Trouble

Gameplay

Trouble is a board game in which players race to have their four game pieces circle the board before everyone else’s. As each player moves their pieces around the board, they also have the opportunity to sabotage other players—any piece is fair game until it’s into one of the “safe” spaces.

The game can be played by as little as two players and as many as four players: there’s four colors that each take up a quarter of the board: red, yellow, green, and blue. The game begins with each players’ four pieces in the “home” space, and players can only move their pieces out of the home space and onto the “start” space when the die within the Pop-O-Matic* lands on a 6.

Beginning at the “start” space, pieces move clockwise around the board. Players can send their opponents’ pieces back to the start by landing on them. Pieces are only protected from being sent back to the start when they’re in one of the final four slots of the finish area. The first player with all four pieces in the “safe” spaces wins!

*The Pop-O-Matic is a clear plastic hemisphere that houses a die in the center of the gameboard on top of a flexible sheet. Players “roll” by pressing down on the bubble, which in turn flexes the sheet and pops the die up, tumbling it around. Aside from producing a fun popping sound, the Pop-O-Matic also eliminates the need to keep track of a die and prevents cheating!

History

Trouble, known as Frustration in the UK and Kimble in Finland, was developed by the Kohner Brothers, Frank and Paul. Their toy-designing story really begins in 1940, when Paul, the older of the two, left his hometown of Tachau, Czechoslovakia, and came to the United States to escape the Nazis. Two years later, Frank joined him, and the two formed Kohner Brothers in New York City.

Initially, they manufactured wooden beads and beaded purses before moving into toys. In 1963 came Trouble, which featured the iconic Pop-O-Matic dome in the center of the board, and the game went on to sell over a million copies year after year. Trouble is inspired by the British board game Ludo, which was based on the Indian board game pachisi.

Trouble was first manufactured by Irwin Toy Ltd., and later by Milton Bradley, which is now a part of Hasbro. Hasbro is still the primary publisher of the game, though the classic version is now marketed by Winning Moves Games USA.

Variations

In 1987, Milton Bradley published a variation called Double Trouble. In this version, each player moves two pieces along a path, using separate Pop-O-Matics. Another Milton Bradley game called Headache is very similar to Trouble—it has a different track layout and the game pieces are cone-shaped, but other than that it’s pretty much the same.