In June 2010, after my family had just finished a game of Monopoly, I sat down with my daughter’s 

                                    former partner, Jamie (who had been a Lance Corporal in The Rifles) and whilst we were talking, an

                                    idea popped into my head. The idea? What about a British Army Edition of Monopoly?

 

                                    I told Jamie about the idea and he soon warmed to it. So, we briefly discussed what features could be

                                    included if such a game was made. One of these was board squares with all the major arms. Sadly,

                                    getting our hands on photographs of these proved to be harder than we thought and I felt this

                                    wouldn’t appeal to anyone barring the hardened soldier or weapons collector. This, and the welfare

                                    of children who might also wish to play had to be considered.

 

I wanted to keep the theme of the armed forces but I didn’t want to offend or upset the families of people serving in the Middle East, so references to fighting had to be kept to a minimum, and I thought that we could achieve this if we featured the training side as much as the combat. I then had a real inspiration.

 

Despite a waning understanding of the UN’s policing of Afghanistan, the British public and the media are otherwise very much in support of the brave men who are actually serving there. So how do we show them our support? The most popular way is to raise money for an army charity such as Help for Heroes and/or The British Legion who together help the victims and their families caught in the conflict.

 

I have also wanted to show my gratitude to those soldiers but in my own way, and what better way than to make a prototype of the game. I could then approach Hasbro, the worldwide makers of Monopoly, with a view to getting the game developed. If they approved, a yet to be defined sum of each sale could be donated to the agreed charity/charities.

 

I went straight onto the internet to find material such as photographs. Permission of the owners would be needed but given the good it might do, I didn’t see that as an obstacle that couldn’t be overcome.

 

I soon discovered that the americans had already released a U.S. Army Edition but it was very difficult to buy outside of the States. So the theme would be novel to the UK. This revelation did not deter me and I continued to gather everything I needed.

 

When I visited Wikipedia and The Ministry of Defence websites it suddenly dawned upon me that I could gather together ALL the insignias used by the various regiments of the British Army to use on the squares of the board.

 

The first chance I had, I visited all the local charity shops to see if I could buy a second-hand copy of Monopoly so I could begin the project in earnest. I was lucky. It was in one of these shops that I stumbled across an immaculate copy of the game. In buying it, I was also giving a little money to another charity…result!

 

A few features of the original had to be changed to meet the theme of the new game. Things such as:

 

* Super Tax became Charity purchases new premises.

* Income Tax became Voluntary donation to charity.

* Community Chest cards became Training cards – these are cards that can earn you money or penalise you.

* Chance cards became Combat cards – these cards can give you greater earnings. However, they can also serve you greater penalties.

* Electric Company became Ammo Supplies.

* Water Works became Medical Pack.

* Train Stations became major British Garrisons.

 

In addition to these board changes, the content on the Combat and Training cards had to be changed to simulate army situations, although their rewards and penalties remained unchanged.

 

After a couple of weeks the project was completed and the prototype built. I saved the artwork files I’d created to a memory stick. The hard work was done – or so I thought.

 

I went back to the computer to find the contact address for Hasbro UK. Once found, I proceded to write an email – my initial approach to the company, presenting myself and introducing the product to them. Within a few days I heard from Hasbro but it was bad news.

 

They told me that they did not accept ‘Unsolicited Submissions’ and that I would stand a better chance had I been refered to them by someone within the Toy and Game Industry or if I’d had a relative working for Hasbro. Nepotism or what!?

 

They gave the reason that they could be sued for even taking a look at the plans. Despite several further approaches to them, they failed to expand on that.

 

I took their advice and looked around for help but could not find any. In the meanwhile, I wrote to ask for the necessary permissions to use the photographs I’d chosen. I also wrote to Help for Heroes and The Britsh Legion to tell them of my intended plans to raise money for one of their charities, the final sum defined by the cost of development and the number of sales of the game.

 

On the whole I had good feedback which I passed on to Hasbro but still they would not entertain my approach. That was that for a while… that was until I discovered Anti-Monopoly.

 

I found out that a similar board game was made back in the Eighties, in the U.S by University Games and in the UK by Paul Lamond Games. I went online again to make my approach to Paul Lamond Games but sadly I didn’t hear anything back from them.

 

By June 2012, the Ministry of Defence had contacted me to tell me that a major change would be taking place sometime before 2020 whereupon some of the existing regiments would be lost or merging. This would result in the disband or loss of name and insignia to those affected. So I was left with two choices: (1) Hold the game back until 2020 by which time the dust would have settled, or (2) Go back to the drawing board with a new idea.

 

Not straying from the original theme, I could create a board which displayed the vehicles and larger weapons that are used by the British Army and this time I knew I had full permission to use photographs displayed on The MoD’s own website as long as the owners of the photos were credited both in the game manual and on this accompanying website.

 

Working day and night for five days, I browsed their website – labelling and saving each photograph I planned to use. Once I’d satisfied myself that I had everything I needed I went on to Stage Two which was to edit everything within the game that I had done before.

 

Finally the game was finished and I announced it to the whole world on Twitter. I could do nothing more until I found someone or a company who would finance and organise every aspect of it’s production…

 

But then I was contacted by David Hubber, an injured serviceman who also designed websites. He was very keen to see the game made but thought it could do with a revamp with a view to catching Hasbro's eye.

 

I shared my artwork with him and he got to work on tweeking aspects of the presentation. After consultation with World of Monopoly we discovered that we could not alter the content of the four corners or the appearance of Mr Monopoly (aka Mr Moneybags) so these had to be reverted back to the originals.

 

Eventually David and I agreed upon the whole look of the game and David set about designing the fore-runner to this website that would document the game's history and present the feel of the game to visitors and businessmen alike.

 

We hoped this would convince Hasbro and Winning Moves that we were serious about our intentions to release the game but we heard nothing...

 

And that is how it stands today. An unwanted project, no money for a game company, and most importantly, no money for a charity such as Help for Heroes or The British Legion.

 

Please join the group MONOPOLY: British Army Edition on Facebook (or click Like) if you like the idea of releasing Monopoly: British Army Edition board game and help to raise money for either Help for Heroes or The British Legion.If you would buy it, then please leave us a message here or on the Facebook page… if you are a regular Hasbro/Winning Moves retail outlet and interested in investing and selling the game then please write to Winning Moves at peter@winningmoves.co.uk and contact us to let us know how things are developing.

 

If nothing comes from this, then please consider making a small donation to either Help for Heroes and/or The British Legion.

 

Thanks for all your support,

 

 

Martin Underwood

(Creator)

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