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I remember getting the game Don’t Upset Me for Christmas one year from my parents, and I’ll admit that when I first unwrapped the present I was a little disappointed. I had never heard of the game before, and the box that mine came in wasn’t quite as colourful as that shown here. However, you should never judge a game by it’s cover, as when I sat down later to play the game with my Dad and sister I soon realised it was a very good present after all, as it was a really fun game to play.
The game consisted of two large plastic pieces which sat one on top of the other. The bottom section consisted of eight chutes, whilst the top half looked like a cross between a roulette wheel and an octopus, with a channel for a ball bearing to roll around in, and eight holes for it to drop through into one of the bottom section chutes. Each hole covered the end of a freely moving arm, which would be fired up when the ball bearing dropped through.
The rules of the game were based loosely on Ludo, that being each player had a number of cone shaped counters (five if memory serves) that they had to move from a starting position unique to each player, round all the arms and back to the start position. At least, those were the rules we played to! The cunning part of the game, and what made it so thrilling, was that instead of rolling a die, you rolled a ball bearing around the top section. Eventually it would drop through one of the holes, pushing the relevant arm up to reveal it’s underneath, which showed how many spaces you were allowed to move one of your counters. Of course, this meant that any counters sat on one of the arms risked being shot into the bowl in the centre of the game, sending them back to the starting position.
I believe between each arm there was a safe spot where you could place your counters, assuming of course you had rolled a number allowing you to do this. The strategy was therefore to also try and minimise the number of counters you had out on an arm at any one time. An additional rule we used was if you managed to get one of your counters to land on top of another players, you could force that players counter back to the start as well.
Don’t Upset Me ended up being one of the games that my sister and I played most often, so thank you Mum and Dad for making such an excellent choice!
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Hi, I just wanted to say what a great website. I have been telling everyone about the game “Don’t Upset Me” for years and nobody seems to have heard of it. I suppose I was one of the lucky one’s to have owned it. I have been trying to find out who made it all those years ago. I don’t suppose you have any idea who it was??? Any ideas would be od great help! Thank You!
Hi Karyn, glad you’re enjoying the website.
In the UK Don’t Upset Me was made by Ideal. Hope that helps!
I believe the picture illustrating this post may be of an American version of the game, as the box mine came in was mostly blue in colour. I’ve no idea who made it in the US unfortunately.
[…] for presents that actually became your favourites. Â I’ve mentioned this before with the Don’t Upset Me game I received one year, and another good example was the rather excellent Stay Alive, which also […]
When I see kids games today, I always think back to how fun this one is and the quality of it — it’s such heavy plastic, the box is huge, and that steel marble is so heavy — They don’t make them like they used to
I quite agree. There’s too much cardboard and a reliance of little boxes covered in buttons which play badly distorted sound effects these days…
Hi
I had this game as a child. Mine was also in the blue box. I recently brought it again and enjoying it just as much this time round as I did as a child.
It was a simple game, but also a fun one. I particularly liked the way it managed to dispense with dice.
Hi there — so I’m just wondering: what happens when you land on the joker?? Do you miss a turn? Also, when your little cone lands in the centre, that one is just out isn’t it? Or do you get to put it back to the beginning and start again? We’ve just dragged it out of my parents’ basement and my kids are starting to play it….
and our version is the Canadian version, and it was made by Ideal (the picture is just like the one you have above).
In the tradition of not reading the manual, we just made up our own rules, which were basically like Ludo. However, I had forgotten about the Joker, so I’ve just dug out my copy to look at the rule sheet, so here’s some clarification for you Trudi…
* If a player gets the Joker, they can place the ball bearing into any flipper that has a player counter on it, and move forward the number of squares indicated on that flipper. If no opposing counters are on a flipper then player does not move.
* If a players counter ends up in the centre, that counter is out of the game. To win you just need to get one of your counters round the board to the HOME space.
* Landing on an opponents counters sends that counter back to the players HOME space, but the counter isn’t out of the game (We had that bit right then!)
Hope that helps, and I hope your kids enjoy playing it as much as I did when I was a lad… 😉