A gentle introduction into Monopoly world (Monopoly Junior)

Member Name: Chelle1969

Product:	Monopoly Junior
Date:	20/07/09 (133 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Colourful, attractive to kids, fun to play

Disadvantages: None

I was recently introduced to the delights of Monopoly Junior during a visit to my two nephews aged 5 and 7 - even before I'd got my coat and shoes off I was being asked if I'd like to play 'nopoly' with them. It was new, a birthday present, and nobody was going to get in or out of the house without a ride on 'The Rollercoaster Money Game' as it's dramatically described on the box.

History
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Charles B. Darrow created Monopoly, the board game, in America during the great depression. In 1935, it's first year of production, it was the best selling game in America. Now it is the best selling board game in the world, sold in 103 countries and produced in 37 languages. The basic premise of Monopoly is to work your way around the board buying up property, building houses and hotels on your property and trying not to be made bankrupt by other players.

Monopoly Junior, from Waddingtons/Hasbro, is a specially designed version of the board game for children that is played along the lines of traditional Monopoly but in a much simpler, more colourful and fun way.

What's In The Box?
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1 game board - similar to the traditional monopoly board but rectangular rather than square and considerably more colourful
25 chance cards - smaller than the adult version, ideal for little hands
1 pack of monopoly money - pocket money denominations of £1, £2, £3, £4 and £5
4 playing pieces - plastic cars
48 plastic ticket booths - 12 each of 4 colours, similar to the houses in traditional monopoly
1 die
Instructions

What is it and how is it played?
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Monopoly Junior is set in a fairground. So rather than the streets of London, the squares on the game board are amusements that you might find at the fairground such as, Big Wheel, Dodgems, Candy Floss, Puppet Show, Merry-Go-Round, Fireworks and Haunted House

The aim of the game is to be the player with the most money when another player runs out of cash and the game ends. To do this you set up your ticket booths on amusements and collect entrance money from players who pass by.

A brief instruction on playing: Each player chooses a coloured playing piece and is given 10 ticket booths in that colour and a set amount of money. As with traditional Monopoly all players start from the 'GO' space in one corner of the board and in turn you throw the die and move that number of spaces around the board. Various things can happen depending on what you land on.
If you land on a vacant amusement you must pay the amount indicated on the square to the bank and then place one of your ticket booths on the square. From then on if another player lands on that space they have to pay the same amount to you. If you own both booths on a set of amusements (two next to each other of the same colour) then they must pay you double.
Landing on a railway (there are 4 different coloured ones) just means you roll again and move on, and as with the usual Monopoly having to take a 'Chance' card can be either good or bad. The good could be moving around the board directly to a particular amusement (unless it's owned by somebody else, in which case you have to pay them money - that's bad) and passing 'GO' on the way to collect your £2 pocket money. Also good is the chance of a free ticket booth on a named amusement, and unless another player already owns both in the set, you may get the chance to kick off another player's booth and claim it as your own. The bad is having to pay £2 to go to the fireworks or the water show, or £3 to take the bus to the café without passing 'GO' (sort of an equivalent of going to jail).
The game ends when one player runs out of money, and the winner is the player who has the most money.

There's a little more to it than I've described, but that's the basics. The clearly laid out instruction leaflet in the box gives full details on how to play the game and can be easily read and understood by children.

Who Can Play?
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The game is for 2 - 4 players and for ages 5 - 8, but of course, adults can also have fun playing it.

Opinion
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As I mentioned earlier, I played this with two boys aged 5 and 7 and to my surprise the 5 year old, who usually has the attention span of a gnat and can normally be found in the garden breaking something, sat and played a whole game and was utterly absorbed by it. He had a bit of trouble with the money side of things, mainly because he didn't want to part with any of it, but it proved to be quite educational for him when having to work out which notes to combine to make the required amount. A bit of adult help was needed as numbers aren't his strong point yet, unlike his 7 year old brother who's developing a rather unnerving ruthless streak where finances are concerned!

I enjoyed playing it with them, it was quick to learn and easy to play, there's no real strategy involved and players just need to be able to count. My two nephews definitely enjoyed it and I was surprised at how well they patiently waited their turns. The games I played with them lasted around 15-20 minutes, which was just about the right length. A fairground theme is something they can easily relate to and every amusement landed upon was met with a cry along the lines of "oh I wanted that one, it's my favourite ride". However, I did discover that children don't like losing (well I wasn't going to just let them win!) and that while losing to an adult can bring on quite a strop, losing to a brother can bring on a sulk of epic proportions and almost end in a fight.
After the kids had gone to bed, we adults had a game on our own, yes we're all big kids at heart, and we managed to make the game go on for 1.5 hours - not quite sure how!

I think that a great deal of thought has gone into making this game appeal to kids, from the colourful box with it's brightly coloured cartoon rollercoaster to the little plastic car shaped playing pieces. And of course a fairground is always going to be popular with children. Personally I liked the fact that all the playing pieces are the same (cars) but different colours, so no arguments from the start about who's going to be what piece (I've often wondered why I always end up as the old boot in the traditional game...)

Priced anywhere between £10 and £18 depending on where you shop, Monopoly Junior retains enough elements of traditional Monopoly to hold the interest of adults playing with children, but also serves as a good introduction to the full game for when they're older.

Summary: Good fun, a great addition to the Monopoly family