Make Your Own Opoly Board Game

This is a wonderful concept. The kit comes with a box, game board, special paper and software to help with the templates. The properties and game play are similar to a simplified version of Monopoly. You chose the names for each property and put a unique picture on each space. When you enter the photograph and the name for a particular space, the program will print up a picture to stick on the board and a corresponding property card. You can customize the money with the faces of family members, famous people or your pets. (Give some thought to which people are on the higher and lower denominations of the money!) THe project works best if you have a digital camera and a scanner. If you are making the board for family, a scanner is particularly handy because they will probably want you to use some old non-digital pictures.

I have made up several customized games for family and for a church auction. I enjoyed making the customized game board. The end result looks quite professional if you work carefully. Be advised, though, this is not a quick 3 hour project. It takes a lot of time to make up a game board. The games come out best if you put some thought into the pictures on the game spaces. There are "Good News" "Bad News" cards that can be customized to reflect good, bad and funny things that might happen to a family or organization. Making the game board can be a fun family project. Everyone enjoys picking out the pictures and arguing about what you should put for good and bad news. You would proably want to have an adult or an adolescent actually paste the pictures onto the board because getting them straight is so important.

I have bought and used several versions of this item. The newest version is easier to use than the original version. It really helps to have a high resolution printer because the images that you stick on the board are quite small. You can definitely use photographs, but due to the size of each space, I would avoid using too many group pictures. Some reviewers have complained that the customized game is less complex and less challenging than real Monopoly. True, there are no houses and hotels. However, when I wanted to make a game more interesting, I added a few phrases to some of the "Bad News" cards. I was also able to use my computer to alter the rule sheet to add some game variations that fit with the particular family or organization that would be using the game.

The game's educational value can increase depending on the way you use it. For instance if you were making a game board for a church or synagogue, you could customize the board to reflect the various committees and rituals that make up the life of the congregation. If used in this way, it can stimulate productive discussion. On the other hand, you can also choose to customize the board to simply be a fun, lightearted game.

If you are a true Monopoly lover then, you may be very disappointed in "Make-Your-Own-Opoly". There are some major differences in the board from the original Parker Brother's game such as the jail and free parking and "go to jail" have been all changed to loose a turn and roll again and things of that nature. Also, there are no hotels or houses so you were not able to increase land value by developing properties. All in all I found it too far from the concept of the original (or parker brother produced variations) monopoly game to be able to enjoy it as a "Monopoly" alternative.
Other deterrents include that there are only a couple of plain sheets of paper sent with it for your money and property cards to be printed on. One would need to use their own printer paper if they wanted much money at all.

Although this game is a GREAT gift idea in that it is personalized for the recipient, it was discouraging to find that it is not "American" compatible. What I mean is that the board displays the properties in "american" dollar amounts, however, once you complete the entire "creation process" (which if you are creative, can take hours) you find that everything prints out in POUNDS (english monetary units!) Therefore, the deed cards and the instruction sheets do not coincide with the board game. I contacted the vendor immediately, whose representative advised me to download the "latest version" from the internet, which actually turned out to be more of a hassle than anything else since I had already created the entire game! In other words, the game ships with an OLD version, which you only find out AFTER you finish creating your game. I think it is entitely unfair that you pay for this product and are not even shipped a modern/ updated version. Why should I pay for an English version? All in all, it is a great concept and a fun gift to personalize, but disappoints in the final product and constumer service who merely says "whoops - sorry about that...start over." If you purchase this product be careful: even though you choose the "american version" upon initial installation, you will STILL have your monetary units/ deed cards printed in pounds. Therefore, before investing hours on this "project" download from the internet and make a "test run." Otherwise, you may be disappointed.

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