[Emerson]

I had my little toy soldiers who I'd set up elaborate battles with my monsters, that was fun...
For the most part I didn't really play that much though I prefered my own fantasy world... Still do to a lot of things.

[Lufausljc]

Never enjoyed dolls. The whole idea of talking to the doll and whatnot repulsed me and still does. I wished my dad had bought me LEGOs, but I did have my fair share of puzzles. I loved puzzles, but most of the time it was reading and getting school work done.

[AJ2011]

Legos. Took apart everything i could get my hands on. My parents have this photo of me at the age of three trying to reach for this model ship, which they temporarily kept from my reach. That ship didn't last long, however I was able to construct new ship models in my defense later on.

Strategy games. RPGs, especially turn-by-turn. Chess. Had action figures, but wasn't as interested as in Lego. Got involved in hacking games early on. Lot of my childhood was spent outside. Preferred being outside playing basketball, football, or tennis.

[MadCatter]

A bit of a delayed response, but I found the thread interesting, and it was referenced by another more recent thread.

I was turned off from board games when I was nearly 10 years old by my highly competitive ESTJ father who attempted to swindle me out of my railroad and waterworks in Monopoly for the shitty light blue spots on the board. It was 1AM, my mother had already stopped playing because she was tired, and I told him I'd like to go to bed and keep playing the next day. He told me if I quit now, then I'd lose/forfeit. I was 9, not an idiot, and was determined to see it through. I kept playing until my mother stepped in and ended the game, while my father continued to state that he was the winner, despite me showing that I had more money and better 'property' than he did.

I'm good at board games and card games (anything that involves bluffing or strategy, really), but I don't enjoy them because of the tendency for people to get overly competitive. I LOVED the WWI and WWII 'simulations' we did in my history class in high school. Like a several week long game of 'risk' using resources and info that was accurate to history. My group was Germany, and the point of the lesson was that the team who actually took the time to learn the history, would make the right 'moves' in the simulation in class. We not only actually learned the history, but were the only ones to do so, and our teacher told us we would've won based off of our strategy and resources, but he can't allow us to win, since Germany was in fact.. defeated.

What I did enjoy playing with as a child were things I could take apart or put together. I would build random stuff out of mud or I'd build boats out of leaves for ants to float down the street from a hose... I'd try to let them exit their little ships before the leaf was swept into the sewer. Wasn't always successful. Oops.

I never played with dolls, and my family stopped giving them to me. I did play with stuffed animals, and the movie 'Toy Story' led to some interesting experiments with secretly moving my toys so that my friends at the time would be convinced that they moved on their own. I'd continue to play up that they did it 'all on their own' and never came clean that I was the one who moved the toys. I think I did this out of hope for believing in the fantastical/mythical, without ever actually convincing myself. Maybe an attempt to live vicariously through the "magic" perceived by others.

My grandparents bought me a lego set once. I remember it's the only gift I ever openly expressed my dislike for (I don't know if this is because I got in trouble for it, and was more 'respectful' about gifts after the fact, or if this one particular instance just made me that upset). I was upset because the lego set was a GIRL lego set... with pinks and purples, and it was a 'beach' theme.

My cousin and I got our hands on some plaster once. We made a giant mess with it, but it was definitely fun. My uncle/his father was not too pleased with our mess.

When Pokemon was first popular here in the states, I did not actually play the game, but I 'traded up' for desirable cards/toys. Basically, I'd barter on the playground, with 'superballs' and cards and pokemon toys. Sometimes I'd play with them, but mostly, I'd try to get what the kids considered to be the 'best' item, by trading or negotiating for it.

Now that I think about it, I feel like I was a strange child. I never really felt out of place at the time.

[JSS8b9]

When I was young my parents would buy me clay. I remember I had a small studio in the basement, but that's the extent of that memory. I also remember having a train set but no recollection of actually playing with it. The most glaring memory I have as a child is of course legos. I would spend hours and hours everyday building spaceships, forts, castles, etc.

I also remember drawing a lot. Not of animals, but of tall buildings, cathedrals, skyscrapers, castles, treehouse plans, etc. Also, I would make a lot of three-dimensional drawings of mugs, tables, spheres, etc (shading and all). I started learning the violin from the age of three and was proficient in long division by the time I was in first/second grade.

