Not your grandparents’ “Monopoly”
Not your grandparents’ “Monopoly”
Not your grandparents’ “Monopoly”
By Jennifer Chu
July 25, 2023
Summary
Over two weeks, the instructors ran participants through a crash course in the history and mechanics of board game design, and then set them up with materials, fabrication tools, online resources, and the goal of delivering a playable game at the workshop's final Friday showcase.
At the turn of the 20th century, Magie invented the "Landlord's Game" - a setup that clearly resembles the modern "Monopoly," with a board printed with various real estate properties, along with game pieces, play money, cards of chance, and the infamous command to "Go to Jail.".
In their workshop, Duanmu and Zhang cite Wingspan, a beautifully illustrated, card-driven board game that hit shelves in 2019, as one example of an enormously successful game with a seemingly niche theme.
"A lot of commercial games are mechanically heavy but are borrowing a theme, usually overlooking the social, educational, and intellectual aspects of board games. But if you have an irreplaceable idea that you're designing as a game, that could change the market."
In January 2023, they offered the first board game design workshop during MIT's Independent Activities Period.
In the workshop's final Friday showcase, about a dozen participants - a mix of students, postdocs, staff members, and MIT affiliates - set up their finished games and took turns play-testing and giving feedback on their classmates' designs, which ranged from simple card games to more elaborate, 3D-printed constructions.
Borwankar, the recent MBA graduate, managed to display two games: an array of tiles, each challenging a player to perform a silly exercise, or an act of kindness; and a game of government, where a player, acting as a head of state, must learn to balance various political actions with fiscal budgets and party votes.
Reference
Chu, J. (2023, July 25). Not your grandparents’ “monopoly.” MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. https://news.mit.edu/2023/not-your-grandparents-monopoly-board-games-0725