FANS:

MEMORIES:

PHOTOS:

Manufacturer:

Some games are fun and laid back. Some games make you use your intellect. Some are games of chance. And some games just stress you out. Pretty much, if a game had a timer, that was an indication that this was going to be a stressful game. And Perfection not only had a timer, but it would throw your pieces at you if you didn’t do what you were supposed by the time the game told you to.

 

Lakeside’s early 1970’s game, Perfection, was not for the weak-hearted. The game consisted of a cabinet, a bunch of geometrically shaped pieces and a stack of “cover cards” that each showed a different arrangement of holes. At the start of the game, the first player picked a card, attached it to the cabinet, and then turned on that timer. The idea was to get all the pieces into their corresponding holes, as outlined by the card, as quickly as they could before that clock – that kept ticking, ticking, ticking – ran out of time. If you couldn’t get all the pieces in correctly before time was up, the pop-up tray sprang up and all your pieces went flying. Sorry – you lose.

 

In 1979, Lakeside introduced a computer version of the game, and added distracting sound effects and flickering lights, to make you even more crazy. You could chose one of four games – Countdown, Brain Bottle, Black Hole, and Light Race. And if you really were a sucker for punishment, you could try Super Perfection, which asked you to put the pieces together before they were even put in the board holes.

 

After a couple rounds of Perfection, a cold glass of milk and some nice long, deep breaths were all that were needed to bring down the blood pressure. Before you wound that buzzer up again, of course.