A huge effort on the part of some very imaginative fans of George R. R. Martin‘s A Song of Ice and Fire and HBO‘s TV adaptation Game of Thrones has resulted in the most logical “novel-to-board game” mashup that ever mashed: Game of Thrones Monopoly, or — if you will — Throneopoly! The objective is put perfectly by io9:
What if, instead of making uneasy alliances and searching for the truth in a harsh landscape where the very seasons are set against you, you had to move around the board attempting to collect castles and avoid having to go to The Wall?
See? This makes so much sense! Want to see all the other moving parts?
The team at io9 commissioned this project and incorporated the talents of designer John Pedigo. (Now that we’re after the jump, click the game board above to see it full-sized.) You’ll notice that the substitutions were easy, as in the Wall (for “Jail”), the starting point where you would collect 200 gold coins reads “A Lannister always pays his debt,” and the Stables (for “Free Parking”).
Here are the “Chance/Community Chest” cards, first the fronts, and then the backs. You draw one when you land on one of three Inns — Chatataya’s, The Crossroads Inn, Inn of the Kneeling Man — or a space instructing you to “Ask Littlefinger/Varys/The 3-eyed Crow.”
And here are the playing pieces, my only source of disappointment. Call me spoiled, but after getting to choose from top hats and tiny dogs, I was kinda hoping for swords and wolves. But since they are symbols for each house of Westeros and that is what would make a lot more sense since one would be playing as a house of Westeros, attempting to gain control over castles and the kingdom, I’ll let it slide. Because the rest is pretty impressive. And a sword would imply an individual quest, wouldn’t it? But a tiny cast-iron three-headed dragon would be pretty sweet. (The other pieces are a castle and a farmhouse inn.)
Kudos to the io9 team who conjured this up alongside Pedigo: Charlie Jane Anders, Kyle Liebert, Catherine Ford, Jay Bushman, Andrew Platt, Diana Gill, Jenn Marshall, Sam Caddick, Jay Tomio, Barry Bailey, Jonathan Strahan, as well as superfan Adam Whitehead and other contributors! If this should become an actual game, it would not only be epic in scope, but also in length! Just like the Monopoly we know and love!
(io9)
