''The Great Train Robbery'' is a

board game Board games are tabletop games that typically use . These pieces are moved or placed on a pre-marked board (playing surface) and often include elements of table, card, role-playing, and miniatures games as well. Many board games feature a comp ...

created by the British

military historian Military history is the study of armed conflict in the history of humanity, and its impact on the societies, cultures and economies thereof, as well as the resulting changes to local and international relationships. Professional historians norma ...

and

author An author is the writer of a book, article, play, mostly written work. A broader definition of the word "author" states: "''An author is "the person who originated or gave existence to anything" and whose authorship determines responsibility f ...

Bruce Barrymore Halpenny Bruce Barrymore Halpenny (1937 – 3 May 2015) was an English people, English military historian and author, specialising in airfields and aircraft, as well as ghost stories and mysteries. He was also a Television presenter, broadcaster''Framlin ...

in the early 1970s, and is based upon the actual Great Train Robbery that took place on the 8 August 1963. Although based on the Great Train Robbery, the board game has been adapted on a few small points, one being the extra

farm house FarmHouse (FH) is a social fraternity founded at the University of Missouri on April 15, 1905. It became a national organization in 1921. Today FarmHouse has 33 active chapters and four associate chapters (formerly colonies) in the United State ...

that was added for playing purposes. The game is a form of strategy race game, with the robber player trying to avoid the police players. The game itself took three days and three nights for Bruce Halpenny to design, and then three years to bring onto the market.Stealing the show. ''Toy Retailing News'' - Volume 2 Number 4 - December 1976 - page 2 The famous train artist David Weston was commissioned by Bruce Halpenny to paint the box. The board of the game was original, which made a change from most board games that tend to be adaptations of other games. The board is made up of a quite complex and extensive road network, down which the robbers escape from the train, and through which the police chase the robbers or set road block traps. Its rules are easy to interpret, but the players have to use a fair amount of judgement and skill in order to trap or avoid trapping each other. The game, as well as having a good response in Britain in a year when the indoor games market had taken a knock, was equally popular in

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, where a

television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...

series called ', based on the 1963 robbery, had been a tremendous success. It was also used as a prize on British TV shows such as '' Tiswas'' and '' Crackerjack''. In an interview, Bruce Halpenny said, “With crime you deal with every basic human emotion and also have enough elements to combine action with melodrama. The player’s imagination is fired as they plan to rob the train. Because of the gamble they take in the early stage of the game there is a build up of tension, which is immediately released once the train is robbed. Release of tension is therapeutic and useful in our society, because most jobs are boring and repetitive.”

Reviews

*''Games and Puzzles''https://archive.org/details/sim_games-and-puzzles_1976-07_50/page/22/mode/2up

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Great Train Robbery, The Board games introduced in 1975 British board games Party board games Racing board games Railroad board games Roll-and-move board games