I Vant to Bite Your Finger

Lore & Background

I Vant to Bite Your Finger was designed by Charles Phillips and Charlie Leicht. The game board shows a path marked through a graveyard with 14 red circles, and a large plastic depiction of Dracula and a clock stand at the end. Each player moves a token forward any number of circles, then moves the clock hand the same number of clicks. The more spaces moved, the more clicks the clock receives, increasing the chance that Dracula's cloak will open to reveal his mouth. If the cloak opens, the player must put a finger in Dracula's mouth while another player operates the biting mechanism. If the finger is unmarked, the token stays; if marked by two red dots from washable ink, the token returns to start. The first player through the graveyard wins.

Reader's Guide

I Vant to Bite Your Finger represents a niche entry in late-1970s board game history, published during a period when Ideal Toy Company and Hasbro were collaborating. The game's design by Charles Phillips and Charlie Leicht incorporated a mechanical biting feature that added physical risk and novelty. Reception was mixed: Miller G. Wayne in Toy Wars called it an embarrassing failure for Hasbro as the company struggled to emulate other game companies' success. Conversely, Steve Stack in Christmas Dodos: Festive Things on the Verge of Extinction noted Ideal's broader success and rated the game 4 out of 5 dodos for rarity, suggesting Twilight fans should demand its comeback. The game's limited availability and distinctive mechanic have made it a curiosity among collectors, though it did not achieve mainstream popularity. Its legacy lies in its unusual blend of board game strategy with a tactile, suspenseful element.

Did You Know?

• The game was published in the UK by Ideal Toy Company and in North America by Hasbro in 1979, with different box covers.
• Players who get their finger marked by two red dots from washable ink must move their token back to the start.
• The game was designed by Charles Phillips and Charlie Leicht.
• Steve Stack rated the game 4 out of 5 dodos, indicating it was very difficult to find.

The Graveyard Gauntlet

Set in a spooky graveyard, I Vant to Bite Your Finger challenges two to four players to race their tokens along a winding path of fourteen red circles toward a towering plastic Dracula and a ticking clock at the board's far end. The core tension of the game revolves around a simple gamble: each turn, a player chooses how many spaces to advance, and that same number of clicks is applied to the clock mechanism. The bolder the leap, the greater the odds that Dracula will dramatically raise his cloak and bare his fanged mouth. If the vampire stays still, the token simply settles into its new position. But if the cloak parts, the player must extend a finger into Dracula's gaping maw while a fellow player triggers the biting mechanism. Two small washable-ink markers deliver the punishment: if the finger emerges clean, the token holds its ground; if two red dots stain the skin, the player is sent all the way back to the starting line. The first to traverse the entire graveyard path claims victory.

Designers and Distributors

Behind the vampire's grin stood two creators: Charles Phillips and Charlie Leicht, who conceived the game's mechanics and theme. The title first reached shelves in 1979 through Ideal Toy Company, which handled the United Kingdom market. That same year, Hasbro picked it up for distribution across North America, though the two regions received distinct box artwork, giving the game a slightly different visual identity on either side of the Atlantic. The partnership between Ideal and Hasbro placed I Vant to Bite Your Finger squarely in the competitive landscape of late-1970s family gaming, a period when both companies were jostling for shelf space against a crowded field of rivals. The dual-publishing model also meant the game carried the reputations of two major toy houses simultaneously, a fact that would later complicate how critics and collectors assessed its commercial performance. In the UK, it was an Ideal product; in the US and Canada, it wore the Hasbro name, and that distinction colored the reception it received in each market.

A Divided Verdict

The game's critical legacy is notably split. In the publication Toy Wars, reviewer Miller G. Wayne was blunt, branding I Vant to Bite Your Finger an embarrassing misstep for Hasbro and framing it as evidence of the company's broader struggle throughout the 1970s to match the commercial momentum of its competitors in the board-game space. The tone was unsympathetic, treating the title as a cautionary footnote in Hasbro's catalogue. A more affectionate perspective appeared in Steve Stack's book Christmas Dodos: Festive Things on the Verge of Extinction. Stack highlighted Ideal Toy Company's long track record of producing best-selling toys and games across the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, and singled out I Vant to Bite Your Finger as a representative example of that output. He awarded it four out of five dodos—a rating that signals the game had become genuinely hard to locate in the secondary market. His closing suggestion, that fans of the Twilight series should lobby for a modern reissue, underscored how the title had shifted from a commercial disappointment to a sought-after curiosity.

From Shelf to Shelf

Published in 1979, I Vant to Bite Your Finger arrived at a moment when Ideal Toy Company was still riding the wave of decades of hit products, and the game was cited by later writers as one illustration of that prolific output. Yet the title's physical components—the oversized plastic Dracula figure, the mechanical clock with its clicking hand, the pair of washable red-ink markers, and the graveyard-themed board—give it a tactile, almost theatrical quality that set it apart from the more abstract race-and-chance games of its era. The requirement that a player literally insert a finger into a vampire's mouth while a companion operates the biting mechanism turned each turn into a small shared spectacle, blending risk, humor, and mild gross-out appeal in a way that felt distinctly 1970s. Today, the game's scarcity is its most talked-about trait. Stack's four-out-of-five dodo rating in Christmas Dodos confirms that finding a complete copy has become a genuine challenge for collectors, transforming what was once a modest family game into a niche object of nostalgia and curiosity.