If you grew up in the ’90s watching Disney princess movies and dreaming of your own Prince Charming, then you undoubtedly played the board game Pretty Pretty Princess. To be honest, Pretty Pretty Princess was a pretty loose interpretation of an actual board game — it was really more about dressing up in some plastic jewelry to feel like a princess than to get any real satisfaction from winning a game. But for young girls, it was entertaining enough… at least for a half hour.
As stated, the game was pretty simple. The goal of the game was to get each piece of your colored jewelry, then round it out with the crown, and you’d be the Pretty Pretty Princess to rule the three other friends who could play with you. How would you get the jewelry? By spinning a spinner. Yep, you’d spin the spinner, and whatever number it would land on, you’d then move around the board that many spaces, and hope to land on each piece of jewelry you needed to win — the necklace, ring, bracelet, and an earring for each ear. Oh yes, and the coup d’etat — the crown. Let’s not forget about the crown!
Trying to stop you along the way was the dreaded black ring of doom. To spice things up just the tiniest bit, it was possible to land on a space making you put on the evil black ring. Much like a fairytale’s curse, if you had the black ring, you couldn’t win, even if you had everything else. The only way to win once you got the black ring was to either roll on a spot telling you to put something back, or for another person to roll on the black ring space.
While many board games of the ‘90s featured interaction between players like in Outta Control and Girl Talk (click to view our articles on those two games), Pretty Pretty Princess really only had one thing that would have the potential for drama between players, and that was the crown. Unlike the rest of the jewelry, there was only one crown, so if one person already had it, and someone landed on either the take any piece space, or the crown space, then that player would have to take the crown from the person who already had it. Major drama potential… not!
Eventually, the makers of Pretty Pretty Princess clued in on the “like, duh” potential for some synchronized marketing with the Disney princesses and created some variants with the likes of Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and the like. And even though this game is super simple, it has stood the test of time — you can still buy a new version of it today! The game went out of print briefly from 2014-2018, but it’s been back since then, so you can share your princess fantasies with the next generation.
Did you play Pretty Pretty Princess? Let us know in the comments, but first check out this ‘90s commercial for the original Pretty Pretty Princess:
- Pretty Pretty Princess is currently produced by Winning Moves Games USA. The company now also produces 13 Dead End Drive and Double Trouble, among others.
- The designer of Pretty Pretty Princess, Elizabeth Pacza, is still working in game and toy design to this day. She is a skilled seamstress, pattern maker, and fabric engineer.
- The company who originally produced Pretty Pretty Princess, Western Publishing, was most known for publishing Little Golden Books, a series of children’s books that included the best-seller The Poky Little Puppy.
- Hasbro acquired Pretty Pretty Princess in 1994 as part of its purchase of the games division of Western. They marketed it under their Milton Bradley imprint until licensing the game to Winning Moves in 2018.
- Pretty Pretty Princess is for ages 5 and up and doesn’t require reading or complex counting skills, and contains no electronics or mechanical components.
- Pretty Pretty Princess is currently produced by Winning Moves Games USA. The company now also produces 13 Dead End Drive and Double Trouble, among others.
- The designer of Pretty Pretty Princess, Elizabeth Pacza, is still working in game and toy design to this day. She is a skilled seamstress, pattern maker, and fabric engineer.
- The company who originally produced Pretty Pretty Princess, Western Publishing, was most known for publishing Little Golden Books, a series of children’s books that included the best-seller The Poky Little Puppy.
- Hasbro acquired Pretty Pretty Princess in 1994 as part of its purchase of the games division of Western. They marketed it under their Milton Bradley imprint until licensing the game to Winning Moves in 2018.
- Pretty Pretty Princess is for ages 5 and up and doesn’t require reading or complex counting skills, and contains no electronics or mechanical components.
