I wasn’t much of a gamer when I was a child. I played games like Monopoly, UNO, & Yahtzee which to me as a child were fun. But pretty much, these were the most available games at the time. But of course there were other popular games that could be purchased in store. One of which has been around for now over four decades.
As a child one of my favorite games to play was the game of Perfection. Now Perfection has been around since 1973 & was released by Lakeside Toys. In this original version players had a scoreboard that they could keep track of how much time they ended up with. The top of the board was solid, so the red button in the center had to be pressed down to secure the launching pad.
In 1975 Lakeside Toys would release a new design with newer sleeker version of Perfection. They would make the game a little more compact, but it would be a little chunkier then the original. They would eventually take away the scoring mechanic & allow players to physically press the launching pad down. The launching pad would have the symbol slots molded into it. Milton Bradley would later take over the Perfection property & continue to release this version for several decades.
Also in 1975 Lakeside Toys would release a much harder version of Perfection called Superfection. In Superfection players would now have to take the geometrical pegs & pair them up with a second piece & then place it onto the proper slot. Since they made it a little harder Lakeside toys scaled down the 5×5 board to a 4×4. Players were also granted a two minute timer instead of the 60 second timer from the lesser Perfection.
A few years later in 1978 Lakeside Toys would release a group version of Perfection called Challenge Perfection. This version would allow players to sit at a four-sided board. Each player would have the same amount of pieces to play with. The timer would be omitted from this version because the first player to place all of their pieces would be the winner. The winner would be given a card board cutout of a trophy which could later be defended.
During the 1980’s Selchow & Righter would release a two player “Head to Head” version of Perfection. In this version players would race against the timer to place cutout versions of the pegs. When one player finishes first they hit a pop-up bar in front of them & it launches the opposing player’s pieces from the board.
This original design for Perfection would stay the same until an “travel” version appeared on the market in 1990. Milton Bradley would come up with a way scaling down their chunky version with a more compact travel version. Overall it was just a smaller 4×4 version of the original 5×5 version. The one cool thing added was a swing out compartment for the playing pieces. Milton Bradley also replaced the original knob timer with a slide timer.
Many years would go by until Milton Bradley was finally phased out by parent company Hasbro. In 2007 Hasbro would re-release the travel version of Perfection as an “Fun on the Run”game. The only big change to the game was the Hasbro game added onto the packaging.
Then in 2012 Hasbro would actually do the unthinkable. They took the original 5×5 version of Perfection & dumb it down to an easier, much more quicker 3×3 version. 
The game of Perfection has a very long history & many different version. Perfection is a game for kids or even adults who want to better their eye hand coordination. Perfection is also perfect of memorization.
That being said, I am saddened by the fact the Hasbro basically took an easy game & made it much easier to play. I just can’t fully comprehend taking away the challenge of adding a few more pegs to the board. I know it probably cut the costs of production, but it just takes away the fun of the game of Perfection. They just should have released another version of the travel edition.
Thank you for joining me for a history of the game of Perfection.
Best to stop the timer before all your pieces pop & game on!
-Christopher Richter
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