While Yu-Gi-Oh! has become synonymous with duel monsters, that wasn’t always the case for the series. Originally published as a grim-dark gaming manga, Yuugi and the gang would participate in a new game or challenge each week, with his alter ego, Yami Yugi coming out in full force to right the wrongs that befell Yuugi and his friends, usually with murder.
Since the original manga focused on games in general, there were many that didn’t get the attention that they deserved. With a plethora of game types, even one that was literally just Digimon, some were more interesting than a basic card game and would have been much more fun to focus on.
10 Paper Shift
After a new student tried to chloroform Anzu (Tea), Yami Yugi challenges him to this game with very simple rules. A glass bottle is placed on top of several papers laid on a table, all overlapping. The point of the game is to get the paper off the table without knocking over the bottle.
While it might not sound as entertaining as a Blue-Eyes White Dragon fighting the true Yu-Gi-Oh! hero Jerry Beans Man, viral videos of the last few years prove otherwise. The trick is in confusing your opponent. This is a game you can play right now, unlike many of the rest on this list.
9 Iron Plate Ice Hockey
After Yuugi and his friends are attacked at a school festival, Yami Yugi seeks revenge against the bully leader. Yami Yugi challenges the leader to a shadow game of Iron Plate Ice Hockey, turning the weapon the bully used, the cooking instrument called an iron plate, against him.
By heating up the iron plate, as it is basically a stovetop, it generates a heat field. Then a block of ice is used as a puck, with spatulas as the strikers. Yami Yugi ups the stakes by putting gunpowder in the ice, so when it melts or breaks it explodes on the heated iron plate.
8 Scorpion Shoe
One of the most well-known games from the Yu-Gi-Oh! manga is the Scorpion Shoe. After Jounouchi (Joey) buys a pair of shoes from a shady dealer, he is mugged. It turns out that the dealer sells the shoes, hires muscle to get them back, and repeats the process.
Yami Yugi goes to right the wrong by challenging the shady dealer to Scorpion Shoe. A scorpion and 10 coins are put into a shoe. Each player takes turns reaching in to grab coins with the hopes they don’t get stung. The shady dealer’s hopes did not come true.
7 Murder Mansion
One part escape room, one part horror movie, the Murder Mansion is a multi-level game of skill, luck, and deduction. In another part of Seto Kaiba’s revenge plot, Yuugi, Jounouchi, Anzu, and Honda (Tristan) are locked in the house and have to find their way out before a literal serial killer gets them.
The first part traps one of each of their hands under a guillotine with a button at each station, with the correct button releasing them. Part two pits Jounouchi against the Chopper Man in a locked room loaded with gasoline. This part is almost exactly like the Mausoleum Trap from Saw IV.
6 Capsule Monster Chess
As the popularity of The Queen’s Gambit has shown, chess is a massively followed game, but that doesn’t mean that it can’t be improved upon, which is exactly what Yu-Gi-Oh! tried to accomplish. Sometime after defeating Seto Kaiba, Yuugi is challenged to a game of Capsule Monster Chess by Mokuba Kaiba.
There are a variety of monsters that range from level 1 to 5 and each has its own special moves. It is played on a game board that can have different terrains. The game is about strategy and strength with an added collect them all aspect to it.
5 Deadly Food Russian Roulette
Russian Roulette is already a controversial game, if it can even be called a game, but the Yu-Gi-Oh! manga kicked it up a step by introducing the Deadly Food Russian Roulette game. Mokuba returns to seek revenge for himself and his brother against Yuugi, while also casually poisoning Jounouchi.
On a spinning top table with 6 plates of food, 2 are poisoned. Each participant takes a turn spinning the top and eating whichever plate lands in front of them. The food is a variety of different styles, including a hamburger, spaghetti, and a kiddie meal, and yes, the kiddie meal was one of the poisoned foods.
4 Cyber Shooting Battle
Taking the idea of laser tag and adding haptic feedback in the form of electric currents seems like a bad way to play a game, but since this has come to the real world several times over, Seto Kaiba was just setting a stage for the future.
Planning his revenge against Yuugi, Kaiba made the Death T, a series of games made to kill. This first game sees two teams of 3 laser tag battle each other, but the losers get physical damage from the hits.
3 Get A Million Yen
Another entry that is technically multiple games in one, but this game is actually a television show that plays like a combination of Wipeout and Big Brother. In the manga, Jounouchi is selected to participate as a contestant.
The first part is a dart-throwing challenge where the board has a section that makes the contestant automatically lose. The next section is the electric helmet of terror, where contestants have to run through a maze while not touching the electrified cables around them with a metal helmet. The final part is a roulette wheel where you can win or get hurt.
2 Monster Fighter
Merging what is now known as Yu-Gi-Oh! and Rock’em Sock’em Robots, Monster Fighter was introduced as the newest top-selling game, so Jounouchi and Yuugi set out to become the best players.
Monster Fighter is played with a gun disk that a monster is put on and it has four buttons; kick, block, punch, and special attack. The goal is to knock the other player’s monster out of the ring. One player does that by beating the opponent with his fists, so Yami Yugi murders him.
1 Monster World
Looking almost identical to Capsule Monster Chess, Monster World is actually an RPG that is played similar to Dungeons and Dragons or Warhammer 40K. There are player characters and then there is a Dark Master aka Game Master, who controls the enemies in the game. The goal of the game is to save towns and defeat the Dark Master Zork
The whole friendship squad, Yuugi, Jounouchi, Anzu, and Honda take on a possessed Bakura for this game. This is also the game that ended the series, taking place across 10 chapters. The original manga also included a playable version of Monster World without the possessed GM.