Turning The Game Up To Eleven!!!

For our Halloween special this year, Pete brought over the Stranger Things - Collector's Edition of Monopoly.

He also brought round the "horror movie icons" set he'd ordered from a store in the States that turned out to be a shockingly poor, home-made rip-off (with a flimsy cloth "board", rubbish flat counters et al).

A sad state of affairs, but Pete isn't the sort of person you want to cross so I expect he's not going to let this lie until he has some degree of restitution. 

This was the first meeting of Monopoly Club since June, due to my osteoarthritis diagnosis, and - as it was Halloween - Rachel had really pushed the boat out on seasonal decorations and snacks.

In the Stranger Things version of Monopoly 'houses' and 'hotels' were replaced by 'forts' and transparent 'hideouts', while the Chance and Community chests were replaced by a single deck of Transmissions cards.

These, however, included a number of powerful "Upside Down" cards that a player, upon drawing one, would keep secret until they wanted to deploy it - often with devastating effect!

At one point Rachel used one such card to steal a whole set of properties - with their forts - from Clare, which then became the subject of a running gag for the rest of the evening.

With a single card, the Starcourt Mall and Fairgrounds - each with two forts on - switched
from Clare's possession to Rachel's

Stations were replaced by tunnels and landing on them gave you a roll of a d4 to show where you popped up. With a 25% chance of not moving (which we seemed to roll a lot), this extra rule felt like a bit of a gimmick that didn't add anything to our game.

As an aside, we felt the designers missed a trick by not including a special rule of some kind that would be triggered by rolling an 11.

For this week's game, my counter was the d20, Rachel was a cassette tape, Clare was Hopper's hat and Pete chose the camera.

Our counters

For the majority of the evening the game pretty much ran as usual (even though Pete had removed the 'speed dice' option and I, sitting in a different seat to usual so I could freely stand up and move around with my mobility aid, was nominated banker - a position I was ill-qualified for).

That said, I like to blame my discomfort and the distraction of being banker for my poor luck and weak tactical choices. By the time the time I was bankrupted I only had one complete set of properties.

Clare was out a short time later, never really having recovered from Rachel stealing her two "big money" properties from her.

It then came down to a race against the clock for Pete and Rachel (cut-off time was 11pm), which eventually ended in a draw, neither managing to financially destroy the other.

This means Pete is tearing away from me at the top of the league table (see below) and Clare is nipping at my heels. It turns out I'm developing a bit of a habit of coming last. 

Rachel still has a way to go, but a few more wins or first place draws should see her gaining on the main pack.

The Stranger Things - Collector's Edition looked great, branding-wise, and it's always rewarding to see a game in a slip case, but there were several minor niggles that led to it being marked down in our on-going assessment of the various themed Monopoly sets (see below). 

For instance, while it was nice to have the choice of about a dozen player tokens, they appeared smaller than typical meeples and some (such as Rachel's audio cassette) were particularly difficult to spot on the busy board.

Conversely, the forts were squatter than traditional Monopoly houses and thus it was impossible to get four lined up on the colour bar of a property.

Rachel's elusive token (left) and an overflowing line of forts

"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!

🎶 It's The End of The World As We Know It (And I Roll The Dice) 🎶

This month's entry for our regular Monopoly Club meet-up was a genuine surprise submission by resident Monopoly King, Pete, who'd brought along a Walking Dead-themed set for us to try out.

Adorned with gorgeous Charlie Adlard art from the Image comics, and using comic book fonts for the cards and board text, this was a magnificent game board that very quickly got the thumbs up from all of us.

Not that any of us were experts on the comics - I'd read the first few volumes and then the final issues of the run when it was announced it was coming to an end - but it didn't really matter, most of the material was analogous to aspects of the TV show (which Pete and I knew better), and we all got the vibe it was aiming for.

Instead of Monopoly dollars/pounds the cash was supply vouchers, instead of houses and hotels you were erecting "walls" and "guard towers" (I do think they missed a trick by not replacing the standard Monopoly houses with actual mini walls and towers) and so on.

Supply vouchers in lieu of hard cash

Pete won the dice-off to choose his counter and selected the bucket of body parts (!); Clare was the telephone; Rachel picked Dale's R.V.; and I went for Rick's lucky hat... not that it did me much good in the end.

