Monopoly Junior
| Publisher(s) |
Parker Brothers Waddingtons |
|---|---|
| Players | 2 to 4 |
| Age range | 5 to 8 |
| Setup time | < 5 minutes |
| Playing time | < 30 min |
| Random chance | High |
| Skill(s) required |
Dice rolling counting |
Monopoly Junior is a simplified version of the board game Monopoly, designed for young children. It has a rectangular board that is smaller than the standard game and rather than using street names it is based on a city's amusements (a zoo, a video game arcade, a pizzeria, etc.) to make the game more child-friendly.
Parker Brothers began producing Monopoly Junior in 1990, explicitly marketed for players aged five to eight, with a simplified board and game play as compared to the standard Monopoly game. The Monopoly Junior board was based on a fair's midway, and featured 16 "amusements" rather than 28 properties. Players chose a car token in one of four colors (red, blue, green and yellow), and used corresponding colored "ticket booths" (hotel pieces from the standard Monopoly game) to denote ownership of the amusements in lieu of title deeds. The game play mechanics are the same as the standard game: players roll a die (a single die, rather than two dice) and move their token clockwise around the board the number of spaces corresponding to the rolled die.
When players land on a vacant amusement they must purchase the amusement for the price shown on the board; the player cannot decline to buy the amusement, and there is no auction. Amusements cannot be improved with houses or hotels as in the standard Monopoly game. However, like the standard game, if the player doesn't have the exact amount to pay the stated price, the banker is allowed to make change. When a player lands on an amusement owned by an opponent they must pay their opponent the value of the amusement marked on the board. If a player lands on one of a pair of amusements of the same color owned by the same player they must pay their opponent double the value of the amusement they landed on. Play continues until one of the players is bankrupted; the player with the most cash on hand wins.
In 2013, the game was revised with the board now based on a simplified version of a city rather than a midway. The player tokens were replaced with a green car, blue ship, orange cat and black dog. The ticket booths were replaced with "sold signs", cardboard pieces featuring cartoon caricatures of the player tokens. The $1, $2, $3, $4 and $5 notes were replaced with single-denomination "Monopoly money" notes, and the prices on the board were denoted with a Monopoly money currency glyph (an uppercase 'M' with two horizontal crossbars) instead of dollars or pounds. The board became more reminiscent of the standard Monopoly board, replacing the "Rest Rooms" (or "Café", depending on the version of the board) with "Jail" and "Uncle Pennybag's Loose Change" with "Free Parking". The four Railroad spaces, the Fireworks space, the Water Show and two Chance spaces were also eliminated, reducing the board size from 32 spaces to 24.
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