I remember with nostalgia the old 80's game "Hungry Hungry Hippos" that my little sister got and we all played...

I remember the minor annoyances of the game: too much noise from the game itself, the game gets a bit rowdy (kids making their own noise) which might annoy the parents, marbles left all over the floor, marbles as a choking hazard, one or more hippos malfunctioning, etc.

These problems of the game I was well familiar with.

However, the biggest problem wasn't an issue before today. There are only FOUR hippos. What are all your other kids going to play? Baby Boomers would say, "WHAT other kids?" as they (as a generation) maxed out at 4 children; perhaps 5 on rare occasion.

Nevermind the fact that nature generally gives a couple more children than that, assuming average fertility, nothing is being done to "prevent", the husband doesn't spend half his married life deployed overseas or out of state on business trips, and you didn't get married in your mid 30's.

It never once crossed my mind, until today, that 4 hippos wouldn't be enough. None of the kids wants to volunteer to "sit out" this round.

Never had hungry hippos or a super nintendo.  I had a full bookcase though!

  Give them another game when possible and something
else to look forward to if you can. It may or may not work.
But give it a try you may get fortunate and a new blessing
to find something clean. I have 2 here so it is not bad yet.

I never played that game so I am not sure how it is played, however a good solution might be to add more hippos. Or you might add some other tokes, like alligators or elephants.
 :scratchchin: :scratchchin: :scratchchin:

We had HHH.  It is the game that gives parents nightmares.  All that banging and tapping.  After a week, most of the marbles were either lost or in the cats bed.  It's a pretty stupid game, just snatching as many marbles as you can get as fast as you can.  No skills learned, no strategy necessary.

Instead we opt for a variety of games.  Checkers and chess, where we have tournaments.  We have cards and dice.  All the children play yahtzee.  We have Scattegories, which I highly recommend.  We play charades, Chinese checkers, Chutes and Ladders, Monopoly, and on and on.  The boys LOVE Risk.  Heck, my girls even make their own board games, complete with rules and playing pieces.  We collect little pieces from the Red Rose Tea boxes to use as extra pawns for some games.

But Hungry Hungry Hippos is just a worthless piece of plastic IMO.

Whoa!  I think you are  w a y overthinking this.  It's just a game, and a square board has 4 sides, so 4 players makes sense.  Do you think squares are anti-large family?  I've never seen a game board shaped as a dodecahedron!

Why not just buy a second game and use it for additional hippos?

Chess is also a quiet game for only two.

One of the grooviest openings in chess is the Ruy Lopez - invented by a 15th century Catholic priest who was one of the strongest players of his era.