PUBLISHED GAMES OF SID SACKSON
(N through R)
with commentary by Nick Sauer and Herb Levy
New York:
Being a New Yorker (as was Sid), this is one of my favorites. Sid used a 7 x7 grid of New York City (Broadway, Avenue of the Americas, Fifth Ave., Park Ave., Madison Ave., Lexington Ave. and the FDR Drive on one axis, 27th Street, 34th Street, 38th Street, 42nd Street, 49th Street, 57th Street and 65th Street as the other) as the setting for this game. (Good thing this game wasn't used to teach geography. As New Yorkers know, Madison Ave. comes BEFORE Park Ave. and Broadway doesn't stay straight. It actually crosses the Avenue of the Americas around 34th Street! Fortunately, this doesn't affect game play.)
Players competed for control of the 49 buildings trying to get the largest group of contiguous buildings by playing street cards. There are two decks of cards (red for the horizontal avenues, blue for the vertical streets). Players can "take over" buildings of another player - but they have to PAY for them - and money counts as Victory Points at the end! The game also comes with "variant cards" for the advanced game that adds a bit of unpredictability and "take that" to the game. Surprisingly, especially with New York as the theme, the game has never appeared in an English language edition. One interesting note: the graphic on the back of the card decks depicts what was then one of the city's most famous landmarks: The World Trade Center. - HL
Odd or Even: 
This is one of three games that Sid did for Hoyle/Stancraft in 1970. Two games use the same basic system in one box. After the first two pegs are placed, players have to then place pegs that are adjacent to either an even (if they are playing Even) number of pieces or odd (if they are playing Odd) number of pieces. The first player who can not make a legal move loses. This struck me as a neat idea for a game but, I was concerned that replay value would be low. This is because it struck me that there would end up being a trivial solution to both games. An interesting side note is to look at the ad copy under the title which reads: " A Novel Game of Skill in Scoring" which clearly describes the game Interplay. - NS
Pushover:
This was published by Aladdin in 1974. As Sid games go this one is pretty weird. Players set up the board by tile edge color as shown in the picture. Players then take turns pushing rows of tiles and occasionally dropping one tile out of the grid. The player freeing such a tile keeps it. Play continues until one tile remains. The players then add their black tile points and subtract red tile points. The player with the most points wins. This is one Sid's least interesting titles (second only to The Harry Lorayne Memory Game) in my opinion. - NS.
P.E.G.S.
(The Parker Electronic Games System):
This was an early two-player electronic game was published by Parker Brothers in 1978. It actually features 15 games, of which seven are designed by Sid. These games include: Battle of the Blobs, Border Patrol, Football, Rapid Transit, Soccer, Space Attack, and Tank Blitz. According to Bob Finn, this product was an in house Parker design and, Sid was brought in fairly late in the design cycle. Looking at the other games it is somewhat obvious why as a good percentage of the other games are Battleship variants or just not very entertaining games. - NS
Realm:
This was published by Gamut of Games in 1973. While not a Sid design, he did some collaborative work with Phil Orbanes on the version of the game rules displayed in the photograph. There are a number of sets of rules for the game inside the cover which opens like a book. What is especially interesting about this game is to look at the pieces and then check out Blockade (above). - NS
Realm was also published in a second edition (1974), appearing in a long flat box. - HL
