By Charlene Centen
I think we have all heard of or played Hasbro's Monopoly one time or another, I read somewhere that Monopoly games have been entertaining families since 1935, It was one of my favorite games to play when I was a child, who doesn't enjoy a board game that allows you to make money! I have my own family of 3 girls now and sadly I never introduced them to the Monopoly game as of yet, so you can imagine my excitement when Influenster Canada choose me to be 1 of 2000 to receive a complimentary family board game of Monopoly Junior in my first VoxBox, their Hasbro Gaming VoxBox, I was so happy to be able to finally introduce my girls to the Monopoly brand.
I think we have all heard of or played Hasbro's Monopoly one time or another, I read somewhere that Monopoly games have been entertaining families since 1935, It was one of my favorite games to play when I was a child, who doesn't enjoy a board game that allows you to make money! I have my own family of 3 girls now and sadly I never introduced them to the Monopoly game as of yet, so you can imagine my excitement when Influenster Canada choose me to be 1 of 2000 to receive a complimentary family board game of Monopoly Junior in my first VoxBox, their Hasbro Gaming VoxBox, I was so happy to be able to finally introduce my girls to the Monopoly brand.
Once we finally received our Hasbro Gaming VoxBox we were all excited to see what was inside the box, and we were so excited to he sharing a family game night together. The first thing I noticed was a little yellow star on the top left hand corner of the box that says My First Monopoly Game, that made me even more excited because this is my girls first Monopoly Game, and I knew how much I loved Monopoly as a child so I knew they were in store for a treat, and we would make memories that will last a lifetime for all of us! My girls right away noticed the 4 character tokens, and they all decided right away which one they wanted to play the game as, my oldest daughter is 10 years old and she chose to be the dog, my middle daughter is 4 years old and she chose to be the cat, my youngest daughter is 2 years old and she chose to be car, so that left me to be the boat. This game is recommend for ages 5+ and warns that it is a choking hazard because of the small parts and is NOT for children under 3 years old so my husband and my 2 year old were team members. I was not worried either that my 4 year old would not be able to play because she is very smart for her age so I knew she would be fine, I actually feel like the age should say 4+ but that is just me.
Monopoly Junior Contents
1 Instruction Manual
1 Game Board
4 Character Tokens
20 Chance Cards
48 Character Sold Signs
90 x $1 Monopoly Money
4 Who's Your Token? Character Cards
1 Die
Monopoly Junior has a smaller game board them Monopoly, and instead of Street names there are kid friendly places like the Skate Park, the Bowling Alley, and Ice Cream parlor to name a few. Some of the attractions you'll remember from other Monopoly games are Go, Go To Jail, the Jail, Free Parking, and the Chance spaces.
Setting up the game is very easy as well, you place the game board in the middle of the table. Read the 4 character cards to find out a little tidbit about each character and use this information to choose the character you wish to play with, after that you may set those cards aside because you will not need them to play during the game. All players will then place what ever character token they chose to be on the game board on Go. Find the 12 sold signs that match the character token you chose and place them in front of you. Shuffle the 20 chance cards up and place them facing down on the chance space on the board game. Pick one player to be the banker, the banker looks after all the money, they will give each player the required amount of money to begin the game, if you are playing a 2 player game the banker will give each player $20, if you are playing a 3 player game the banker will give each player $18, if you are playing a 4 player game the banker will give each player $16. The banker will also collect money owed to the bank, and play out money from the bank when required to.
Playing the game only takes about 20-30 mins to play a full game, and the rules and goals are very easy to follow even for the younger children. It says to let the youngest player start first then the next person on the left side of the youngest player goes next. Each player will take turns rolling the dice and moving their character token forward never back in the direction of the Go arrow. The goal of the game is to go around the game board, when you land on an unowned space on the game board you must pay the amount listed on that space to own it, and make sure to put 1 of your 12 character sold signs on the property so everyone knows you own that property, and every time a person lands on any of the properties you purchased they must pay you the amount listed on that space. The same goes for when you land on a property another player owns you must pay them the amount listed on that space they call this paying rent. If you happen too land on a space owned by yourself you are safe, do nothing. If a player owns both properties in the same color side by side rent must be paid to them double the amount listed on their property. Every time a player passes or lands on go the bank must pay them $2. If you land on a Chance ? space you must pick up the top chance card, read it loud enough for everyone to hear then follow what it tells you to do, when you are done place that card at the bottom of the chance card pile. If you land on the go to jail space you must go straight to jail, you do not get to go pass go which means you do not get paid the $2 this time around, when it is your turn again you must pay $1 to the bank to get out of jail, unless you have the chance card that allows you to get out of jail free you then may get out of jail without paying the fee, when you are done with that chance card place that card at the bottom of the chance card pile. Then you may roll and move as usual, when you are in jail you can still be paid rent. If you just land on the jail space while going a round the board you are just visiting so you do not need to pay any fees. The Free Parking space, is a free space because nothing happens to you when you land on it just take a break. That is all that is to it, you keep playing like this until someone goes bankrupt.
