Anticipation
- $7.99
- Regular price
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$9.99 - Sale price
- $7.99
- Unit price
- per
The cartridge or disc on its own, cleaned and tested — no box or manual. Game condition guide →
Ships in 1–2 business days·Tracking on every order·Signature required on orders $250+
Item Condition
Game only: the cartridge in a protective holder, no box or manual. The photos are of this exact cartridge — look them over closely for its condition, packaging and details. Every cartridge's shell, label and board are checked for authenticity when it comes into the store, and it's tested before it's listed. It ships in a collector's bag or a hard plastic case.
Item Description
A dot appears on the screen, then another, then a line connecting them, while a die counts down and everyone in the room leans toward their controller. Anticipation is Rare's NES spin on the party drawing game, a mix of Pictionary and Trivial Pursuit that Nintendo billed as its first video board game, and it comes alive with a room full of people shouting guesses.
The rules are simple and the pressure is real. As the picture forms, the first player to buzz in gets a short time limit to spell the answer on an on-screen letter board; two wrong guesses or a timeout locks you out and the drawing carries on for everyone else. Each level of the board has four colored categories, blue, green, pink and yellow, and a correct answer earns that color and moves your token by the number left on the die, with the square you land on choosing the next category. Collect all four colors and you advance to the next level, and the first player through every level wins. Easy and Medium games run three levels, while Hard and Very Hard add a fourth, along with special squares that can knock you back. The easier settings help with connect-the-dots outlines, the category name and blanks for each letter, and the harder settings strip those clues away.
Up to four people can play, with computer opponents filling empty seats and players sharing controllers when the group grows past two. It's a snapshot of Rare years before Donkey Kong Country, with music by David Wise, who would go on to score that series, and one of the few NES games built for a crowd rather than a solo player. For a retro game night, few cartridges get a room laughing and arguing faster.
Fast factsgame data via IGDB
- Released
- 1988
- Publisher
- Nintendo
- Developer
- Rare
- Genre
- Quiz & Trivia, Card & Board
- Players
- Single player, Multiplayer
About the game
Anticipation was marketed as Nintendo's "first video board game", and was developed by Rare for the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1988. It allowed for single player against computer-controlled opponents, as well as multiplayer with support for up to four players.
Summary from the IGDB community database — the condition and contents of this listing are described above and in the photos.Watch gameplayAnticipation on NES
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NES
Anticipation
$7.99
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NES
Anticipation
$7.99
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