"The Chamber of Commerce Has Been Opened"

Because this month's roleplaying game session had to be cancelled, Pete suggested we sneak in an extra meeting of Monopoly Club instead - which we did last week.

Then, for our 'regular' game of Monopoly, Pete conjured up a surprise themed set that I don't think any of us could have predicted: Harry Potter. 

Game elements even came with their own little suitcases

Based on the successful movie franchise, this set turned out to be not only very attractive but also a rather innovative hack of the original game.

In my excitement I forgot to take a picture of the board, but here's a publicity picture

The game's main financial resource was rebranded as "house points", and all the property costs were different, for example everything on the first side of the board was "10 house points", on the second side was "20 house points" and so on. Rents on single properties were equal to the purchase price, and increased if you had a full colour set, or planted a "house crest" on your properties.

There are no 'houses' and 'hotels' in this game, instead you can buy - once you own a complete colour set of properties - a "house crest".

Once you've purchased a property it is considered "explored" and the game ends the moment the final property is "explored". Then everyone, who is still in the game, adds up the value of their properties and loose house points. The person with the highest number of points is declared the winner.

Our tokens

As well as picking your transport token at the start of the game (I was Harry's broomstick, Pete was Hagrid's motorbike and sidecar, Clare was the night bus, and Rachel the Hogwarts' Express), you also got to choose your house: I was Gryffindor, Rachel was Hufflepuff, Clare was Slytherin, and Pete was Ravenclaw. 

My House card

Your house granted you certain bonuses (such as not paying rent when you landed on your own 'common room' - this edition's version of train stations), but could also make you susceptible to certain Owl Posts (this game's brilliant spin on Chance and Community Chest).

Some cards you drew that might land you in trouble could be redirected at other players if they were of certain, named houses. I remember at one point I managed to send Clare to jail because she was a Slytherin.

The Owl Post cards came with their own little owl stand

Some of the cards, though, were clearly marked as Howlers... and they were always bad news for the person whose turn it was to take the next Owl Post.

As this iteration came with its own, unique finishing conditions, we opted not to use Pete's official 'speed die' this week (something we haven't entertained since last November's Wonders of The World game).

And while Pete remained arbiter of the rules, for the first time ever he passed the mantle of 'banker' to someone else. Rachel took up the position of Prefect, which meant not only did she get a badge (see below), but she was in charge of doling out - and collecting - the house points as properties (locations in and around Hogwarts) were brought and sold.

We'd already guessed that this would play quicker than our usual games and, in fact, the session lasted around 90 minutes, which still felt like a reasonable duration.

The start of my property empire

I won't bury the lede: I won, which moves me within touching distance of Pete at the top of the league table (see below). But what surprised us was that Pete went out comparatively early in the game.

In fact, he was the only person not to make to final House Point tally. 

The general consensus was that he had been unlucky in his early trips around the board, not being able to purchase any property, while the rest of us were hoovering up whatever we could. 

Gryffindor House crests on display

This isn't a version of Monopoly to be taken cautiously. I just went on a spending spree, then as we got down to the final available properties I indulged in some horse-trading, got myself a couple of complete colour sets, slammed house crests on them, and waited for the rents to roll in.

Bizarrely, I think a lot of my own good fortune came from the fact that, compared to everyone else, I hardly ever landed on the Owl Posts, instead those turns were spent making purchases when possible.

While I ended up with the most House Points, Clare was second, and Rachel third, which means I managed to glide ahead of Clare in the club's league table and am now just two points shy of Pete.

With its emphasise on the accumulation of House Points rather than properties per se, the Harry Potter Monopoly plays quite differently to the more traditional iterations of the game.

However, once we got our heads around its particular quirks it turned out to be as challenging and exciting as any version we've played in the last two-and-half years.

When it came to grading the actual theme, there was no denying that a lot of thought and love had clearly gone into the various elements and reworking of the old school rules.

There were some gaps in the rules mechanics though (e.g. how do you count 'mortgaged properties' in the final tally?) and a lack of baggies for the House Point tokens - which we'd popped out the cardboard sheet they arrived in - shaved half a point off of perfection.

"Th-Th-Th-That's (Not) All, Folks"

It was another hot night in Monopoly town, meaning we had the kitchen louvre doors open all evening to let in the cool air (and flies!).

Compounding that, we were all exhausted for various reasons. However, the evening's Looney Tunes theme brought out the best in all of us and the evening's thrilling game went down to the wire.

The theming of this 26-year-old set (which Pete had purchased second-hand, via eBay, from the States but was still in pristine condition) was top class. 

The overarching idea, as I grasped it, was that you were film company executives "hiring" the stars (the individual properties) for a variety of animated features (the completed sets).

Houses and hotels became "TV sets" and "movie theatres", while cash money was replaced with "laughs". Every denomination of "laugh" featured a different famous Looney Tunes character.

A That's All Folks card I picked up during play

"Chance" and "community chest" became "What's Up, Doc?" and "That's All Folks!", and, again, these were all decorated with black and white sketches of famous cartoon characters.

An added treat that we all approved of was special abilities that could be gained from rolling doubles. These ranged from being gifted "laughs" from all the other players to removing competitor's properties from the board.

The pewter playing pieces, representing well-known faces, were gorgeous (and I kept thinking how cool they would be painted up like wargames' miniatures).

Rachel initially chose Daffy Duck, but then switched to Bugs Bunny before we started

Rachel was Bugs Bunny, Pete was Marvin The Martian, Clare was the Road Runner, and I picked Wile  E. Coyote to be my avatar.

After a slow start - getting used to the board and its idiosyncrasies - I suddenly realised I was actually doing rather well. Thus it was a huge surprise when I bankrupted Pete, who, in recent games, has been on a hot run of luck.

Then Rachel walked into one of my cunning traps and I bankrupted her as well.

Which left Clare and I in a head-to-head tussle (rather appropriate for Wile  E. Coyote and the Road Runner) with our mandated 11pm cut-off fast approaching.

Although I had the bigger bank balance and property portfolio at that point, Clare managed to hang on and force a draw (according to our club rules, which I wrote... so I can't complain!)

Clare and I share the trophy as Pete looks on 

Thus we both shared the Acme Looney Tunes trophy and got four points each on the league table (see below). This left the pair of us still tied in second place (although Clare has the advantage of having played one less game).

The trophy!

Even going out first in this week's game, Pete maintains a commanding lead that's going to take a number of similar results in coming months to stand a chance of any of us overtaking him.

When it came to judging the gorgeous board and its adherence to the Looney Tunes theme, the only genuine issue we had with it was the difficulty of discerning the actual names of the properties.

While the name of the particular cartoon (the set) was prominent on the board and relevant cards, the actual individual name (the cartoon character) was comparatively small. Yes, they featured coloured pictures of the characters, but not every one was immediately recognisable in the heat of the moment.

Check the picture at the top of this post and the one immediately below to get an idea of what I'm talking about.

Nevertheless, this was a minor glitch in an otherwise perfect set, so we rated it at 9.5 out of 10, on a par with the posh Indiana Jones set. And Looney Tunes didn't even come in a wooden box!