Counters

As now seems to be mandatory, everyone else got off to great start while I slowly dragged myself around the board.

The Dice Gods were against me. By the time I eventually got my first property (The Kingdom), in an auction by the way, Pete had lapped me and my three fellow players had already purchased numerous properties, utilities, and methods of transport.

My first property

Much like everything else associated with this Monopoly set, the property cards were beautifully designed with random "weathering" effects, such as fading and finger prints.

Card detailing was top notch in this set

My poor start meant I missed out on any chance of accumulating a large portfolio and even though I was 'cash rich' for a while, the first time I landed on one of Clare's guard towers I had to fork over most of my money.

Talking of money, somehow we managed to go most of the game without landing on Free Parking, meaning the accrued collection from fines and other random events amounted to almost 2,000 "supply tokens" before Clare finally found her way to Free Parking and picked it all up.

The Free Parking loot tray

Rachel was the first to be bankrupted (having spent surprisingly little time in jail compared to her usual games) and I didn't stay solvent for much longer (despite my cunning 'spoiler' ruse of refusing to sell certain key properties I owned).

It finally came down to a head-to-head battle between Pete and Clare, with Clare eventually having to concede after she landed one too many times on a "guard tower" belonging to her foe.

Another victory for Pete further cements his commanding position at the head of our league table, although I reckon we're all now getting savvier about the rules and tactics of the game.

Clare has equalled me on points, but has a game in hand since the early days of the club, so has slipped into second place, while Rachel still brings up the rear of the main pack.

I had to doublecheck all the points this month and actually used a calculator to tally the scores - rather than relying on my addled brain - and taking the tied match between Pete and I at the end of last year, I think the scores are all correct now.

League Table, as of July 31, 2024

The theme of the set was well received, although there were issues in spotting the pewter counters on the generally dark squares (as well as the missed opportunity with the houses - see above), but we still ranked it equal to the Simpson's Treehouse of Horror and Star Wars.

MONOPOLIES ARE GO!!!

Special Edition board marking the 50th Anniversary of Thunderbirds

It was a warm, muggy night as we gathered yesterday for the latest meeting of the Monopoly Club. 

The theme of the board was Thunderbirds (chosen by Clare), and Rachel found a suitable Thunderbirds playlist on Spotify to add a music bed to the game via the kitchen's Alexa speaker.

The theming of the board was nicely done, with the properties being actual locations from the 1960's Gerry Anderson "Supermarionation" show. 

Our only quibble was the design choice to make the printing of the board's outer ring seemingly low-res, meaning the the tiny white type under the name of each location, which told you the episode where it was featured, was often barely legible.

Picking from the pool of available metal tokens, I took the role of Lady Penelope's Rolls Royce, Pete was Thunderbird 5 (the space station), Rachel was Thunderbird 1 (the rocket), and Clare chose the submersible Thunderbird 4.

The oppressive atmosphere meant that none of us were exactly bringing our A-game to the table, but we still had a blast.

From the get-go, Pete and Clare were off like gangbusters, while I lagged behind as usual.

However, Rachel's "you don't have to buy everything" approach - and her prolonged, early stay in jail - had the unusual outcome that by the time she finished her first lap there were only three properties left available and she owned none.

And soon after that those were snapped up... just not by Rachel!

Of course, this did mean she was financially very well off and soon gathering properties from the rest of us when we started to experience money troubles or simply wanted to do a deal.

Rachel's ingenious 'cash rich/property poor' approach almost won the day for her

Very quickly though it became clear that Pete's property portfolio was becoming the dominant force on the board, with rows of houses and then hotels popping up in annoyingly inconvenient (and expensive) places.

Pete's Atalante Café in Paris - with a hotel on - did for both Clare and I, with Clare going out first soon followed by me.

The same locale almost finished Rachel off as well, but she hung in for a while longer before being finally forced into bankruptcy, leaving Pete with a very definitive victory.

Alice was Pete's lucky mascot for the evening

This saw him leap to the top of the leaderboard (see below), just nudging me off the top spot due to the fact that he has more second placings.

Clare has slipped to third place, but is nipping at my heels and has the technical advantage in "ties" of having played less games (as Nick subbed in for her one week).

