In Closing

 May 27, 2024, Memorial Day, finally the day has arrived for me to close out the Rich Uncle Pennybags blog. Originally started in January 2022, I couldn't handle new home ownership and writing the blog at the same time. The blog sat silent for most of 2022, I picked it back up again in January 2023, and unfortunately became sick in November 2023 until the end of April 2024. 

To say I learn a lot would be an understatement. Halfway through 2023 I changed direction of the blog to include all the vintage board games I found while looking for Monopoly games. It was a fun unscripted ride. You never know what will turn up when thrifting, picking up a curb side dump, at a game night, or even talking to a friend. 

Initially I toyed with the idea of writing a blog about solitaire games. I regret not following through, many of the games I acquired I wanted to play but didn't have anyone interested in playing with me. There is also a huge time commitment to learning to play a new game. Instead of pushing this on to your friends, I learned it's better to discuss what they would be interested in playing beforehand. 

The biggest surprise was how much I enjoyed the Monopoly card games. I also found a couple other card versions of popular games that are worth checking out; including Scrabble Slam!, Battleship card game, and Pac-man card game. These are not only easy to learn but in general take 15-20 minutes to play. They are great to have on vacation or can even be taken to a beer garden instead of a regular deck of cards.

As a child I was never a huge Monopoly fan, I chose to write about variations of Monopoly as a learning experience.  Nothing really changed, I still don't like Monopoly, I stuck through it and wrote about the various versions I set out to. It was a long process, involved a lot of reading, writing and editing. I learned about the history of Monopoly and The Landlord's game. Most games I thought were based off Monopoly, really all started with The Landlord's game. There are a lot of other Real Estate based games I came across, but I really couldn't spend my time writing about a topic I'm not interested in. Now home renovation games I could write about at anytime.

In addition to finding different Monopoly games I learned that Uno also has many different versions to play. Scrabble was not far behind, with a number of variations including Crosswords/Dominoes, Slam!, Scrabble Junior, UPwords, Duplicate, Bingo, not to mention the various licensed versions/mashups. Last but not least would be the combination of Monopoly and Scrabble which was recently released in 2023. I found that my favorite types of games fall into the "word game" category. It's definitely easier to find playable games once you know where your interest lay.

I didn't come across the Simpson's versions of Monopoly I wanted but did find the Simpson's Clue and Operation. After reading the instructions and going through the game I was not impressed. Game play was virtually the same and I realized these really are gimmicks. I would say avoid these all together, stick with the classics. The small details really aren't worth it unless you plan to frame/display the game.

I was unable to monetize my blog. It was sent to Google AdSense for review several times. Each time the results were the same, it was labelled a filler blog, basically taking up space but not offering anything of substance. Don't worry I was not too disappointed, I more or less write the blog for therapeutic reasons. I was however extremely flattered when I realized my blog was initially being read by fellow Monopoly bloggers. Days after publishing a new post I would notice a similar post on their blog.  

“Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness.” ~ Oscar Wilde