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The 1980s represents a time when toys and games were taking two paths a new twist to the traditional board game and the development of the electronic toy.

If you were a child in the early 1980s, your favourite toy or game from that period could easily have been the Mousetrap board game or the latest Scalextric slot car racing track. Whichever toy you chose, the chances were that you picked one that was fun and represented movement.

What would surprise most kids from the 1980s is that these toys were actually modern versions of much older toys. Mousetrap went on sale in 1963. However, changes to the board game meant that the newer version allowed players more decision-making, which made it popular with slight older children as well as with younger ones.

The updated board game allowed players to manoeuvre their opponents onto the trap space, ready to be caught out. This update reflected a change in the mindset of children of that decade, who were more willing to take on a challenge than the previous generation.

It should come as no surprise that the game has been redesigned within the last few years. In 2006, an additional two mousetraps were added to the game and the board was completely revamped.

The new design plays to the modern child’s need for constant entertainment. Not only does it feature the three-trap design, but it also has the mousetrap board set up in advance, so players can be caught out from the very beginning of the game.

The first Scalextric track was produced in the 1950s. 1980s kids were the first ones to get to play with super cars. The updated version was made of plastic, which allowed both cars and tracks to be brighter, look cleaner and have a fresher feel. Ironically, this track is now known as the Classic track.

The Scalextric was revamped in the 1990s with a Micro version. This allowed tracks to be set up in smaller spaces, allowing the track to be made up in a child’s bedroom, so they could return to the toy day after day without having to set it back up again.

Building exciting tracks was definitely an element of the game popular with the 1980s generation. Having to compete with computer games and hand-held consoles, two new versions of the Scalextric toy were released in the 2000s. In 2001, Scalextric Sport went on sale, followed by Scalextric Digital in 2004.

Scalextric Sport gave the user a smoother track surface for better game play, while Scalextric Digital allowed up to six fully-controllable cars on its two-lane track at any time effectively becoming a slot-less racing track.

As with the Mousetrap revamp, both developments of the Scaletrix over the last decade are popular with the children of today, who need to be constantly entertained.

Whatever your favourite toys and games from the 1980s, there’s a chance they were created decades before, and were redesigned for the modern child.