I added a new “game in production” to my development pipeline. My 2^nd grade daughter is now requesting Monopoly as her default game to play. We’ve included games for her birthday and Christmas presents every year past 3 years old. I want to expose her to all sorts of mechanics and themes. But that hasn’t been enough. Something about the game of Monopoly interests her. So I’ve started a quest to have her help me design a better Monopoly.

My diet of board games as a kid, like many of my generation, was something I had to overcome in order to love games. Monopoly, Life, Candy Land, Chutes and Ladders… games that, at best, reinforced counting and colors. At worst, they taught you winning at life is a roll of the dice.

So my daughter and I started this morning by thinking about the silly/bad parts of Monopoly. Our list so far:

• Why is winning about getting the most money?
• Why can you only buy house and hotels?
• Where are all the other things a town needs besides utilities, railroads, housing, parking, and a jail?
• Why do you have to follow the same path around the board?

We started to also think about things we might want. That’s up next.