"Where's The Bloody Tea Room?"

The National Trust-themed Monopoly board

Dressed in metaphorical cagoules and wellington boots, the first Monopoly Club meeting of the year saw us visiting (and purchasing and developing) National Trust properties around the British Isles.

After our last game at Christmas, Rachel had chosen the National Trust-themed board from Pete's extensive catalogue of quirky Monopoly iterations.

This also meant she got to pick first when it came to choosing game tokens and Rachel plumped for the iron, which turned out to be a right bugger to spot when it was being moved around the photographically-illustrated playing surface.

Our Tokens: the only one unique to this set was a wheelbarrow and none of us chose that one

Clare was the thimble, Pete was the race car and I was the dog.

At first, I felt I was doing quite well, accumulating a small portfolio of linked properties that allowed me to build the first Visitor Centres (this game's take on hotels), but alas my hubris was my downfall.

The start of my property empire... and, pretty soon, the end also!

I was focused on my standard tactic of trying to buy up the sets on either side of the "Go" square, but this meant I wasn't focussed on the bigger picture.

Property rich and cash poor is never a great state to be in, and employing Pete's "speed die" to keep the game moving, meant I was soon facing bills I just couldn't afford to pay. My property empire crumbled and I was out.

And I'm out of the picture, leaving Pete, Clare and Rachel to fight over the board

A little while later Pete went bankrupt as well, leaving a stalemate between Clare and Rachel.

The board was awash with the red "Visitor Centres", with only a few of the green "Holiday Homes" still in play.

Cash was flowing across the table in both directions for a long time with neither player really gaining much ground, although Clare seemingly holding the largest number of properties we have yet witnessed in our games.

By the time we called it a night, Clare owned a substantial chunk of the board

Eventually as the clock struck 11pm, it was agreed to call it a draw and let the ladies share the points for first place (four points each, as we did last month when Pete and I called it a draw, instead of the usual five points for the overall winner).

You can see on the table below that Clare has jumped over me into second place and Rachel, while still in fourth place, is closing the gap on me from the other direction.

As Pete would later point out, Clare is now in a very strong position as she has a game in hand.

The general consensus was that the National Trust board was "okay", but except for some wordage changes on the "chance" and "community chest" cards, the addition of the wheelbarrow, and, of course, the properties themselves there wasn't that much difference from the standard, vanilla Monopoly.

It was felt that if the game had really wanted to emulate the National Trust experience it should have featured "tea rooms" at some point, as these are often the highlight for many a British person visiting these locales in reality. 

In fact, it's a bit of a cliché but many people - especially season ticket holders - will pop in to National Trust properties just for a cream tea in the Tea Room!

While the final conflict was being fought around the board, Pete and I were researching other Monopoly variants on Amazon, with a Willy Wonka and The Chocolate Factory iteration catching my eye.

The trouble with that one was that players were purchasing a mixture of "people" and "places" (locations around The Chocolate Factory, as seen in the classic 1971 Gene Wilder version of the story).

Generally, we're quite old school and prefer versions where you are buying locations, but can sometimes justify the switch to putting together a team of people. However, on superficial inspection this mixing of both styles didn't sit right with us.

Next month's board theme was my choice and we're going globe trotting and treasure hunting with the Indiana Jones Monopoly set.

'Tis The Season For Foreclosures, Bankruptcies, and Rent Arrears...

Pete - the king of Christmas outfits - even has a Monopoly-themed jumper!

"Christmas is a very busy time for us, Mr. Cratchit. People preparing feasts, giving parties, spending the mortgage money on frivolities. One might say that December is the foreclosure season."

- Ebenezer Scrooge (Michael Caine), The Muppet Christmas Carol (1982)

What better way to truly capture the spirit of Christmas than another round of the ultimate game of capitalism?

This month's chosen Monopoly board theme was Christmas, with a glorious board marked up with various elements of the traditional Christmas holiday season.

From the selection of metal playing pieces, Pete picked the Snowman, I was the turkey, Rachel was the reindeer and Clare took the role of Christmas elf.
 

The playing pieces

The themed board

For the longest time, it felt as though none of us were buying up properties but once I got hold of the "Snowman" (The Park Lane of Christmas Monopoly) I was gripped with a determination to get its pair ("Santa" aka Mayfair) and then live off the rents I could garner from those unfortunate enough to stop in that corner of the board, just before "Go".

I eventually managed to purchase "Santa" off of Clare, but hadn't planned on my property portfolio shrinking to just those two locations and "Chimneys" (one of the "power companies").

