Playing Monopoly in 2008

Last week, I had purchased the official Monopoly Here & Now: The World Edition game for the iPhone and iPod touch. It currently sells for $7.99 and probably will for some time to come. I don't see a major discount to be likely, so get it now! It's worth it. (App Store Link.)

The game's biggest features, according to Touch Arcade:

Give your iPhone/iPod touch a shake to roll the dice or animate the movers
Use your touch screen to flick and drag property cards and simulate real-life game experiences
3D view of the board and movers
Select full-board view or zoom in for a close-up
Play solo against the computer or Pass n’ play for 4
Wi-Fi Multiplayer Mode allows 4 players to connect via the same router on a Local Area Network
Automatically replaces players who leave with AI

Besides being an amazing time killer at work and fun game during the commute, the game was something very interesting. Having been familiar with only the original Monopoly as Charles Darrow had intended, with Ventor Avenue and Reading Railroad, I was excited to see the "Here & Now" world edition of this classic game. Check out the Wikipedia page on Monopoly for a very insightful read. In 2006, the "Here & Now" properties were decided with an online voting process. Wikipedia outlines the results. (I'm glad to see that Taipei made it on the map!)

What makes this edition of Monopoly interesting is that its scope covers actual world cities (albeit, superficially) as opposed to neighborhoods of Atlantic City or fictitious places of themes in other editions of Monopoly. And playing this game in one of the worst recessions in recent history is an attempt to bring this game back to its roots. Or at least, to get you thinking about money and what it means not to have it as you traverse the playing field, a kind of metaphor for life. When money comes into the picture, events and people's decisions can change drastically. In the game of Monopoly, the goal is not team building and not reaching out to your peers. Its premise: bankruptcy of others through competition. Its goal: to win and to cheat one's way to victory through any legal means necessary. The next time you sit around a table in a dimly lit room playing Monopoly with your friends, try to experience Monopoly for what it is and for what was meant to be.

I have dug up a few more interesting articles on Monopoly. (I do not necessarily share the opinion of their author.)

Before the October 2008 "Crash": Is The Monopoly Game Teaching You To Go Broke?

During the October 2008 "Crash": High Anxiety: We went from playing inflation-era Monopoly to playing depression-era Monopoly in mid-game.

After the October 2008 "Crash": The Economic Crisis Hits the Markson Family Monopoly Board

My iPhone Home Screens

These days, there are so many quality iPhone application in the iTunes App Store that it is so hard to keep up with. I try to follow up with the new releases day to day just to know what's out there. Typically for paid apps, I wait until about 1000 reviews or an overall rating of 4+ before considering buying them. I have wasted spent so much money on applications and games already. But sometimes, especially with the smaller developers, they deserve my money. Hah.

Recently I have found a few iPhone applications that have come in very handy for me. Some of these will probably not work well for iPod touch users without wi-fi. In case anyone's interested, I have attached screenshots of my iPhone home screens.

Home Screen 1: Homepage
Continued from my original iPod touch days, keeping all the native iPhone apps together.


Home Screen 2: Daily Readings & Apps
Apps I use almost daily. Before the App Store, this page had been reserved for web apps that I had bookmarked.


Home Screen 3: Games & GPS
This page has changed a lot since Day One. I generally remove the bad games or those I have already completed. This page changes very often.


Home Screen 4: Reference & Utilities
This page has evolved from being the spill-over page, when I didn't use Text, YouTube, iTunes, App Store much. This, however, is no longer the case; it has become the place where I store essential reference applications.


I'll write more about the special-er ones in the next post. Please share your favorite applications in the comments if you'd like.

Enigmo for iPhone

Enigmo. I finally completed this puzzle game on the iPhone. The original price was $7.99 and I bought it because it won the Apple Design Award for the iPhone Developer Showcase at Macworld 2008.

Its price has fallen to $1.99 since then and further still to a mere $0.99. It is a game definitely worth checking out. It turns out there is a total of 50 levels. I was a little stuck around level 30, but after that hiccup, the rest of the game went fairly smoothly.

Fieldrunner 1.1

The best game for iPhone was updated yesterday to version 1.1. I was hooked on it when I bought it before, and I am hooked on it now that it's updated and improved!