USAopoly is Making a Super Mario Game - and it Isn't Monopoly!!!


In early April, 2017, USAopoly announced a new product in their Super Mario line. While USAopoly is perhaps somewhat notorious for its saturation of the market for over 20 years with countless re-skinnings of Monopoly.....




(And that's just the video game versions currently in production...)

Every now and again, USAopoly creates something a little more original than constantly pumping out variations on Yahtzee, Monopoly, and Risk.

(The USAopoly factory)

However, other than simply announcing the game, and posting pictures of the box art, USAopoly gives us little information on how the game is played or what the rules are. SO LETS LOOK AT THE BACK OF THE BOX!!


Judging from the back of the box, it looks like it is more of a party game. This I get purely from the voting cards that everyone gets with a YES or NO vote. The game seems to imply that either overtly, or covertly, each player is trying to get a character, or set of characters to the top of the hill. With the randomness of the "?" Blocks and strategic use of powerups, it looks like an interesting game.

Hmmmm...interesting and new game...USAopoly...I'm not convinced...

(My untidy scrawl says it all)




dv GIOCHI also has a hand in this game it seems (in addition to it being an officially licensed product by Nintendo). dv GIOCHI is a publisher in Italy and has published a number of successful games such as BANG!, Above and Below, and Amun-Re. Granted, it does seem that they are primarily a publisher and distributor vs. developer, and the scant information about this game doesn't include data about the development team or designers. What is interesting is that dv GIOCHI's hand in publishing this game is not mentioned on the USAopoly website. Additionally, the USAopoly game page states that this game will only be for sale in the United States and Canada. 

So, if dv GIOCHI was theoretically going to simply be the European publisher, it is strange to see this limitation on distribution. Further, the BGG entry only lists USAopoly as sole publisher and (since that isn't the be all and end all of information on board games *gasp*) dv GIOCHI's website lists zero information about this game as of April 2017. So, I suppose this will remain a mystery until further notice. 

(So here is a picture of Princess Peach wearing a Milli Vanilli sweater as compensation)

Regardless, it is nice to see Super Mario getting more modern releases in the west. Japan is still pumping out Super Mario board games and plastic mazes with some regularity. So, with the dearth of releases stateside, any new release is, if nothing else, noteworthy (even if from USAopoly).


(But what about me?...)


USAOPOLY GAME PAGE

BoardGameGeek Game Entry





Comments

  1. UnknownAugust 11, 2017 at 11:48 PM

    mario characters names We all hear about the super Mario bros and all the games in the Mario series are nice to play

    ReplyDelete

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