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Busy Lives Prompt Speedier Board Games
BusylikeBum writes "Michelle Hastings admits she's sometimes cheated to get through a game of Candy Land with her 5-year-old daughter, Campbell. The board game can take just too long, she said. Disney Monopoly is another big offender.
'A game like that, it could literally take you days,' said Hastings, of Holliston, Mass. 'A lot of times, you don't play games because they take so long.' Board game makers are heeding pleas of parents like Hastings and introducing games tailored to busy lives and shorter attention spans that take only about 20 minutes to play." This is especially interesting to me, given the US adoption of more serious, lengthy German board games in the last few years.
The problem is that idiots can't follow rules. You won't believe how many people I've met don't understand that if you land on a property and do not wish to buy it, it goes up immediately for auction to the highest bidder, including the person who landed on it.
It's CLEARLY in the rules, but somehoe that rule isn't followed, which slows down games because all the properties are not bought as fast as they should be.
No, they mean games in the German-style board game genre. Germany currently has one of the most vibrant board game design cultures in the world. This is largely fueled by the Spiel des Jahres, the most prestigious prize in the board game industry. Some popular recent winners are Ticket to Ride, Carcassonne, El Grande, Settlers of Catan, Call My Bluff, and Scotland Yard. If you see "Spiel des Jahres" winner on a game box, you can buy it without second thought—winners are fantastic games.
One could write a book on conflicting information from "Official Monopoly Rules" [on] any number of sites.
http://richardwilding.tripod.com/monorules.htm
This one says that the bank auctions off all the belongings of bankrupt players. It also says that the limit for late rent is two turns later. It also says that a whole color must be un-house'd before one of the properties can be mortgaged (a sensible rule, but the rules I have read only required that property to be empty, meaning one house could remain on the others). Contrary to the grandparent-linked "Official Monopoly Rules", it says you can unmortgage property for 110% immediately upon buying it, instead of paying the (unheard of) extra 10%.
There is no single set of "Official Monopoly Rules". There are many variants, many of which are or were official at some point in some place. There are many rulesets. Some are good, some are bad. Some people make up house rules (like auctions) that happen to be printed rules in other sets.
I'd probably check out Hasbro's website, since, y'know, they bought MB, and produce the game now. At least, that's what every group I've ever gamed with does, when rule disputes come up.
http://www.hasbro.com/common/instruct/monins.pdf