My early property portfolio

My "cunning" trap takes shape

Reasonably quickly I then built four "grottos" (houses) on both of those locations, but didn't actually have the cash to replace them with a pair of red "workshops" (hotels), until someone actually landed on Snowman and coughed up the hefty rent.

People started setting aside "Tim cash" in their bank accounts, readying themselves for landing on either Santa or the Snowman.

Although, in all honesty, it was more a threat than a reality as the dice certainly working in my favour and tended to hop people over my two properties and past "Go".

There really was something going on with the dice last night, not only were we rolling an awful lot of doubles but there appeared to be a statistically improbable number of double sixes in that mix.

All these doubles - and a penchant for simply landing on "Go To Jail" - saw a lot of us ending up in the Big House. At one stage, after Clare had declared bankruptcy, Rachel, Pete and I all found ourselves in the pokey at the same time.

Rachel, Pete and I all end up in jail at the same time!

I actually tried to stay in jail for as long as possible every time I got sent down (no doubt on some tax fiddling charge), in the hope that people would stop on my valuable land while I was twiddling my thumbs... and thus bulk up my bank balance.

Once Pete had managed to bankrupt Rachel, that left vast tracts of land as mortgaged properties that Pete couldn't afford to develop.

He had workshops dotted around two sides of the board, while I just held on to my corner, but by this time I was sitting on a pretty hefty pot of money.

With the game now grinding on, the clock ticking past 11pm, and only Pete and I left in it, we agreed to call it a draw, taking "four points" each in the league table, instead of the standard "five" for a win.

Entente Cordiale: In the spirit of Christmas, we shake hands on a shared victory

The Monopoly Club League Table, as it stands at the end of 2023

It was agreed that this was a well-designed Monopoly set, with plenty of suitably infantile opportunities for giggling as juvenile innuendos (which prompted Rachel to enquire about the possible exitence of a "rude"-themed Monopoly).

The only thing really going against it was the difficulty of reading some of the cards and locations as they were quite "busy". I also felt the counters were on the small side, but I think I might have been spoiled by Simpson's Treehouse of Horror set which has set the bar very high.

Grading the themes of this year's Monopoly sets

Halloween Special: "Another Case of Monopoly-related Violence, Chief!"

Yes, they glowed! No, we didn't play in the dark!

After a summer hiatus, Monopoly Club resumed last night with a Halloween special, in the form of The Simpsons: Treehouse of Horror-themed board, complete with glow-in-the-dark figurines.

The thought that had gone into the theming of this set was obvious, and much appreciated, from the names of the locations (all drawn from Treehouse of Horror episodes of The Simpsons) to the quirky "fate" and "trick or treat" cards.

And let's not forget that instead of houses and hotels, you're building "tombs" and "mausoleums".

The production values of this Monopoly set were top-notch, with easily readable cards and large, chunky miniatures that meant even I couldn't mistake which character was which once we were mid-game.

Winning the dice-off to see who'd go first, I chose Comic Book Guy In Superhero Costume as my character, Rachel was Alien Maggie, Clare picked Count Dracula Mr Burns, and Pete was Bart-Fly.

The beginning of the end of my property empire

I got off to a thundering start, accumulating a broad spread of property, but that was also, ultimately, my undoing. Having blown my wad on all those locations, I ended up with little cash to pay rent when I landed on other people's properties.

Hence the early departure of Comic Book Guy.

WORST. GAME. EVER.

Conversely, Pete had an incredible turnaround after a slow start, developing with his Mausoleum Empire that systemically picked everyone else off, one after another.

Rachel followed me into oblivion, a poor showing from the Knight household, having seemingly spent a disproportionate amount of time in jail again (as is her wont).

Clare hung on into second place, but eventually couldn't cope with the crippling cost of landing on a series of Mausoleum plots established by Pete.

This means in the group leader board (see below), Pete is now the indisputable leader of the pack and Clare has slipped past me into second place.

Rachel's 1:12 scale dolls house Monopoly set made a cameo appearance as we were wrapping up for the evening and debating the choice of themes for future evenings.

Clearly too small to actually play, but the dolls house Monopoly is still very cute

At Pete's suggestion, we have also started logging ratings (out of 10) for each of the themes, inspired by the universal love for the care and attention (and playability) of the Treehouse of Horror set.

The current proposals for future games are the Indiana Jones set next month (my choice as it's my birthday month) and then the Christmas-themed set in December (naturally).