Finance

 

I stumbled upon an old Parker Brothers game called Finance. It was originally released in 1932 and was a predecessor to Monopoly. It's based on the landlord's game and features similar mechanics. The version I will be writing about is from 1958.

The major differences from Monopoly are there are no property cards, the information is found directly on the board, the railroads can not be purchased, there are no community chest cards, there are no hotels, and house come in a variety of colors. 

This is a game for up to six players, each player has a different colored piece and matching color property circle. The banker will give each player two $500 and five $100, 50, 20, 10 and 5. Players roll the dice to determine who goes first, play continues in a clockwise direction.

Players add the sum of the two dice, move to space indicated and performs the action. If they roll double they roll again. 

If they land on an unowned property they can either purchase for the amount indicated on the board or it will be auctioned. Players must complete on full circuit of the board before they can begin buying houses. They can purchase up to six houses on one property. Rent doubles with each house built.

Other possible spaces are:

Chance - pickup chance card and preform action

Railroad - pay fare

Account overdrawn - pay $10

Tax rebate - collect $70

Soakem Warf - pay $5 to go to carnival 

Take me out to the ballgame - pay $10

Win Speewstakes - roll dice, collect 10xs from each player

Gayety Theater - buy one seat for each player $5 each

Receive legacy - collect $50

The corner spaces are also unique. 

Players start on this space and collect $200 everytime they land here, unless the chance card indicates not to.

If players land here they must pay the bank $10.

On the carnival space players roll the dice again and either move forward or backward.

If a player lands on Take the Rowboat the must move their piece to the Rowboat space. They skip the start space and do not collect $200.

There is a "Surprise Move" that can be completed with these spaces.

Game play is very similar to Monopoly. If a player lands on a property owned by a rival, he must pay rent. If he doesn't have enough cash, the player needs to sell houses or properties back to the bank. If a player can not cover his debt, he becomes bankrupt and is knocked out of the game. Game play continues until there is only one player left, who is the winner. Players can also agree ahead of time to play for a set duration, then add up all cash and property values to find the wealthiest player who is declared the winner.

Players can also enter into private deals during any time of the game. They can sell lots of houses to another player for an agreed upon price. However, players may not lend each other money. 

I was disappointed to learn how similar this game is to Monopoly. It was in production up until 1970. Given the opportunity to play Finance, I will pass and stick with Monopoly where everyone already knows how to play and have their basic strategy down. Not sure what Parker Brothers was trying to achieve with by continuing to sell this one.