Make Your Own "Opoly"

I first made Futuropoly years ago for my kids Christmas gift. At the time I decided I was going to do a board game, space and the future were running themes in our household.

Futuropoly is also not the first board game I have made with Monopoly as the basis. I once did Footballopoly back when our oldest boys were wee little babes. That of course, was for my husband, and used pro football teams as property.

Whatever Opoly you choose to go with, you can have a lot of fun adapting the theme to fit the game. Most of this can also be created with items around your house, making it thrifty and eco-friendly.

To make a game, you need to put together the following components:

• The board - I used a half inch square piece of nice plywood. You want it to be furniture grade wood because it's going to last for years. This board is 2' x 2'.
  Use a straight edge and ruler to partition off the property slots. You'll have a large square in each corner, and nine slots in between each one. I painted mine with inexpensive watercolor paints, acting as stain. I used a sharpie marker to draw the straight lines, and then I applied polyurethane over the top to seal it all in. The gold paint went on last, because polyurethane causes the gold to smear.
  
  Create the property names with the theme of your game. Some of ours are "Omega 1 System" and "Alpha Center." Regions of outer space, in other words. I looked up names of star systems and galaxies. Where the colors coordinate, the names also coordinate. For instance, the red properties are "Delphius Scape," "Dorado Lat," and "Draco Region."
  
  Instead of railroads, we have teleports, and Jail is "Suspension Chamber." Utilities are "Fusion Company," and "Fission Company," and instead of Income Tax, we have "Robot Maintenance" and "Alien Housing Tax."
  
  You get the gist!

• Cards - There are two sets of cards in any Opoly game. Ours are Question Mark and Time Capsule. The Time Capsule cards refer to things in todays era. I had a ton of fun making up crazy things that could happen to either fine players or reward them. "The shifty Robot you purchased at the Hydrus Sector Swap Meet stole your space pup and fled the galaxy. Pay 700k's for Unrestrained Droid Violation."
  There are 30 cards for each stack, and were made out of poster board. I also made property cards out of poster board. Because it's Futuropoly, I accounted for massive inflation and everything costs a ridiculous amount of money.

• Money! - This unfortunately isn't easily customizable. You can buy Monopoly Money from online sources like Ebay and Amazon. We used Play Money that we bought from the Dollar Store, but it too can be purchased from Amazon. The play money comes in higher bills than Monopoly does (usually) and this jived well with our ridiculous inflation.

• Houses and Hotels - When I first made the game, I used Polymer Clay from the craft store and shaped little futuristic buildings with it. In the image of my board game above, you can see the way these looked, painted with purple and gold enamel.
  But that was years ago and they have been lost. Lego's work well though!

• Characters and Dice - Dice can be bought at the store, usually with a pack of cards. Not expensive at all! And characters should not be purchased, but each person playing the game should search for their own piece, which makes it more personal and fun.

• Box - I just chuck all of my pieces in a little non-descript box to be kept beside the game board. Except when I had Footballopoly, it was all a part of a large game set built out of MDF. I hope to make one of those again soon!

That should take care of it all! You should know the basics of playing Monopoly, and your Opoly game will go in the same manor. If you do make your own Opoly game, come back here and tell me all about it!