Mustache Maniacs-opoly is a property trading board game made in the same vein as the classic game Monopoly. It features locations from various Mustache Maniacs Film Co. movies as properties that can be bought and traded, and features events based on various movie moments.
Contents[]
Mustache Maniacs-opoly contains, inside its blue and red box, two traditional playing dice, one sheet of paper describing the game rules, two stacks of event cards (called good news and bad news), four denominations of Mustache Money ($100, $500, $1000, $5000), and six brick-built playing pieces, each one modeled after an item from Mustache Maniacs Film Co. canon: Legoman's Legomobile, Lord Sinister's stolen jeep, Com 50's teleport remote, Mustache Max's mustache, Babloo's elephant, and Kiki's coconut cannon.
The playing board is predominately blue with the spaces running around the board's perimeter. Each property space features a location from a Mustache Maniacs Film Co. movie, with the corner spaces also tweaked for this version. Start has become the Legocave, Jail has been changed into Spies' Hideout, Free Parking is now Shady Acres, and Go to Jail was altered into Fate. Railroads have been replaced with Play Lotto.
For the Twenty Years Young event, this game is being overhauled as a digital board game for online play. This would mean that all of the contents of the physical game have now been recreated digitally, with an expected release of this version of the game being scheduled for July 3, 2024.
Features and Game Play[]
The game plays very similar to traditional Monopoly, but with some of the rules altered or simplified. As players make their way around the board, they can buy up properties, aiming to make the most money and to drive the other players into bankruptcy. As the game progresses, the corner spaces, game events, and Play Lotto can affect the outcome of the game as follows.
- Play Lotto: Players can bet either $100 or $500 of Mustache Money that they will get the same number they just rolled in a re-roll. Winning lotto increases your bet by the amount listed on the space. Lost bets end up at Shady Acres.
- Good News: These are game events that give you extra cash that you can then add to your holdings.
- Bad News: These are game events that take Mustache Money away from you and either send it to the other players or to Shady Acres.
- The Legocave: This is the start space. Just like in Monopoly, a player gets $2000 whenever he or she passes over it.
- Spies' Hideout: Anyone who lands here is captured and must stay for a maximum of three turns. Rolling doubles gets you out for free.
- Shady Acres: Any player who lands here gets all of the money all players lost to Play Lotto and game events.
- Fate: Landing here forces the player to roll again. An odd roll gets good news, while an even roll gets bad news.
The game ends when either a set amount of time has elapsed, or one player is driven to bankruptcy. The player with the highest amount of Mustache Money at the end is the winner.
Tropes[]
Mustache Maniacs-opoly contains examples of the following tropes.
- Adam Smith Hates Your Guts: As players buy up properties all over the board and match up properties based on individual movies, rent prices skyrocket, forcing other players to pay more and more.
- Anti-Frustration Features: Unlike Monopoly, there is one Good News card that will award all of the players money. Also, the famous "Free Parking" rule of claiming all money on the board, which isn't an actual Monopoly rule, is made into an official rule here.
- Bowdlerise: The board game lists some features with less-threatening equivalents from Monopoly. This is justified, as the board game was not entirely designed in-house; it uses the Make-Your-Own-opoly template, which set many of these names in stone. They are:
- Jail was changed to Lose a Turn.
- Go to Jail was changed to Fate! (which may or may not send you to Lose a Turn).
- Chance and Community Chest were changed to the simpler Good News and Bad News.
- Built with LEGO: The playing pieces are all built out of LEGO pieces, even if their original forms were never brick-built.
- Digital Tabletop Game Adaptation: As part of the Twenty Years Young celebration, this game is being reimagined as an online game that can allow fans from across the globe to play the game in real time. This new version of the game is set to be released on July 3, 2024.
- Distinctive Appearances: All of the playing pieces are different iconic props and vehicles from Mustache Maniacs Film Co. movies.
- Fictional Currency: All of the game's money is denoted as Mustache Money, with characters from different Mustache Maniacs Film Co. movies appearing on different denominations.
- Mythology Gag: The game is chock full of these. Some of the most notable are:
- Shady Acres is the free space, and anyone who lands on this space claims any money surrendered to the board. This is an obvious nod to the plot of Mystery at Shady Acres, which centers on conspiracy and theft, all in the name of money.
- The Bad News card that sends you to the Spies' Hideout claims that the player was arrested for drawing a picture in wet cement. This exact same scenario happens in Kilroy Was Here!, where Private Joe Kilroy was allegedly arrested for the exact same reason.
- One card claims that an army of Cal Pada Guards is attacking you and that they all look the same. This is another joke aimed at the infamous Cal Pada Guards, who were all flat characters played by one person.
- Prison: The Spies' Hideout operates pretty much the same way as Monopoly's jail, with the only differences being that no amount of money can get you out at any time, getting out after three turns also forces you to surrender some of your money, and landing on the hideout gets you caught (you can't visit).
- Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: If you own some of the more expensive properties and other players land on said properties, you will become very rich, indeed.
- Themed Stock Board Game: This game is basically a re-skin of Monopoly, albeit with some of the rules simplified, as well as codifying some famous "house" rules of Monopoly that were never actually official rules (such as claiming all money on the board by landing on the free space).
Trivia[]
- This game was released to commemorate the fifth anniversary of Mustache Maniacs Film Co., a fact stated on the box.
- In an earlier version of the game, Lord Sinister's stolen jeep was not a playing piece. Instead, it was the Heart of the Dragon from Indiana Jones and the Heart of the Dragon.
- The game was created by using the template made for Make Your Own-opoly.
- The game features properties, events, and special spaces based on 15 different Mustache Maniacs Film Co. movies.
- On the rules sheet, it is stated that for the Fate space, an even roll will get good news and an odd roll will get bad news. This is a direct contradiction to what is written on the Fate space on the board.