Chance or Community Chest
The Chance and Community Chest cards in the standard Monopoly game were redesigned last year. This Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss will test how well you remember the old designs. Can you match the text with the images from the cards? I scored 7 out of 12, which is pretty good considering I haven’t played Monopoly in decades. Link
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Monopoly Money
It’s a shame we can’t pay our income taxes with Monopoly money, the subject of today’s Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss. Can you distinguish the denomination of Monopoly bills by their color? It’s easier if you’ve played the game lately! Link
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World War II POWs Used Escape Maps Hidden In Monopoly Pieces
Last year, an archive of World War II maps was donated to the British Library Map Library. Some of these maps are now on display to the public, and they have fascinating story behind them!
Waddington PLC, the printing company best known for its games including Monopoly, was involved in a most unusual venture during the Second World War: printing maps on silk, rayon and tissue paper for military use and smuggling some of them to prisoners of war.
[...]
During WWII hundreds of thousands of maps were produced by the British on thin cloth and tissue paper. The idea was that a serviceman captured or shot down behind enemy lines should have a map to help him find his way to safety if he escaped or, better still, evade capture in the first place. A map like this could be concealed in a small place (a cigarette packet or the hollow heel of a flying boot), did not rustle suspiciously if the captive was searched and, in the case of maps on cloth or mulberry leaf paper, could survive wear and tear and even immersion in water. The scheme was soon extended to cover those who had already been captured, although a certain amount of ingenuity was required to get the maps into the POW camps.
Link – via holeinthedonut
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Monopoly: The Game Show
This might be the most annoying game show theme song ever.
Contestants go around to each property and have to answer a question correctly; if they do, they get the value of the property added to their winnings. If you get a monopoly, you get to add houses and hotels… the whole nine yards. The clip is from round four, when the winner gets a bonus round around the board. If he gets all the way around the board without touching a Go to Jail (there are four of them), he gets a $25,000 bonus. And if he lands directly on Go, he gets a $50,000 bonus. Will he do it?! Oh, the suspense:
The best part of this clip may be the teasers for Roseanne, Coach and Thirtysomething at the end.
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Monopoly Gets a Redesign
Andy Mangold, a twenty-year-old designer from West Chester Pennsylvainia, decided to repackage the classic Monopoly board game by Parker Brothers.
All of the boxes are made out of chocolate brown mat board and skinned in cream arches cover. The final package is just over 10″ x 10″ x 1.5″ and includes smaller containers for all of the various pieces and cards and a laser-cut holder for all of the houses and hotels.
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Read This Post. Do Not Pass Go. Do Not Collect $200.
I love me a good game night. Monopoly gets pretty cut-throat when we’re at my in-laws – cheating bankers, people hiding money, my brother-in-law yelling at people about the free market. It’s a blast, actually. But I love the word games too – Scattergories is probably my favorite, but Catch Phrase is a good time. Especially if there’s alcohol involved. I’ve been itching for a good game night lately, so to satiate my urge until I can convince some friends to come over and be mercilessly beaten at Clue, here are a few facts about some of your favorite (at least, my favorite) games.
Monopoly
It’s thought that Monopoly originated in the early 1900s by Elizabeth Magie, except then it was called “The Landlord’s Game” (that’s her original patent in the picture). A professor at the Wharton School of Finance at the University of Pennsylvania even started using Magie’s version as a learning tool in his classes. Evidence shows it was also used at the University of Toledo, Smith College, Princeton, MIT and Columbia. She took different versions of The Landlord’s Game to Parker Brother on several different occasions but was turned down by George Parker every time.
Eventually, a later version of the game was played by Esther Darrow, the wife of Charles Darrow. It was Charles who changed the layout and some rules of the game and began calling it Monopoly. Darrow tried to sell Monopoly to Milton Bradley but was rejected in 1934. Bad move, Milton Bradley. But Parker Brothers again passed on the game too, saying it was too complicated, too technical and too long. However, the company heard about how well the game was selling locally and reconsidered their rejection just a year later. They bought all of Darrow’s remaining inventory and helped him patent the board. They also bought Elizabeth Magie’s patent to The Landlord Game to make sure that they had undisputed rights. Uh, pretty smart, considering that Monopoly has sold more than 250 million copies worldwide since then.
• For some reason, I always thought the Monopoly guy was Uncle Moneybags. Nope. But “proper” names for him include Rich Uncle Pennybags, Milburn Pennybags and Mr. Monopoly (his most recent name). Some sources say he’s loosely based on J.P. Morgan.
