The game was originally made by Roberts Brothers, published under the Glevum Series trademark. Roberts Brothers (1894-1956), was one of the largest game, toy and children’s furniture manufacturers of the British Empire. At its height, Roberts Brothers ran a factory in Gloucester, England employing around 700 people. We can’t confirm the exact date that He’s Out! was published but from the team lists and Wally Hammond’s photo on the box we estimate it dates from around 1928.

The simplicity and charm of He’s Out! made it an easy choice to refresh. Like the original, this game is 100% hand made so please excuse any imperfections. Wishing you hours of fun playing He’s Out!

If you want to purchase the game, please go to our sister site mindencricket.com where you can purchase either the:

• Limited Edition Version of the Game – printed, packaged and ready to play!
• Print ‘n’ Play Version – purchase and download the PDF version and make this wonderful game yourself. It’s a great holiday project!

For more info, go to mindencricket.com/retro_game

Publisher: Glevum Series

Year: 1928

Marketing Blurb: “With this game it is possible to follow exactly the normal course of a test match from the selection of the teams down to the final bowling analysis.”

Mechanism: Spinner mechanism overlays 3 generic batting cards, allowing the player to simulate different quality batsmen and bowlers.

Description: A simple cricket game from the 20s, and one with some potential to modify if you put the effort in to create unique player discs for each batsman. The mechanism is similar to the one used in the classic Cadaco’s All Star Baseball, which was released 13 years after He’s Out. Nicely put together and endorsed by then superstar player, Wally Hammond.

To check out the page go here http://www.facebook.com/PocketCricket

A week or so ago I was whiling away some time by trawling eBay for a cricket board game I’d never seen before – a task which has become increasingly difficult of late! While I didn’t discover anything new, I did have a mystery solved by discovering the game a couple of intriguing figures I bought some time ago were from.

The figures, picture below, are from a game I would guess is from the ’30s, which carried the famous Jack Hobbs name. I got both figures as part of a job lot with an old copy of Stumpz. They are really wonderfully eccentric, hand painted, oddities.

Over the years there has remained a good degree of interest around the game. Recently there has been quite some activity. Board Game Geek has seen a number of files uploaded that provide rules for a T20 version of the game, and one replaycricketer has been sending me ideas, thoughts and new designs for an advanced version of the game.

All good stuff indeed.

A few years ago I created a simple Excel sheet to provide an “automated” version of the game. It provides a fair amount of the games mechanics, but doesn’t include the Match Conditions cards (the game is from 1984 so is still in copyright, so I don’t want to upload the entire thing). After getting a gentle nudge by a reader this morning, I have decided to upload it.

For the Excel version, go here.

Jan 30, 2011 – There is a version for sale on eBay. These images are from it.

Balyna has been around since just after World War 2, and early version feel of the same family as early Subbuteo Football, complete with surplus army blanket or tent pitch, wood and bakelite figures.

I have a couple of copies of the game although the first copy I bought would have normally been enough. A year or more ago, however, I saw a copy with a manual and, of course, had to have it. For some reason the second copy had been in a cupboard un-opened since I bought it. So, finally, I’ve opened it up and looked at the manual for the first time since purchase.

It’s a lovely little thing. Tiny, with scoresheet no-one without tiny hands (children!) could use. I especially like the endorsements from Invincible, Bill Brown, and ledgend, Denise Compton. These go well with this photo I found from a Margaret Hughes book dd bought me for Christmas which must have been one of the late 40s pr shots to go with the game.

For a page by page of the manual, click one of the images below.

www.mindencricket.com

Minden Playing Card Cricket 5th Edition is an updated version of the classic cricket board game which has kept sports replay gamers entertained for more than 30 years. The 5th Edition contains new rules such as detailed pitch conditions, weather, bowler stamina and exceptional abilities, all of which add to the already solid, statistically accurate game engine which has stood the test of time.

The Minden Playing Card Cricket 5th Edition core game includes rules for Basic and Advanced versions of the game, charts, dice, playing pieces, score sheets, a playing board and dozens of statistically accurate player cards and ratings.

You can purchase the game by visiting mindencricket.com.

“I’m trying to track down the name or image of a hand held manual cricket game I once played as a young lad in the early 1980′s. I’ll try my best at a description.

“It was about the same size in width, depth and breadth as a small paperback book and made from plastic. On the front was two dials that were controlled but 2 corresponding levels on each side of the device that when pulled up and down set the dials spinning…a bowling dial and a batting dial. Mostly likely had little spring mechanisms on the inside. The dials were much the same as in the game of Twister. The needles on each dial would stop on a delivery type (for the bowler) and runs/wicket (for the batsman). Below the 2 dials were markers to tick along the runs and wickets. It may have even had a bit to show the first innings score, but I can’t remember fully.

“It was great fun to play either on your own or against a mate in the back seat of a car on long journeys.

“I’ve searched Google images and everywhere else but just can’t seem to find an image of it to get the name of it. I think I’d be very lucky to find a working one on eBay or similar, but as your site is the mecca or all things Cricket gamey, I’m hoping you can help me in my search.”

Well, I’m personally stumped, but let us know if anyone out there knows of this game.

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The image is from Margaret Hughes’ excellent 1953 book, ‘All on a Summer’s Day’ (see cover below), and seems to have Compton and Young (and a third unknown fellow) playing Balyna Discbat Cricket. You can read about this game here, and it is one of the very early versions of a cricket board game theme that has been endlessly repeated over the years. Balyna had a really lovely batting mechanism which, although it was only a bolt on the bend of a piece of steel maneuvered by a piece of string, allowed you to direct shots with some accuracy.

