Monopoly Junior

We have the game Monopoly and our kids ask to play it often, but it is very difficult for them to play because they are too young. So we finally went out and purchased the game Monopoly Junior. 

I wasn't sure what to expect. Would the original game be lost in a dumbed down version? Would it still be fun? I was blown away by how great of a game it is! I almost like it better than the original!

The game is a maximum of four players and the pieces are really cute. There's the Toy Boat, Toy Car, Little Hazel the cat, and Little Scottie the dog. The toy car is definitely the favourite among my kids.

Many of the original aspects of the game still exist. For the properties, the four corners are still the same: Go, Jail/ Just Visiting, Free Parking and Go to Jail. Then on each side, the colours are still in the same location though there are only two of each colour property and the names are changed. But the names are so fun and appropriate with properties like the Skate Park, Ice Cream Parlor, Museum, Pet Store, Bowling Alley, Candy Store and Zoo. Boardwalk and Park Place remain in the same location.

Each side only has seven stops and the middle one is Chance. With the board being smaller, you only use one dice. Community Chest has been removed, but Chance still has some of the familiar cards like Get out jail free, It's your birthday, Advance to Go, and Advance to Boardwalk. It also has some new ones like Free Space in which you advance your piece to the colour indicated and get to have the property for free if it is unowned. 

There's also the card that only the player indicated gets no matter who landed on Chance. There's one in the deck for each player. The player indicated gets to advance to any free space on their next turn and buy it. That's a nice card when there are only a few properties left unowned.

 Instead of dealing with property cards, you simply put one of the tokens matching your player at the top of the property to indicate that you own it. The rent is the same as the cost of the property, but if you own both properties then the rent doubles.

I felt that many of the original aspects of the game were kept and I definitely still felt like I was playing Monopoly and not some other game. But for the sake of kids many of the difficult parts of the game were left out- and for the better of the game. With only one dice, you were only ever counting up to 6 spaces. The rent was really simplified with no hotels or houses. And with only $1 bills, counting money was so much easier. Some of the aspects that I actually disliked about the original Monopoly were excluded, in particular, the trading and auctioning off of properties. 

All in all, I really love this game and enjoy playing it with my kids!