Let's Play Millionaires

THE BOARD

Millionaires has been my childhood favorite board game back in the 90's. This was introduced to me by one of my friends in the neighborhood. We are four players back then. I like the game so I asked mom to buy one for me. Mom played this one with me too and she enjoyed the game. I did my best to preserve this board game for two long decades so I can play it for a long time. Here are some of the inclusions of the board game I was able to keep.

• 6 tokens
• 2 pcs. dice
• big and small houses
• play money
• title deed cards (green, blue, yellow)
• good luck cards

The game allows a maximum of six players. At the start of the game, everyone decides who will be the players and the banker (only one banker is needed). A player can be both a banker and a player. Each player must choose his/her desired token. I usually choose blue since it's my favorite color. Then everyone rolls the dice to decide the order of turns. The one who rolls the highest number will be the first to have a turn.

PLAY MONEY

The photo above is the denomination of the play money. The banker distributes this to each player. Each denomination has a certain number of pieces that are initially given to each player.

• 1 Dollar - 5 pieces
• 5 Dollars - 5 pieces
• 10 Dollars - 7 pieces
• 20 Dollars - 5 pieces
• 50 Dollars - 4 pieces
• 100 Dollars - 6 pieces
• 500 Dollars - 1 piece

Each player will start playing holding a total of $1,500.

TITLE DEED CARDS

As you can see in the board game, there are several boxes with different colors. The one with yellow, blue, and green boxes are properties that a player can buy. If a player buys a property, a title deed card for that property will be given as proof of ownership. It's a good idea to avoid confusion and there's no need to memorize what you own. The yellow ones are establishments while the blue and green ones are house properties.

GOOD LUCK CARD

When a player rolls the dice and resulted to a pair of six, for example, or any number as long as both dice resulted to the same pair of numbers, the player gets the chance to draw a good luck card. These cards contain freebies like free rent on other player's house or a chance to be free of charge from other fees you will stop by. They also give you the chance to draw a card containing a random cash to be collected from the bank.

THE GAMEPLAY

Each player can buy a property depending on where he landed. For the house properties, the player can choose between one to four houses. The small houses are placed on the property's slot if the player buys 1-3 houses. If it's four houses, then the big one will be used. If another player stops there, he will have to pay whatever is the rental fee. The more houses you buy, the higher you earn from the fee that the other players will pay you.

The ones with the red boxes can either charge you with fees or give you extra cash. The ones with fees are hospital, train, and taxes. A player who stops there will have to pay the bank with the amount indicated. The ones that give extra cash are the TV quiz show, races and bingo.

Players will keep on taking turns and each time they pass on the starting point, they receive $500 from the bank. The game continues until all properties are bought. At the end of the game, the players will count the number of properties they have as well as the money they hold. The one with the most number of properties and money wins.

This game is so addicting that I even play it alone sometimes. The people I played with this game really liked it too. My niece and nephew even asked their parents to buy it for them. We sometimes play it using two boards when I combine mine with the one they have. Even my boyfriend enjoyed it too. He would like to play it again when he goes home and we meet again. I have to buy a new one though because I lost the tokens, dice and houses. It's still available in toy stores here so I highly recommend this board game especially to my fellow Filipinos. It's really simple and fun to play.