The cover of her book is below.

The work on the new edition of Minden Playing Card Cricket is going along at a cracking pace, despite the distractions of a hectic work and “real” life.

From a design point of view all of the major work is done – the pitch cards are complete, as is the weather system. This has been the major upgrade to the previous editions of the game and has been both complex and time consuming, as we have not wanted to unbalance the existing game engine, but have wanted to add more realism in an area of the game that was “light”.

A big part of the pitch/weather rules was the introduction of “exceptional skills” for bowlers. This has been tricky but is pretty much complete, allowing swing and reverse swing to come into the game, along with allowanced for exceptional spin and fast bowlers. These skills are tied closely to the age of the ball and the conditions – so as you can imagine, bringing these in to an existing system has been a delicate balancing act.

We still need to get the game to our eager beta testers, and are running a week or two behind doing so :-(
Getting them to play it for a week or two and then getting feedback and revising anything relating to that feedback is the biggest time factor right now.

We have considered simply releasing the game “as is” and stating it is an open beta release, and then release a revised version in six months, but given this is paper based rather than computer based, the costs don’t make sense. Do we give a discount to those who pay for the game now when we release version 5.1 in 2011?

All very complicated, so for now we are sticking with a small, closed beta, and the pain that a slight slip in deadlines might create.

At any rate, all that above aside, the game is looking and (imho) playing fantastically. It is as much fun as it has always been, with a few of the niggling issues removed. It’s also great to be playing with modern players instead of those from the last edition all those years ago.

More soon.

While I know there is a set you can buy for International Cricket, this is a Special Series Set I will be producing sometime for Minden Playing Card Cricket. I spent a day at the British Library’s newspaper collection in London once and printed out endless articles from The Times, so lots of fodder for a very special set.

Bedi’s love of both cricket and Wicked Wickets is infectious, and even me taking two wickets on the trot against him and later smashing him for six didn’t diminish either (I hope). Perhaps his tight run out of one of my batsman just after the six may have helped him keep his chin up!

He knows a thing or two about cricket too, fuelled no doubt by his famous uncle, the legendary Bishan Bedi, who played 67 Tests for India between ’66 and ’79. Indeed, Cricinfo’s description of the elder Bedi — “the purity and perfection of Bedi’s art was a connoisseur’s dream” — could apply equally to Wicked Wickets itself.

The game is a connoisseur’s dream, made of the highest quality components, from the pewter figures which include a full complement of players and two umpires that looks suspiciously like Dickie Bird, down to the beech table the game board is mounted upon and the Italian walnut and brass measuring stick.

While the game itself looks terrific, how does it play?

The game consists of a large felt playing field where you set up your two batsmen and the fielding side. Each player is dealt 15 or so cards which contain individual player stats covering batting, bowling, fielding and running stats, which help differentiate the quality of each player. In addition, there is a “bias” rating which introduces the ability for the player to modify where the ball goes and reflects the extra, if you like, skills of the batsman or bowler.

Each ball of the game is initiated by the bowling team setting their field on the large felt playing surface, then bowling a round, red six sided dice. The batsmen then responds by either playing in or outside of the crease (the later modifies the effectiveness of a stroke, but increases the chance of certain dismissals), selecting where they will play the shot, and then playing the shot. A second dice introduces some variance as to how accurately the player hits the ball, and the combination of the bowler and batsman’s dice determine if it is hit in the air or along the ground. This system allows for meaningful field settings and requires careful and intelligent stroke play.

On top of this basic system the stats of the players and the outcome of the dice rolls all play a part. But at the heart of the game is sound cricketing strategy. I particularly liked the running mechanism, where batsman have different speeds and running between the wickets is an exciting part of the game as the batsman’s speed, where the ball goes, the speed of the fielder and the strength of their arm all come into play.

The thing I really like about this game is that the creators have managed to do something rather unique in cricket board games and that is combine a 360 degree field with individually ranked players. And, while the player cards don’t contain actual player’s names they are numbered and with a little effort could be relatively easily matched to real life players. Rikki suggested he would look at publishing some players and their corresponding card numbers in the future on the company web site at boadiceasbackyard.com

While the game is costly, a percentage of every sales goes to the Lord’s Taverners, the UK’s leading youth cricket and disability sports charity.

From the short time I got to play the game I was very impressed. A game like this could, like so many other cricket board game attempts, be a folly. However even a short play proves the Wicked Wickets is anything but. It’s incredibly well thought out, contains enough of the nuances of cricket to make it feel very authentic, but leaves out just enough to make it what it should be … a very good game.

If you’re interested in splashing some cash, get yourself along to their site. If not wait and hope, like I will, that they release a low cost version one day – for me the rules and playing mechanism were more impressive than the high end build of the game. I asked the question, but at this point Rikki said they only have eyes for the high end market.

Look like it’s time to start saving the pennies!

ps: a special thanks to Paul O’Donnell, CEO of Humble Pies, providers of some diverse, quirky and delicious pies during the playing of the game ;-)

Game Title: Family Cricket

Publisher: Holdson.

Year: 1975.

Mechanism: Spinner, dice and random card selection.

Description: A neat little game from New Zealand. Made during the 70s, replete with two spinners, a dice, a board where you can position your players, and a nice deck of cards that resolve play. Looks and feels very much like a game of its era. Simple rules, but actually not bad game play. One to look out for.