• Marvin Gardens is actually a misspelling of Marven Gardens, a housing area in Margate City, N.J. In fact, all of the properties on the “classic” Monopoly board are named after places or streets near or in Atlantic City, N.J.
• In the London version of the game, Trafalgar Square is a red property, Piccadilly is yellow, Regent, Oxford and Bond Streets are green and the blue properties are Mayfair and Park Lane. The railroads are replaced by Underground stops (King’s Cross, Marylebone, Fenchurch Street Station and Liverpool Street Station).
• Neiman Marcus once sold an all-chocolate edition. The whole set, including dice, money, hotels and board, was edible.
• F.A.O. Schwarz in NYC sold a $100,000 version, which included 18-carat game pieces, a rosewood board, real money, street names written in gold leaf and various gems scattered across the board.
• The most expensive board even made is a set worth $2 million It’s made of 23-carat gold and has rubies and sapphires embedded in the top of each house and hotel.
• Various versions of Monopoly include Batman, ESPN, Family Guy, American Idol, Nintendo, Sephora, and, honestly, just about any other version you can possibly think of.
Clue
What we in North America know as Clue, the rest of the world knows as Cluedo. Would you believe that it was invented by a part-time clown? Totally true. Anthony E. Pratt invented the game in England and it was published for the first time in 1949 by a British company. Bought by Parker Brothers, the U.S. version came out the same year.
• The dead dude is known as Mr. Boddy in North America, but he’s Dr. Black everywhere else. Also, Mr. Green is apparently alias Reverend Green in some parts of the world.
• Also, some of the Clue characters have little-known first names. They are: Colonel Michael Mustard, Miss Josephine Scarlet, Professor Peter Plum, Reverend/Mr. John Green, Mrs. Blanche White and Mrs. Elizabeth Peacock.
• Characters used in other or deluxe versions of Clue include Miss Peach (not to be confused with Princess Peach), Lady Lavender, Prince Azure, Rusty Naylor and Captain Brown.
• The original nine weapons were axe, shillelagh, bomb, rope, dagger, pistol, syringe, poison and poker.
The Game of Life
Life has been around since 1861… not in the format we recognize today, of course. Milton Bradley himself invented “The Checkered Game of Life” when his lithography business started to go down the tubes (his major product was a portrait of clean-shaven Lincoln… when Lincoln grew the beard, Bradley went out of business).
He had actually been circulating the game on a smaller scale before his clean-shaven Lincoln lithograph took off, but he abandoned it once demand for his lithograph increased. After that plummeted, he focused more attention on marketing and ended up selling more than 40,000 games in 1861 alone – no small feat for that time period!
• Milton Bradley used a spinner to count the number of spaces people could move because dice were associated with gambing.
• In the original Checkered Game of Life, landing on the “Suicide” square put people out of the game completely. Obviously.
• Other squares on the original game board included Prison, Infancy, Ruin, Gambling, Disgrace, Honesty, Truth, Cupid, Industry and “Happy Old Age” (the goal of the game).
• One interesting variant (among many) is The Game of Redneck Life. Careers include Mullet Salon Operator and Monster Truck Announcer. The goal of the game is to get out with as many teeth as you can – through the various fights and brawls you get into over the course of the game, this can prove to be pretty challenging. I’m dead serious.
Scrabble
Scrabble came about in 1939 when architect Alfred Mosher Butts modified a game he had been working on earlier – Lexiko. At first he called it Criss-Crosswords and based the values of the letters on based on letter usages from the New York Times (and other reputable sources). In 1948, he allowed James Brunot to manufacture the game as long as he got a cut of each board sold… which wasn’t much, at first. They actually lost money the first year they produced it. Legend goes, though, that the President of Macy’s played the game while on vacation and, upon his return to work, was shocked that his store didn’t carry it. When they did start to carry it, sales skyrocketed.
• There are 96 two-letter words that are “legal” in Scrabble… including 10 that are spelled with vowels only. I’m so learning those.
• A typical Scrabble board has 225 squares.
• The highest known score for a single word in competition Scrabble is 392. In 1982, Dr. Saladin Khoshnaw achieved this score for the word “caziques,” which means “Indian chief.”
• The highest possible score a player can get in Scrabble on a first turn is for the word MUZJIKS (128 points).
I realize there’s tons of beloved board games I’ve missed, so maybe I’ll turn this into a series… a three-parter, or something. Sorry!, Candyland, Chutes and Ladders, Risk, Trivial Pursuit. Lots of options. Have one you’d like to read about? Leave it in the comments and maybe I’ll add it to the list!
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