As I got older, the next big thing was making weapons out of sticks, rocks, nails, etc. I would sharpen stick to make javelins, take some sand paper to a tree fork and make slingshots, weld a bunch of nails together and fitting it to a stick and making a mace, etc. Nerf guns were big too and of course the natural progression from there would be paintball and air soft guns. I would always try and modify these guns by taping laser pointers, modifying or extending the barrels, etc.

Now, I'm a double major in Mechanical Engineering and Physics. My toys nowadays consists of battery powered motors, generators, and playing around with the electron microscope for the research that I'm currently doing.

[jinjaNinja]

I loved my computer games and tecchie-type toys (more of a novelty in the mid-90's), but I was definitely a book kid, and a "wonder out in the back yard apparently doing nothing but really playing out an epic story with my army of imaginary friends" kid. And the occasional "steal your sisters' toddler-age toys and film stop-motion movies with them" kid.

[Zyberjunior]

My childhood was spent biking and messing with legos and other stuff you can build with.

[MadCatter]

I loved my computer games and tecchie-type toys (more of a novelty in the mid-90's), but I was definitely a book kid, and a "wonder out in the back yard apparently doing nothing but really playing out an epic story with my army of imaginary friends" kid. And the occasional "steal your sisters' toddler-age toys and film stop-motion movies with them" kid.

Haha! Yes. I have an old tape somewhere with stop-motion video with some of my younger sister's baby toys on a farm :P

[jinjaNinja]

I remember my friend had only one CD, so our videos had a choppy Brittany Spears soundtrack. haha

[SirDave]

Imagine if you will a time - during the "great" depression - when toys were so uncommon that a single toy, perhaps a small toy "police car" (with a flywheel driving one wheel once that wheel was spun up to speed and then let go) would be the single Christmas gift.

In the days I'm recalling a single toy at Christmas was about it. My mom was especially fond of giving me a flashlight and a pair of winter gloves. Toys were more or less meaningless to me; of no great moment.

I remember when we dug out a basement under our house so we could put in central heating and get rid of the "pot-bellied" stove. A metal contraption turned up that was made up of block like fabrications linked together like railroad cars. I was fascinated by that and still remember my plans for it come summer which never came to be.

I remember only one of the boys I counted as a friend who had lots of toys, and he had a severe health problem resulting from scarlet fever I think; so that was how his parents had placated him. He didn't understand sharing, wanted to manage everything, so those toys added nothing to my own experience beyond some latent frustration.

I wanted to spend my days at adventure and exploration, and we went near and far afield seeking it. I remember - at the tutiledge of a brother in-law who had learned survival techniques in his navy training of letting a razor blade corrode in a sink drain, and using that as a crystal diode, combined with a wire coil, and a small earphone to make a crystal radio to capture radio signals from the local AM radio station.

One of my adventurous friends and I would take our flaslights (and the crystal radio) and take off across the tracks and fields to an abandoned stone quarry hole where huge limestone blocks were piled high and helter-skelter among which we explored the crevasses and spaces between them. The radio's only purpose was to add a little high technology and imaginary intrigue to our adventure.

The tracks I mentioned were for the coal fired RR engines, under the wheels of which, when we put a penny on the tracks, were crushed into half dollar sized copper medallions with an image of Lincoln still visible.

I liked to build things so I'd collect pieces of sheet metal junk from the area, maybe some old barn siding that had washed down stream in the creek that ran parallel to the tracks, and with other debris build surprisingly effective little "cabins."

They were so good that more than once we found the remnants of an anonymous overnight tenant who'd dropped by; an empty wine or whiskey bottle, a hair comb, even a man's old style military overcoat left behind by some hobo who travelled the railroad tracks, maybe from a box-car and disembarking where the RR brushed up close to the outskirts of our town.

To one of my "cabins" I attached a fireplace, caught a field of dry grass on fire, and consequently learned the limits of my freedom.

It wasn't too long before we'd learned about where real caves could be found, and like Tom Sawyer, we explored them to their depths, finally acquiring carbide lanterns with which to do that.

By the age of ten and eleven we were traveling as many as 15 and more miles on our bikes, which ... I was never given one of by my parents, so I built my own from decent but scavenged parts, finish painted by me. Those were the days of Bendix rear wheel breaks, long-horn handle bars, and saddle seats.

In those days, with no television really, every day was an adventure in the planning and doing.