Millionaires Game Revisits

I’m not a big fan of board games but I do appreciate them very much. I would love to play one every ones in a while for times when I need to take a break on video games. One of them was Monopoly where I still clearly remember it was our favorite past time of my friends back when we were in 3rd grade. And there’s the usual board game like Scrabble and Chess. Then there’s Millionaires Game that I know its also quite notable before on par with Monopoly but I didn’t played it that much and I barely knew how to played it nor what differs it in Monopoly. So it was one of those very few board games that I didn’t played much.

Just last few weeks my sister bought a Millionaires Game (She suppose to buy Monopoly but it was surprisingly pricey even to this day). So, of course I got interested, its been a looong time since I last played a board game and its my chance now to finally played the Millionaires Game at full and give my thoughts on it.

So, for everybody who knew about this board game let me refresh you on how this game is played. The rules are pretty much easy to follow. It may be complicated at first especially if you read the instruction thoroughly but once you played it in actual, it’s actually easy to follow. If you’re familiar with Monopoly, it plays almost the same with few differences in some manner.

• One of the players shall act as a Player-Banker.

• Players will start off in $1500 in denomination of 1 pc $500, 6 pcs $100, 4 pcs $50, 5 pcs 20, 7 pcs $10, 5 pcs $5 and 5 pcs $1.

• Players will cycle through the board counter-clockwise using 2 pieces of dice. They will use 2 dice to roll and the total number got in the roll of both dice will be the player’s number of moves.

• The board is consisting of few elements (1) Residential Lot (2) Commercial Establishment (3) Public Utility Company and (4) Service Firm. These are spaces that players can purchase and own and where play-houses are set-up.
  

• Residential Lot spaces are divided into 2 groups according to its color – Green and Blue. Player lands in an unoccupied Residential property will have the right to purchase it. If the player is unable to buy the property, it will now be auction to other players starting with a bid not lower than the mortgage value. The property is sold to the highest bidder. Players who own a Residential property is entitled to receive rentals from other players whose happens to land in the said property. The rent is half of property’s morgaga value.
• Commercial Establishment, Public Utility Company and Service Firm are considered as Business Establishments. Unlike Residential properties, Business properties are always put into auction for all players whenever any players lands into it for the first time. The bid starts of not lower than its mortgage value and it is sold to the highest bidder. Players who own a Business property is entitled to received a fixed amount of rentals from other player whose happen to land in the said property

• Players can mortgage his Residential (including houses on them)/Business properties if needed. In this process, player will surrender his/her Title Deed Card of Residential/business property that he/she wanted to mortgage to the bank. The bank will hand over the loan to the player. The loan is equal to the total mortgage values of the mortgaged property. The bank shares half of the income derived from the mortgaged properties. The other half remains to the player. The sharing arrangement will continue until the player repays his loan with the bank. When the loan is paid, the Title Deed Card is returned to the player.

• Player can also do direct sale of property to other players. In this case, the player shall act as his own auctioneer. Bid may start with any amount. Property will be sold to the highest bidder but the owner has the right not to sell the property if he considers the highest bid to be unsatisfactory. If the bid is accepted, the owner hands over the Title Deed Card and play-house (if there’s any) to the new owner. The new owner then surrenders the play-house to the bank which replaces it with one of the same color as the new owner. The bank charges $2 for every play-house replacement.

• Any actions pertaining to mortgaging or lifting of mortgage is done only when it is the turn of the player. Purchasing additional houses to a particular Residential property is done only if the player land on that said property.

• Spaces like State Hospital and the Pacific Railroad Co are businesses owned by the bank. When a player lands on a lot space occupied by either one, he has to pay the bank the fixed amount indicated on the lot spaces. Chance spaces are those red-colored spaces that are not owned by anyone. When players land on it, he pays to OR receives from the bank the fixed amount indicated on that space.

• On every player’s cycle on the board and returned back to the starting position, they receive $500 from the bank.

• Whenever a player rolls a double in his turn, he is entitled to draw one card from the Good Luck cards and this he shows to everyone. Good Luck cards is use only once in a game and is returned to the bank or surrendered to the owner of the business after its use as the case may be. Player should immediately comply with the instructions indicated to the card he/she draw.

• When a player has acquired at least 10 of the properties with the same group indicator, he/she is said to have a “Monopoly” of this group of properties. When player has this, he is entitled to collect from other players who happen to land on his property twice the usual amount of rental that is normally charged.

• The game ends when the banker declares a player bankrupt or when the bank runs out of play-money. After the game is declared ended, each player should count all his play-money, adding to it the total mortgage value of all his properties on hand. The player with biggest asset is declared the WINNER.

So that’s all the general instructions on how to play the Millionaires game. It’s pretty much easy to learn and it’s definitely fun to play and by my first impression, the overall gameplay really almost resembles the Monopoly game, in which it really made me wonder the origin of the Millionaires game.

I actually try to look for information and facts about this board game and for some reason I couldn’t find any on the net. I saw several board games having the same name but it wasn’t the same board game at all. I never actually got the information I need so I came down to the conclusion that the Millionaires game was actually another board game-imitation of Monopoly and it was probably Philippine made. Somebody in the forums also told me that the Millionaires game was a clone of Monopoly and he also thought that it was locally made. So, that’s the closest answer I could get on why Millionaires game almost share the same gameplay as the Monopoly. 

Nevertheless, Millionaires Game is a good board game. It may not be as widely popular compare to the Parker Brother's Monopoly game, I believe it became one of the favorite board games here in the Philippines where its much appreciated.

The Millionaires Game is created by Mabuhay Educational Center, Inc. This board game is still very much available up to this point. It is still widely purchase at Philippine's popular Bookstore chain - National Bookstore. It's still a bit pricey though (around more than P400.00 or something). You may try to find other stores that sell it for a cheaper price

That's all for now.

Until then!

  

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