2/2/2024 0 Comments Monopoly for mac osWhen the game ends, the results screen shows a graph of every player’s assets over the course of the game, like an Excel chart. Players’ assets are arranged in pop-up windows, and to propose a trade, you drag property between the windows like they’re files on a computer. The game liberally uses elements of computer interfaces. The defining trait of this Monopoly – and other early Mac games – is its self-awareness about being on a computer with a mouse and windows rather than a game console. You can see those influences in the approach of this Monopoly, which, despite being a licensed game, seems right at home with the Mac’s library of shareware oddities. The early games and software for the Macintosh were small, self-consciously quirky titles by independent developers. Human Wave Technology’s 1991 version of Monopoly is a bit silly because the Macintosh was a bit silly. Although these two don’t substantially alter the rules or the game itself, the unique ways they present the same board game, six years apart, can explain the changing contexts they were released in. I want to focus on two older, weirder video game editions – a Macintosh version and a PlayStation version – and what they can tell us. Nearly every North American game system since the 80s has had a version of Monopoly, each one a little different to fit the expectations of the platform and the era. That’s true of the video game adaptations too. Monopoly is a shape-shifter, and it takes on the form of whatever it changes into to stay alive. Monopoly has learned how to be everywhere. It can adapt itself into a card game, a TV show, or a fast food promotion. It can be rethemed to any hit movie or basically any topic. It survives because, thanks to aggressive licensing and marketing by Parker Brothers and Hasbro, it can become whatever it wants. Yet despite its reputation as a monotonous game that ruins friendships and parties, Monopoly has endured. With so many new options for social board games in the past decade, a consensus seems to have emerged: Monopoly sucks.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |