The Mad Magazine Game (1979): Rules for How to Play

Objective

The objective of The Mad Magazine Game is to be the first player to get rid of all of your money.

Set Up

Place the gameboard in the middle of the table.
Shuffle all of the Card cards. Place them face down in the middle of the gameboard.
Choose someone to be the Banker. The Banker separates the money by denomination. The Banker is in charge of the Bank’s money. They need to make sure they keep their money separate from the Bank’s.
The Banker places a $500 bill under the Tough Luck space.
The Banker gives each player the following money:
- 1 – $5,000
- 4 – $1,000
- 2 – $500
Each player chooses a playing piece and places it on the Start space.
The players take turns rolling a die. The player that rolls the lowest number starts the game. Play moves counter-clockwise throughout the game.

How to Play The Mad Magazine Game

You will begin each of your turns rolling both of the dice. Roll the dice with your left hand. If you roll with your right hand, each other player gives you $500.

You will move your playing piece counter-clockwise around the board the number of spaces you rolled on the dice. You will then take an action based on what space you landed on.

Movement in The Mad Magazine Game — The blue player rolled seven on the dice. They will move seven spaces counter-clockwise around the board.

Should there ever be a disagreement on how a card or a board space should be handled, the players will vote. Whichever interpretation gets the majority of the votes is used.

After you have taken the corresponding action, your turn turn ends. Play passes to the player on your right.

Spaces of The Mad Magazine Game

For most of the spaces you follow whatever is printed on the space. There are a couple spaces whose action requires a little more explanation though.

Take a Card

When you land on a Take a Card space, you will take the top card from the deck and follow its directions.

Using a card in The Mad Magazine Game — The current player drew this Card card. They will choose another player to change money with. They will want to pick someone who has less money than they do.

After you have completed the action printed on the card, you will place the card on the bottom of the deck face up.

Whenever you see a face up card at the top of the Card pile, you will shuffle all of the cards to form a new draw pile. The cards will be placed face down on the board.

Double Arrow

When you land on a double arrow space, you will immediately roll one die with your left hand. You will then move your playing piece the corresponding number of spaces and take the corresponding action.

Move into the inner track — The green player has rolled a four on the die. They will move forward four spaces towards the “Glasses Space” and take the corresponding action.

Should you start your turn on an inner track, you will roll just one die and move along the track.

Anywhere

When you land on the Anywhere space, you will roll the dice. If you roll a seven, you collect $500 from the Bank and return to the Start space. If you roll anything other than seven, you just move your playing piece to the Start space.

Should you land on a space that says to send everyone else to Anywhere, all of the other players move their playing pieces to the Anywhere space. For their next turn, each of the other players roll the dice. If they roll a seven they collect $500 from the Bank. No matter what they roll each player then moves their playing piece to the Start space. After all of the players have rolled and moved back to Start, you will take your turn.

Send everyone else to Anywhere space — When a player lands on this space, all of the players besides the player that lands on it are sent to the Anywhere space. They will all roll the dice and potentially receive money before moving to the Start space.

Switching Chairs

If you ever land on a space or draw a card that requires you to change chairs with another player, both players swap positions. Players will not take their money with them when moving. You will get the money that the player you swapped with had in front of them.

Should you ever swap chairs with the person that was the Banker, you will now become the Banker.

Tough Luck

When you land on the Tough Luck space, you take whatever money is underneath the space. The Banker then takes $500 from the Bank and places it under the Tough Luck space.

Start

Whenever you land on or pass the Start space, you lose $500 to the Bank. You do not lose $500 when you move your playing piece to the Start space to start the game.

Winning the Game

The first player to lose all of their money wins the game.

The Mad Magazine Game FAQ

If you have any questions about how to play the game, leave a comment below on this post. I will try to answer any questions asked as best and as quickly as possible.

Components

Gameboard
2 Dice
4 Playing Pieces
24 Card Cards
Play Money
- 15 – $500
- 20 – $1,000
- 10 – $5,000
- 1 – $1,329,063
Instructions

Year: 1979 | Publisher: Parker Brothers | Artist: Jack Burton Davis, Don Martin

Genres: Roll and Move

Ages: 8+ | Number of Players: 2-4 | Length of Game: 60 minutes

Difficulty: Light | Strategy: Light | Luck: High

For more board and card game rules/how to plays, check out our complete alphabetical list of card and board game rules posts.

Written By:

Eric Mortensen

Eric Mortensen is an owner and head writer on Geeky Hobbies since 2014. He is an avid board game player and collector with over 3,000 board and card games in his collection. Since 2014 he has written more than 1,100 board game how to play guides.