Monopoly is a world famous game that has become so common place over the years that it’s safe to say that pretty much every household owns at least one copy and if you’re reading this then you’ve probably played it at least once. You could say it has the Monopoly on family games.
The games mechanics are also well known, but just in case, we shall summarise. Roll dice to move your piece around the board. Buy up the property on the board, charge rent and accumulate as much wealth as you can. Certain squares have special effects, such as sending you to jail (you miss a turn), or drawing ‘Chance’ or ‘Community’ cards, which can help or hinder your growing wealth. Other squares can allow you to multiply your earnings, depending on your strategy.
Monopoly: Game Of Thrones Collector’s Edition of course, contains a rulebook, and those rules ask you quite politely to avoid adding any house-rules. An impossible task; Monopoly is the quintessential family game and families tend to tinker with the rules to avoid arguments. As Daenerys Targaryen’s hand maidens would put it, when it comes to the Monopoly rules, ‘It is known’. It’s not so much a game as family activity and that means fair-play is the first thing to get thrown of the window. Because of this, it would be unfair to judge Monopoly as a board game.
Perhaps this is why Monopoly: Game Of Thrones Collector’s Edition is more a re-skin of the classic game, rather than a clever Game of Thrones themed variant. No one will play the rules normally anyway, so instead they’ve concentrated on making the whole thing rather lovely.
The board is a robust affair, printed onto thick stock designed to resist the attempts of excitable children to break it. The board itself replaces the likes of Old Kent Road and Bow Street with Harrenhal and Craster’s Keep and other famous locations from the TV show. Houses become villages, hotels become keeps. The community chest and chance cards are also suitably transformed into Iron Throne and Valar Morghulis cards. All of these are changed to suit the show, and our favourite is the card the simply reads HODOR – Gain $50.
The metal playing pieces are well done; we get a tiny iron throne, a little dragon egg, a miniature sculpture of White Walker, etc. They look nice and shiny and are solidly made. The Monopoly money is themed with the crests of the various houses from Game of Thrones, with the super-rich Lannister’s gracing the $500 notes, and the Viking-like Greyjoys getting the $1 place.
Monopoly: Game Of Thrones Collector’s Edition marries a very adult TV show with a well-known family orientated thing, without it being a Red Wedding. This is not a game of complex intrigues or shrewd money lending; there are other games for that. Instead, this is a cool collector’s piece for those who like picking up Game of Thrones or Monopoly themed stuff. It does it pretty well.
MONOPOLY: GAME OF THRONES COLLECTOR’S EDITION / PUBLISHER: HASBRO / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW
