Hasbro and Winning Moves, the publishers and owners of the Monopoly and Scrabble IPs respectively, have banded together to create a new Frankenstein crossover, Monopoly Scrabble. The game comes as a bit of an oddball at first, combining the core concept of securing the finest plots of real estate and competing in producing the highest-scoring words.
Two of the Best Classic Board Games Meet in One Box
To move around the board, you would need to spell out words with Scrabble tiles, which is pretty much how the game works through and through. By how much you move will depend on how good your word is. There are other interesting mechanics as well. For example, if you place a word over a Scrabble square that is deemed premium, you will be able to buy the property in the allocated slot – just like in Monopoly. Then again, your opponents can steal properties from you if they use the letter in your space and build a word with it.
It takes some getting used to, but the design isn’t too bad, even if it feels a little random – a quality that fits right with the Monopoly franchise. Most of the Monopoly mechanics are now accessible through word building with Scrabble titles, including the Community Chest and Chance cards. Although we aren’t sure how we feel about the game, there are upsides to this new mash-up.
Monopoly Scrabble seems to play very fast, allowing fans to at least blaze through the game a bit quicker than the original base game by Hasbro.
Introducing both concepts and melding them is definitely an interesting way to celebrate both games, and to actually let them benefit from each other’s IP and exposure, potentially engaging with new audiences, and even allowing their respective and dedicated players to try the other’s concept around.
The game is coming to retail in the fall and it will be available worldwide. Billed as the perfect mash-up, this will be for players to decide.