We’re living in a world where memories and characters from our childhoods are being aggressively resurrected for film and TV. Everything is being repackaged, rebranded, and released to an entirely new generation of eager fans and sometimes it works out. Other times, it’s Indiana Jones: The Temple of the Crystal Skull. Hey, not every movie can be Jumanji.
This phenomenon extends past the big screen, though. Recently, I discovered that Hasbro released a special edition of their classic board games called The Rustic Series. It features old-school analog games like Monopoly, Connect Four, Boggle, and Risk and you can only find them at Target.
Right now, all of Target’s board games are buy two, get one free. Don’t worry, there are nine games in the Hasbro Rustic Series, and you’ll only have to pay for six of them.
The set of games are beautiful, especially together. This is also the most hipster concept I’ve ever seen in my life. Imagine a bunch of mustachio’d baristas sitting around a table drinking port and playing rustic Yahtzee sounds simultaneously annoying, hilarious, and like a great way to spend an evening.
Look at this – even the dice are decked out in rich wood and glimmering gold leaf!
There are quite a few games included in this limited edition re-release, and they’ve included some of the best.
Hasbro Rustic Series Board Games
Hasbro Rustic Series Monopoly
$39.99 at Target
First thing’s first: maybe the most classic Hasbro game, Monopoly, is now as bougie and manipulative as the ideas behind the game, itself. The board has a gorgeous wood facade, the houses and hotels are actually made of wood, and the individual game pieces got a bronze makeover. You already saw the dice, this thing is decked out! All of the details have been attended to, now go and ruin some friendships!
Hasbro Rustic Series Yahtzee
$14.99 at Target
Yes, one fo the loudest games ever has been included in this limited edition re-release! I never got into Yahtzee, but I’d be lying if I said that the tiny ledger pad and dice on a string weren’t totally working for me right now.
Hasbro Rustic Series Operation
$29.49 at Target
No list of nostalgic Hasbro games would be complete without Operation! This is a 1980s parent’s worst nightmare, and the pieces are usually gone within about 45 minutes of unboxing the game for the first time. Nevertheless, Hasbro has given ol’ Cavity Sam an anachronistic upgrade. What could be more fun than pretending to operate on someone with in a pre-technology boom era? Operation: now more accurate than ever!
Habro Rustic Series Connect Four
$19.99 at Target
Remember Connect Four? It’s such a simple game, and now it has an equally simple construction. The side supports are wooden, as are the “chips” – what do you call those? Coins? What are they, exactly? Anyway, they’re wood.
Hasbro Rustic Series Jenga
$17.99 at Target
A gradient of wood stains makes up the sure-to-be-jumbled-up tower of Jenga tiles. Luckily, it will look beautiful even if the tiles are all over the place.
Hasbro Rustic Series Scrabble
$49.99 at Target
This had to be one of the most fun board games to “rustic”-ify. The bag that the Scrabble tiles are kept in is appropriately burlap, colors of the board have been further desaturated from 1980s faded to 1930s sepia-tone, and the tiles got the same treatment as the Jenga tiles, with a varied array of wood hues.
Hasbro Rustic Series Boggle
$17.99 at Target
Who doesn’t love Boggle? Does anyone born after 1995 even know what Boggle is? I used to love this game as a kid because I was a word nerd, and if it weren’t so incredibly loud, I might still be playing it! I wonder what the aggressive cube-shaking sounds like in a wood and metal encasement…?
Hasbro Rustic Series Risk
$49.99 at Target
The new design of this Risk game almost nullifies the sheer terror and extreme stress of the game, itself. Risk offers the best example of how Hasbro has revamped the boxes that the game comes in as well as the games, themselves. The outside of this collector’s box looks appropriately torched, and the board inside looks worn and weathered, as if it’d been rolled out in the cabin of a ship centuries ago. This is one of their best makeovers, in my opinion!
Hasbro Rustic Series Candyland
$13.19 at Target
Did we save the best for last? Maybe! If you’re a die-hard Candyland kid, you’re absolutely going to need to pick up the hipster version. Each game piece is made of wood, the cards have a wooden facade, and they even come in a weathered wooden box. The game box is one of the most unique out of the entire collection, and even has a handle so you can easily bring it to happy hour. (It’s normal for Adults to play Candyland if there’s booze, right?)
Which hipster-fied Hasbro Rustic Game is your favorite? Which would you buy for your favorite listless bartender who is always talking about bands you’ve never heard of?