Board game riches games that permitted players to emulate the capitalist heroes of the age. One of the first such games, "The Game of the District Messenger Boy", encouraged the idea that the lowliest messenger boy could ascend the corporate ladder to its topmost rung. Such games insinuated that the accumulation of wealth brought increased social status. Competitive capitalistic games culminated in 1935 with "Monopoly", the most commercially successful board game in U.S. history. McLoughlin Brothers published similar games based on the telegraph boy theme including "Game of the Telegraph Boy, or Merit Rewarded" (1888). Greg Downey notes in his essay, "Information
Bonkers! (game) original Parker Brothers rules. Bonkers! (game) Bonkers! (also known as This Game is Bonkers!) is a race-style board game designed by Paul J. Gruen and produced first by Parker Brothers, later by Milton Bradley, and briefly reissued by Winning Moves. The object is to be the first player to score 12 points by adding instruction cards to the empty spaces in an attempt to move to several scoring stations. The game's slogan (for all versions) is "It's Never the Same Game Twice!" Each game of "Bonkers!" comes with the following: The board consists of a 55-space looping track. Most of