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Tired of counting money when playing Monopoly? “Oh wait, I don’t have enough singles, can you trade me a $10 for ten singles?”
Don’t worry about that anymore! Now with Electronic Banking Monopoly, each player gets their own credit card. Anytime someone buys are sells something, you just swipe their card through the machine and it keeps track of your money! Just like real life!
Yeah, this sounds kinda crazy. There is something about using good ol’ Monopoly money, but you have to admit, it does sound rather interesting. I’m tempted to buy one when they come out in January. You can get it at amazon.com for $70 or from entertainmentearth.com for $40! Let me know if you ever get to play with this new electronic banking edition.
That’s brilliant.. but.. $70/$40 and you only get one card-swipey display thing? Boo. There should be at least a separate center display so people can see how much money they still have left. I get to be the Segway!
I want to be the little laptop.
I see there’s a calculator. I don’t want to be punching in numbers. I’d rather do the simple math in my head than use a calculator. That’s part of the fun. Only when you starting sellling off houses and mortgaging property should you use a calculator. Though sometimes it’s easier to buy houses/hotels when you have a calculator handy. Here’s what the ultimate Monopoly board will do. No calculators. It’s all automated, even the die throwing. When it’s your turn. The board will “roll the dice” for you. It moves your piece for you via the light-up board. If you roll an 8, then each of the 8 squares your piece will travel lights up one by one. Your piece lands on Main Street property. You hit a “yes” or “no” button on your controller if you wish to buy the property. If you buy the property, then the cost will be subtracted from your total bankroll stated on your control. When you land on other people’s property, the rent fee is automatically deducted from your bankroll. Lights and/or sounds on each respective control announces such action. A “cha-ching” sound on the controller of the person being paid and some sort of buzzing sound on the person making the payment. Similar logic follows when monopolies are created and houses/hotels are built. Players are always promopted by their controller for what action to take. And the status of properties (who owns what property if anyone and number of houses/hotel) and game piece locations are always seen electronically on the board. There will be a “trade options” button on each controller where people can select to trade properties with other players. Certainly the entire game would be run via bluetooth, so no wires are necessary except for maybe a power cord to run the main board, but batteries may be used instead. This idea is certainly possible. Consider the size of the game board. It’s much larger than a laptop. This can easily be done and I don’t understand why not. It’s 2008. It’s already being done in computer versions and hand-held versions. It’s just a matter of converting it to a physical game board environment.
I believe there’s a small bluetooth licensing fee.. which shouldn’t make much of a difference. I think there are lower power “open” wireless protocols that might do better – zigbee comes to mind.. but that one might not be free to license either. The problem is, to cut costs, you’d end up with shasty lcd-calculator-esque displays. With wires. It’d cost $6 to manufacture, it’d be horrible, and then the marketing department would fail to understand why no one bought their great new $85 Super Advanced Monopoly game. Come up with a way to get around the name and licensing issues and I’d be more than willing to help you develop a Monopoly close that fit the bill. 🙂