the game as with all games, there was also a nuclear bomb in the room counting down too. Fail to complete the game and... the lights got turned up. Last 30 seconds the bomb started smoking, the tension built, there was a bit of imagination here, a milligram of plot, and I still like seeing it even though I know no-one ever beat the game. 

Crystal Maze Games That Were Too Hard To Win

One problem I've got with TCM since it came back, too many people going home with a prize. It's partly down to 50+ gold getting a middling prize but, and there's a mild spoiler for the US version rapidly approaching here so keep on reading at your own peril, out of 10 shows there was at least 3 and maybe 4 top prize winners.

A 100+ gold winner should be a treat, a rarity, there shouldn't be nearly half a series of winners. People are clearly winning too many games and earning too much time. A little conversation I had the other night started at frogs and ended up at games that were never won and as such, here's the '90s games that were never won, and should be looked at so as to stop people winning quite so often. I'm not including any of those one-off games made for a kid's Christmas Special as it's a lot easier to be an unbeaten game if only one small person has a go.

Series 1 - 1990

Nuke Defusing - A nice simple two minute game sharing a room with a nuclear bomb. It needed defusing by connecting the correct coloured wire to the associated image on the wall. For example connecting the YELLOW wire to a picture of some PAGES, or a GREEN wire to some FINGERS. The trouble comes in knowing what word was meant to be shown by the image, while it was meant to represent fingers, it's clearly a picture of a hand. With a two minute time limit, there was an explosion every time. Or the lights were turned up. Same thing.

Some More Themed Wordsearches To Try Your Hand At

We've hit on a theme at the moment, moving on from YouTube playlists, crosswords and wordsearches. So here's a few we've put together for you to have a go at.


Click the image for an interactive version to play, check your volume levels, they can be a bit loud.

Some Resources for Teachers Planning Crystal Maze Themed End of Term Stuff

It's getting to the time where teachers give up because it's close to Christmas and usually just throw a  movie on. I remember my RE teacher's go-to movie was Terminator 2, and that wasn't even for Christmas. One thing I've seen a lot of on Twitter has been teachers and schools having TCM themed events for their pupils making use videos and graphics online so I thought why not group the suitable stuff together and throw some suggestions in:

The Paper Labyrinth: Got A Puzzle Lover In The Family? Get This Book Under Their Tree Next Month

Following on from his releases 'Make Puzzles Great Again' and "Not Another Crossword", friend of the blog Charle Wheeler has released another puzzle book ideally timed to get it in amongst your puzzle-loving loved one's pile of presents next month.

"The Paper Labyrinth" is a book-wide adventure across 157 pages of puzzles and riddles.

Available from Amazon for £6.99

Are you in the market for a new puzzle book whilst you jet off for the summer?

Friend of the blog, previous interviewee and live experience game designer Charlie Wheeler has added puzzle book writer to his CV.