A new card game modelled after Monopoly.
BOARD games may be fun but they are hardly the kind of things one would suggest playing at a party, unless of course, it’s one of those board game-themed parties.
Though classic board games like Scrabble, Risk, Pictionary and Monopoly are still being played by millions of people all over the world, newer versions have cropped up in an effort to attract the younger generation. One of these versions is the Monopoly Deal: Card Game, a sort of summarised version of the Monopoly board game.
The card game is a lot different from the board game, and it does take a while to learn how to play it. The idea of the game is to draw and trade cards from a pile or from other players, and then arrange them according to their groups.
The player with three full sets of property cards wins the game.
It seems simple enough in theory, but when you play it initially, you might get confused with the other set of cards called Action Cards. These cards are sort of like the Community Chest and Chance cards on the board game, and carry actions like Forced Deal, Sly Deal and It’s My Birthday. There are 10 types of action cards in a deck, 28 property cards (which come in 10 different sets), house/hotel cards, money cards, and 11 property wild cards.
There are two types of wild cards – a two-coloured property card, and a multi-coloured one. They are used as substitutes for property cards of one of the colours shown on the card.
To start the game, each player is dealt five cards (the game takes a maximum of five players). The first person to play must then take two cards from the draw pile (a player must not have more than seven cards in hand), and put a maximum of three cards in front of them, face up. You’ll need to build a “bank”, so it is a good idea to keep some of your money cards in it. Otherwise, put property cards down, or play an action card in the middle.
Should you run out of money in the bank, you can always pay your opponents using your property cards, or using a combination of both. And if you pay with a property card, it has to go into your opponent’s property collection, not his bank. However, change is not given!
The description of each action card is given on the card itself (as well as on the leaflet), so when you get one, try to figure out whether you really need it or how important it may be to the other players. For example, a Debt Collector card allows you to demand 5M (that’s 5 Monopoly Money, not 5mil) from another player. Since all cards on the table are placed face up, it’s easy to find out which player has the least amount of money in their bank, and would be forced to pay you with a property card.
The best action card to have in your hand is the Deal Breaker, which basically permits you to “steal” a full set of properties from another player and add it to your own!
You’d need to play at least a couple of games to fully understand or get into the groove of the game. Each round ends much faster than the traditional board game, so it is a lot more addictive. Also, Monopoly Deal focuses a lot more on strategy than just plain luck, so you need to be savvy when playing the game.
■ Monopoly Deal: Card Game is distributed by Hasbro and retails at RM24.90. It is recommended for anyone aged eight and older.
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