My First Monopoly

David M Williams

This game is so bad that I was moved to come here to write about it! The central premise of the game is that the playable toy car ("Mr Monopoly") will teach the rules and help children to count. However, it is absolutely the worst component of the game. The only way to interact with Mr Monopoly is to push his head and to move him. Pushing his head gives instructions like "Move three spaces". As he is moved he counts off "one, two, three". In theory it sounds sensible and workable. In practice it is not. Problems abound immediately. First, if Mr Monopoly is not sitting correctly on the tracks he will just intone "Move xxx spaces" over and over. You move him and he doesn't count. You press his head again and he says "Move (the same number) spaces" again and again, causing confusion. Children aren't known so well for their careful handling and when pressing his head it is very easy for Mr Monopoly to be moved inadvertantly, thus altering the game, or to dislodge him from the track - and causing the above issue. You can't put him back on the track without separating it and re-threading him. Also, press his head three times and he says "You're the winner! Congratulations!" Yet, while my 3yo was attempting to press Mr Monopoly gently on more than one occasion he must have pressed three times, or at least made Mr Monopoly feel there were three separate presses, because throughout the game we kept hearing "You're the winner! Congratulations!" instead of "Move xxx spaces". This latter feature wasn't actually so bad because in the end - on the first play - the game was so painful and laborious and Mr Monopoly was so exasperating that we were happy to find any excuse to declare our youngster the winner and cease play. I also feel something has to be pointed out to the game's designers. It's technically possible to prevent the game being won in at least two different ways. First, players are allowed to buy extra bricks from the bank. There are a finite number of bricks and a seemingly endless flow of money so you could, if you were a bit of a bad sport, buy all the bricks and prevent anyone else from ever being able to complete a tower. Obviously that's poor play but there is nothing in the rules to prevent this. Secondly, and more realistically, if four people are playing there are less properties available to build on than five times the number of players (ie less than 20) so it is quite plausible that the game board could run out of properties before anyone is up to their final tower, meaning the game becomes unsolveable. Frankly, while the game's concept has loads of appeal, the implementation is horrendous and awful. This game should not be recommended to anyone ever. I would like to see Mr Monopoly melt into charred plastic to be honest. That's the only entertaining purpose he serves.