Playing Monopoly by rules? No dice

Contending that today’s busy kids don’t have time to waste learning the rules for walking on the Boardwalk or riding on the Reading, Hasbro has created an updated version of the game to speed it up, eliminate arguments and doing away with the clearly illegal practice of selling your Get Out of Jail Free card.

Whether it will keep you from promising your little brother that trading his three green properties in exchange for your Baltic Avenue is a great deal for him isn’t clear.

Monopoly Live, which was unveiled at last week’s toy fair in New York, will be available in the fall for about $50.

Instead of being controlled by the biggest kid at the board, this version will be run by a computer tower with a speaker that issues instructions, keeps track of money and makes sure the players follow the rules. It even monitors your moves to make sure you don’t take eight spaces when you roll a five and two.

“For games, but really for anything you buy today, you need to be able to take it out of the box and play it,” a Hasbro executive told The New York Times. “You’re not ensconced in the rulebook.”

Not only is the new version designed to eliminate cheating and arguments, it also does away with the dice. Players merely cover their game piece with their hands and the computer tells them how many spaces to move.

For me, shaking and rolling the dice, like pulling the arm on slot machines, is half the fun. And it’s educational. Totaling the spots on the dice was how my kids learned math, although two of them still can’t count past 12.

And where are they supposed to hear important terms such as “snake eyes” and “box cars?”

I’m not sure there’s paper money, either. I think you just slide a debit card into a slot and receive an eStatement at the end of the month. Which doesn’t sound like nearly as much fun as dipping into the bank for an extra $500 when no one is looking.

I don’t know if we ever were ensconced in the rulebook, or even read it. Somehow, though, without a computer to monitor us, we spent thousands of enjoyable hours playing with little green houses and red hotels. And arguing about them.

But perhaps a game that forces everyone to play by the rules is exactly what this country needs, although I’m not ready for it.

I’m still trying to figure out how to cheat my computer at Solitaire.

Contact D.. Stewart at dlstew_2000@yahoo.com