As somebody who doesn’t self-identify as a Millennial (though I may technically be one), I took some pleasure in the collective internet outrage about Hasbro’s boardgame. In case you missed it, it’s just Monopoly. But for Millennials. If you don’t find this premise irresistible, then you’re either an old, or already dead.
Walmart’s app told me it was in stock at the Mount Vernon location for $19.82, which is adorable all on its own. But the app lied and I wasted 40 minutes of my life driving there only to come back empty handed. Sad face emoji.
But the clickbaity tears of Millennial snowflakes are so delicious that I vowed to fight on. So I pulled up another app on my phone and discovered that the benevolent Lord Bezos’s online marketplace afforded me the opportunity to get the game for only three times the msrp. (Note to editor: Can I expense this?) Since I am sure this will be the only run of this game, given how #butthurt the internet was, I had to have it.
Since it’s Thanksgiving week, and web traffic tends to die as people trade Twitter and Facebook fights for, as the kids say, “IRL” fights with traffic and their relatives, I forced three of my younger colleagues to come battle one of the elder Millennials—so-called Xennials—for the distinction of being crowned TWS Monopoly champion. The contestants were our fact-checker, Holmes Lybrand; staff writer Alice B. Lloyd; and social media editor Hannah Yoest. All of whom are ’90s kids and two of whom are Very Millennial.
The experience was . . . interesting.
This version of Monopoly does not involve real estate. There are no houses or hotels. As the box jokes: “Forget real estate. You can’t afford it anyway.” Touché.
That was the warning shot that triggered America’s digital outrage beat cops. But it was only the start of the troll! Milburn Pennybags (that’s the doxxed name of the character most people know only as “Monopoly Man”) is depicted in this version wearing disposable plastic shades, rocking ear buds, holding a coffee, and sporting a participation ribbon. Oh, and he’s taking a selfie.
Those folks at Hasbro are so #mean! Speaking of hashtags, that’s one of the game pieces, along with Elvis / Kanye glasses, a crying laughing face emoji, a bike-share bike, and an old-time camera, which is either poking fun at the obsession with Instagram or Holga cameras.
As for game play, the first player to roll, per the rules, has the most student-loan debt. You then move your token around the board discovering “destinations.” Instead of Mediterranean Avenue, for instance, you can crash on “Parents’ Basement.” Instead of Boardwalk, there’s a “Weeklong Music Festival.”
As you scoop up these experiences, the other players who land on them have to pay you for the experience, and then each of you takes an experience chip from the pile. (On the back they have numeric values ranging from -3 to +5 with little Facebook-like thumbs on them.)
Once all the experiences are owned, the game ends. Because who has the patience to see these things all the way through.
Jail still exists and Community Chest and Chance are still there. Instead of the “Get out of Jail Free” card, there’s a card that reads “Your mom posts bail. She’s the best.” And instead of committing a crime, you go to jail if you draw the card that says “You literally can’t even pay your student loan bill. Go to Jail. Go Directly to Jail. Do not pass GO. Do not collect $20.”
At this point, Alice asked me if Monopoly is the source of an idiom she had heard about not passing GO. She was not kidding. Her #mind was #blown.
(The meanest card in the Chance pile says “You took a trip to find yourself. You didn’t. Lose a turn.”)
As for money, the bills feature avocados on the $5, coffee on the $10, and salad leaves on the $100. But there are only five $100 bills in the game. Which is either a subtle troll of Millennials, a scathing indictment of Boomers, or both.
One of the more interesting features of the game was that, instead of the railroads, the four center spaces on each side were bike shares. (Missed sponsorship opportunity, Uber, Lyft, Bird, and Lime bike! #epicfail.) If you land on one of these spaces, you could pay $10 to jump anywhere in between the next bike share. If you want to go past it, you can pay an additional $10, and so on. This offers players early on the ability to jump ahead and snap up better experiences, or, later in the game, a way to pay $10 to avoid getting hit for $40.
This is an interesting change in terms of gameplay because the principal difference between normal Monopoly and the Millennial version is that in the latter, you’re nearly always cash poor. And while you can trade your destinations if you’re broke (or sell them back to the bank), you can never sell your experience chips.
Which really makes you think, man.
We tried to really suck the marrow from our experience by taking pictures of our game and posting them on social media. Obviously.
It was fun. (And, I won.)
