Digging in Monopoly Empire for World Monopoly Day, March 19

Like most kids I played Monopoly growing up. My older sister or my dad usually won, except for the rare occasion where I did-and celebrated too much, which caused more space between the games. World Monopoly Day is March 19 and to honor the board game that’s been wheeling and dealing since 1935 we played Monopoly Empire with our oldest. I was hesitant to do so for two reasons, which I’ll explain in a moment.

Conjoined with my memory of playing Monopoly was the elephant in the room that most people recall about the game. No, there wasn’t an elephant that you moved around the board, it’s the fact that the game tended to go-on-forever. Combine that with the fact that our 6 year old wanted to play the latest version of Monopoly Empire and we were hesitant, but pleasantly surprised once we started to play.

In Empire players purchase up well known brands on the board and put that brand’s logo into their tower. The tower is a flat piece of plastic that simply holds the logos and other rewards that players might pick up along the way.  When a player fills up their tower they win. There is a finite end to the game that doesn’t require a long, drawn out battle to board game bankruptcy.

We’re also wary when our 6 year old says that he knows how to do something. “I know how to play that”, he proudly said a bit too loud.  As a parent I know that confidence is great but you also have to recognize the realities of their age and abilities.  However, he really DID know how to play Monopoly; that combined with the fact that Empire has a quicker ending than the cul-de-sac that we played back in the day meant that it was an awesome experience for the time stretched family.

 

Much of the game play in Empire is consistent with the classic Monopoly that you’ve done before. You still have to pay Water Works, Electric Company, go to jail when needed, collecting $200 when you pass Go and other classic game play. What’s new is that people, specifically the younger generation, can buy companies that they know like Nerf, Skype, Xbox, Yahoo, Caterpillar, Ford, Levis, Puma and more. Once they’re purchased the unlucky player who lands on that spot then pays rent to the person who owns the ‘empire’.

Before playing the game I thought that Monopoly Empire was based on the television series. It’s not. Instead it’s a fabulous re-working of a classic game that, for us, took the elephant out of the room. Monopoly Empire is an approachable, classic board game that wants the family to have space to have fun, but also respects your time. Instead of a drawn out two hour game, have fun with two or three 20 minute games. We had 30 minutes before we had to be somewhere, learned the game and finished play just in time to leave.

For the record, our son did win, but I maintain that was only because he was first to go.  March 19 is World Monopoly Day, not to be confused with November 19 which is National Play Monopoly Day. Either of which are not exclusively mandated to be the only day that families play this classic game. And now that they have a version of the game that maintains the classic game play and competition, but infuses a quicker-and just as satisfying end to the game we all can celebrate anytime.