“The game that lets you call your shots”
Released in 1978 by Ideal, the Call It! game married skillful rolls of the dice and pure luck to advance players along a winding game board with the goal of being first to reach the finish line.
GAMEPLAY
To begin, players chose one of the five tokens and placed it on the Start position of the game board. The player with the highest roll of the dice started the game.
At the beginning of each turn, players declared which of the dice combinations they were hoping to roll based on the eight options outlined on the dice call chart. The combinations included advance, advance red, advance black, setback, setback red, setback black, split, and doubles. Each combination offered opportunities for advancement towards the finish line, as well as setbacks. These combinations allowed players to move their tokens forward by the number indicated on the dice, regress opponents back down the board, or a split of the two.
An additional challenge was added with the Safety Zone and Doubles Barrier regions of the playing board. The Safety Region offered protection from having to regress down the board should an opponent roll a threatening combination. A player with their token in the Doubles Barrier area could not call the Doubles option from the dice chart once they had passed that line on the board.
Players rolled the dice into the dice-throwing area of the game board, consulted the dice call chart to determine their action, and moved their tokens (and perhaps the token of a lamenting opponent). If a player’s call didn’t match their dice roll, they couldn’t make their move and the next player had their turn.
Each player took turns calling a dice combination, rolling, and moving their token over the winding ramps and pathway that snaked from Start to Finish. The first player to reach the finish line won.
IN THE BOX
A complete Call It! game included the plastic game board, five tokens (red, blue, white, green, yellow), two dice with red and black pips, and a label sheet for the Start, Finish, Dice Call Chart, Safety Zone, and Doubles Barrier. These labels needed to be affixed to the playing board when it was newly out of the box. Instructions were printed on the bottom of the box.
COLLECTOR CONSIDERATIONS
The components in Call It! suffered from the usual degradation due to light exposure and poor storage conditions. This mostly affected the box and plastic game base, which could become brittle and crack over time. Visit our Collecting Tips resource to learn how to store and preserve your game collection.
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