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March 31



There is a new board game that is becoming wildly popular with America`s children. . . .

Better back up. It is not exactly a board game. Twenty years ago it probably would have been a board game. Now, though . . . .

Too many dots. Too many dots. I`ll try to stop using those dots. But this whole thing is so wacky. . . .

Get out of there, you dots! There must be a better way to tell this story than with dots at the end of every sentence. Why don`t we just tell the story as if it were normal news?

The board game is called Mall Madness. The reason it is not entirely accurate to call it a board game is that it is not played on a regular board- is not played on a big, folded-out piece of hard cardboard, as Monopoly, Clue, etc. have always been played.

Rather, Mall Madness looks like an audiocassette. That`s right-it looks just like a tape that a kid would stick into his or her Walkman. Same size. The kid can carry the game in his or her pocket. It looks so much like a cassette that it even has those little holes where the rolls of tape would be. The diminutive game board pulls out of the cassette.

This design, of course, is no coincidence.

''The cassette look is instantly recognizable to kids,'' said Gary Bergmann, director of marketing for Milton Bradley Co., manufacturer of the game. ''Kids are very comfortable with something they are already familiar with. The two `windows` where you would look to see how much tape has played in a cassette? Those windows are our spinners.''

The fact that board games are now being designed to look like music cassettes, however, is not the significant thing here. Mall Madness is only one of six games that Milton Bradley is promoting in the cassette format. What I find the most intriguing about Mall Madness is the premise of the game. Let`s quote from the back of the Mall Madness package:

''Mall Madness. Will you be the first to spend all your money? You`re let loose in a shopping mall with $200. Go to it and spend it all! Move from store to store, buying everything you can. But stay away from the bank. A trip there and you`ll add to your bankroll. Empty your pockets first and win the game!''

Pause for a moment, if you will, and consider that. Traditionally the goal in money-oriented board games has been to acquire money-the classic example being Monopoly. The more money you got, the better. The person with the most money won.

Granted, that might have been partially responsible for spawning generations of greedy, money-hungry Americans. But this Mall Madness game-the point is that the more money you save, the worse you do. The goal is to spend all your money in the mall. If you fail to spend your money-if you save it-you are penalized.

You can`t see the game board right now, but I can, so let me describe it. The game board is a miniaturized replica of a mall. There are plants and ponds and benches-it`s a modern mall, all right.

The periphery of the game board is lined with shops. If you land on the jewelry store you ''get'' to spend $40. If you land on the department store, you ''get'' to spend $50. If you land on the record store, you ''get'' to spend $30.

The way that you win the game is to be the first person to spend every cent. In fact, when your marker moves onto the triumphant winning space, that space is labeled ''Broke.'' That`s how you become the champ-you spend all your money and go broke.

And what is the worst thing that can happen to you in Mall Madness?

The worst thing is to land on the ''Bank'' square. When you do that, you get $30 back. The bank credits your account with $30. You have to put the money away for a rainy day, so to speak. This is considered awful. It means you are $30 away from going broke-i.e., $30 away from winning the game.

Milton Bradley Co.`s Gary Bergmann was relucant to draw any philosophical conclusions about what this means. ''It`s the reality of (life today),'' he said. ''It`s just spending money. People spend money.''

He said that the game board was designed to look like a mall because ''I would seriously doubt if there is a kid in America who doesn`t know what a mall is. Just as I would doubt if there is a kid in America who doesn`t know what a cassette looks like.''

But what about the message here-the message that to spend all your money at a mall is good, and makes you a winner, but to save money and put it in the bank is bad, and makes you a loser?

''There`s no message,'' Bergmann said. ''If you start scratching any lower below the surface, you`re looking too deeply.''

He did concede that this is dramatically different than, say, Monopoly, where the goal was to make the most money. But he flatly denied the notion that the Mall Madness game might be some nefarious plot on the part of America`s shopping malls to train the nation`s children to grow up into a generation of compulsive shoppers.

''That would hardly be necessary,'' he said. ''Kids today are quite aware of how to spend their money at the mall.''

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