The game is over 1 of 3 things happen, when the first player does not have enough money to pay rent when they land on another players property, or when a person doesn't have enough money to buy a property they land on, or a player does not have enough money to pay a Chance card fee, this makes you bankrupted! To determine who won, the other players must all count their money, and the player with the most money wins. In the event the game is tied all the tied players must count up how much all their properties are worth, you will find the amounts on the properties space on the game board and you then add that value to your money, the person with the highest total is the winner.
Advanced play, once you have figured out the standard way of playing Monopoly Junior you may choose to play the advance version of the game, you follow the same rules but when you come upon 1 of the 3 issues you would go bankrupted in the normal game you use your owned property to pay the debt, so if you can't afford pay rent to another player one of your properties becomes theirs. If you owe the bank one of your properties goes back on the market. If you don't have enough money to pay a Chance card fee you also use your property to settle it with the bank or another player. If you run out of money and properties to clear your debt you are bankrupted and the other players must following the same rules as the normal play game to determine a winner.
Our Final Thoughts On Monopoly Junior
My 10 year old daughter says Monopoly Junior is very fun to play with your family. She thinks the rules are very easy to follow, and the money being only $1 makes it very easy to count it. Her favorite thing about the game is buying properties. She says if she could change something about the game she would like to have more chance cards, and chance spaces added to the game. The only thing she says she dislikes is it is HARD to beat her little sister! She gives Monopoly Junior a rating of 5/5.
My 4 year old daughter says Monopoly Junior is a very fun game to play, she really likes it, and would like to play it everyday. She has quite a few favorite things about this game, she loves winning the game, she likes counting her money, she loves buying properties, and she really loves when people land on her properties because they have to pay her rent and that makes her more money. She said if she could change something about the game she would like there to be more character tokens because there are only 4 and our family has 5 members in it, she would like for us all to be able to play as our own characters. The only thing she says she dislikes is when you have to go to jail! She also gives Monopoly Junior a rating of 5/5.
I personally love this game, and I enjoyed every time I have played it with my children it is so nice to make family memories together with them. I am so thankful to Influenster Canada for giving us this game to share together, we play this game over and over and it never gets old seeing my children playing the game with big smiles on their faces is priceless. I also love that this game is educational as it gets my children counting the dice, counting spaces, and counting money. It is also very convenient as it doesn't take too long to play a full game so even nights when I feel there is no time and my children beg to play it I know that I can make the time to play a game or two in under a hour. The only things I can think of that I dislike about this game is that you have to purchase every property you land on, this takes away from being able to practice money management skills, I found this really frustrated my children when they were running low on money because they knew they were losing and they wanted to stop it but couldn't. The other thing I disliked is that the money was all $1 it is great for the children because it is easy for them to count single dollars but I just wished they added more dollar amounts like maybe $5, so they children could learn some more amounts to count in money. Other then that this game is great and I would recommend it to anyone with children ages 4 and up even though the box says 5+, my 4 year old is very good at this game so good she won every time we have played, she is undefeated, which scares me a great deal for when she finally loses! If I could change somethings about the game I would make the game board a little bigger by adding some more properties, I would make it for more players, make it a choice to purchase properties or not, and also add some more dollar amounts to the money. I give Monopoly Junior a rating of 4/5. We would like to thank Influenster Canada again for sending our family out this free Hasbro gaming VoxBox to review we really appreciate it, because of your generosity we now plan on purchasing other Hasbro board games to continue our new found tradition of family #GameNight.
Thank You To Influenster Canada For This Opportunity To Review This Gaming VoxBox For Free, All Of The Opinions Are My Families Opinions Only! I received this product complimentary from Influenster for testing purposes.
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