“Feel the thrill of victory or the agony of defeat without leaving your own living room.”
Released in 1979 from TOMY, Run Yourself Ragged challenged players to be the fastest through a miniature obstacle course.
The battery-free tabletop game was a self-contained labyrinth, requiring only a flat surface to operate properly.
GAMEPLAY
To start, a player placed a silver game ball at the beginning of obstacle #1, the tilted walkway. The timer perched above the playing field was reset to zero and started at the press of the button.
As the timer ticked, players attempted to navigate the ball through a series of sequential challenges. After moving through the tilted walkway, the player faced a set of parallel bars, an unstable table, a collection of tires, a “blind maze,” and a vertical hoop. The final challenge required the player to successfully catapult the ball into a bell, which was the signal to stop the timer.
At any point in the journey, if the ball dropped, players were required to restart from the beginning without resetting the timer.
IN THE BOX
A complete game included a game board, two silver game balls, and a timer. Printed instructions were included in the box.
COLLECTOR CONSIDERATIONS
TOMY produced more than enough copies of Run Yourself Ragged to satisfy consumer demand. The game is easy to find, but some of the more fragile plastic components, such as the vertical hoop, were vulnerable to breaking after repeated uses.
Completists will need to consider supplementing their copies of Run Yourself Ragged with versions released under other names and colour schemes, including Snafu: The Maze Game That Runs You Ragged, Crazy Maze, Tricky Ball, and Tricky Golf. The latest version is currently being sold under the name Screwball Scramble.
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