Now with a second place on her docket, Rachel is gaining momentum but still sitting in fourth place, ahead of Nick, who has only played once.

As we've all chosen a board theme now, it's back to Pete to pick what flavour of Monopoly we play next.

We await his announcement with bated breath...

SCORING: Win: 5pts; Second: 3pts; Third: 2pts; Fourth: 1pt

Meddling In Monopoly's Property Market...

Pete's Scooby-Doo-themed Monopoly board

I'm not going to beat about the bush here: I won our Monopoly game last night, quite comprehensively I like to think.

I'm not bragging though because it was way more luck than judgement. I could lie and say my bumbling, dice-misreading, rule-forgetting persona was some deep level Keyser Söze-style Machiavellian misdirection to keep my "foes" off balance... but the honest truth is that's just me.

For the second gathering of The Monopoly Club, a spin-off from The Tuesday Knights, we plumped for the Scooby-Doo-themed iteration of Monopoly, from Pete's huge archive of 'novelty' Monopoly variants.

It was my choice and everyone agreed.

We were originally supposed to have played this last month, but my bout of food poisoning put paid to that.

In lieu of Clare (who was off skiing), Nick joined Pete, Rachel, and I for the evening.

I selected the Velma token (because why wouldn't I? She is the best), Rachel played Scooby-Doo, Nick was Shaggy, and Pete was The Mystery Machine.

My contribution to the game was the donation of a pair of my Scooby-Doo dice, which while thematically appropriate were a bugger to read (especially for someone with dodgy eyesight like myself) because of the tiny numbers on each face.

Unlike a lot of these "branded" Monopoly sets I've checked out over the years, clearly a lot of thought had gone into the design of the Scooby-Doo set, ensuring that not only were the properties "properties" (and not people, monsters, bits of equipment etc) but they were also grouped like 'real' Monopoly locations. 

Unfortunately, the font chosen for the location names on the cards made them often quite difficult to read, especially where they overlapped with the graphic below.

This, and the dice, thus - while accenting the Scooby-Doo mood (along with Rachel's Scooby-Doo playlist on Spotify) - contributed to my bumbling style of play, and almost certainly helped prolong the game.

Velma, Shaggy, Scooby, and The Mystery Machine ready for an adventure

As last time, we used Pete's "house rules" to speed things up (such as the official bonus Monopoly die) and, once again I got off to slow start with everyone else scooping up properties all round the board in their opening few turns.

The modest start of my property empire

My not-so-secret weapons: two restaurants on the most valuable sites

However, I concentrated on the two most valuable sites on the board - rather than initially spreading my portfolio - and then used what money I had left to quickly build-up "snack shacks" (ie. 'houses'), then restaurants (ie. 'hotels'), on those squares.

Somehow, I think from Rachel's mocking of my cookery skills, these became "up-market fish-finger sandwich" restaurants.

My fellow players may have laughed... but it was these that bankrupted first Rachel and finally Peter, with Nick crumbling under the costs of stopping at another of sea food restaurants on a different edge of the board.

Nick plotting strategy

For the longest time, I'd really thought I was going to be the first to go out and that Nick was on course to trounce us all (as he has a real head for boardgames and rules minutiae).

Therefore, I was as genuinely surprised as anyone to realise, in the closing stages of the game, that I was in with a very good chance of winning.

Given that I still don't quite grok a good proportion of the game's mechanics (there's a reason I never 'mortgaged' any of my properties) and was basically winging it according to the dice rolls and "roleplaying out" events in my head.

Much merriment, for example, was made of the moment when Rachel asked how much I wanted for a property I owned and she needed to complete a set, and - without hesitation - I replied: "A thousand dollars."

That then became a running gag for the rest of the evening.

I think Alfred Pennyworth summarised my approach to Monopoly best in 2008's The Dark Knight:

" ...some men aren't looking for anything logical, like money. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn."

I'm certainly not arrogant enough to think I will ever win another game of Monopoly with this crowd, but I was delighted that the one I did win was my choice, Scooby-Doo.

For our next meeting, Pete's going to send over a spreadsheet (or just a list) of his Monopoly collection and Rachel will be picking what board theme we will be tackling.

Pete utterly bamboozled by my random play style

Alice wasn't happy that we were still gaming way past her bedtime and made sure we knew it!