Thursday, April 20, 2006

The Real Monopoly

Have you ever walked down a street only to find yourself being sucked inside a building and having money demanded from you by a card wielding property owner?

Monopoly - Teaching us how to function in the real world.

It’s the educational board game that teaches you real life values, and how to handle yourself in the property market. If you play your cards right (literally) you can become a multi-thousandanaire by the end of three hours, and have driven your whole family into bankruptcy or debt.

Conversely, the player who started on a roll (of the lucky dice persuasion) could be holding you and your friends to such a high ransom, that you quake with fear every time you see yourself rounding a corner heavy in enemy houses…

Just. Like. Real. Life.

…or not.

But what would life be like if it really was reflective of a good ‘ol game of Monoppers?

So we’ve covered the whole being suckedbysuperhumanforcesintoahouse side of things, lets get into the whole going to jail aspect.

It’s a nice day, and one is happily walking along when: WHOA! Teleportation Device!!! Suddenly they find themselves trapped in a square prison, diagonally opposite from where they were. But hey, its all good because they can easily get out by either paying $50 worth of bail, or having three cracks at displaying mean feats of luck-having. It’s all good.

They’re out again, and ready to get back to toddling down the street. But HALT! You have to throw a dice to see how many plots of land you can pass! 7 Houses later, “oh good! One of the only three other people who can potentially purchase land in this neighbourhood has neglected to buy this particular property!” Quickly whip out your wallet and take out a percentage of your total of $1500 and pay the bank (which is conveniently located within arms reach) and immediately receive the title of the house.

You wait for the other people to move, then again throw the dice. “CRAP!” you find yourself standing on a giant question mark/hat which tells you that it is necessary for you to pay $100 to everyone else within eyesight for some random reason. Pay up, or you’ll be kicked off the street and into oblivion.

Next move, you find yourself receiving $200 merely for walking around in a complete circle…can’t keep if for long however, because you find that you’ve landed in the tax office, which immediately demands that you pay them for having the sheer AUDACITY to step within ten metres of their building. There goes that windfall…

And then the whole cycle begins again, with the two/three/four/five/six of you circling the block over and over and over again, until finally one of you is rolling in money, whilst the others are frantically searching for things to mortgage, despite being sound in the knowledge that they will never be out of debt for long enough to purchase extensions for their suckinginrenters properties…

Ah well, though maybe not so realistic its definitely an interesting concept.

…and a very fun game!:P

“Do you want to know what my handicap is?” “Yeah! Bowling!” - “21 Jump Street”

7 comments:

CJ said...

hey the background really works its awesome i like the final layout... umm yes anyways monopoly is really a game of life skills thats so true (if ur plannin on going into realestate or being a sales person) well anyways good post! ill post later on maybe today maybe tomorrow but whenever i can be bothered and feel inspired anyway have to go and write hoovey and email seeya!

Anonymous said...

theres also less cheating in real life :P

Anonymous said...

That game was so bloody frustrating!!! Mum just happened to have one of each of the properties we needed to build castles! ONE!! Next time, I'm making it a rule that the next time we play against them that when we land on their property we can choose to pay rent... although that would defeat the purpose of the game, wouldn't it? Ah well.

Oh yes, very nice layout. I like it a lot. Now I know why you were so hyper when I saw you!:D

CJ said...

shes always hyper lol and i agree with ollie...!

Anonymous said...

I like the new look of your blog Elizabeth!!
Hope you're having a great holiday so far :)

sez said...

VERY rad background, i am VERY proud of you!! hehehe *wants to know code* aaaaaaaanyway, monopoly... my family quickly learnt NOT to play it with my brother, he ALWAYS got mayfair and park lane!! ALWAYS!! hehe

sez said...

ok elizabeth, i commented, now you post!! ...please??