Alright, let me tell you about this thing I called the “twinkle tree monopoly” project. It wasn’t some big business idea, just something I put together myself, kinda hands-on.
It started, like most things, pretty simply. I was looking at some old board games, feeling a bit bored with the usual stuff. Got this idea, what if I made my own version? Something themed around those little twinkly Christmas trees, you know? Seemed like a fun little challenge, something to get stuck into.
Getting Started
First step was just grabbing materials. Didn’t need anything fancy. I rummaged around and found:
- A big piece of old cardboard, from some package I got. Good enough for a board.
- A bunch of markers and pens. Some were kinda dry, had to make do.
- Scissors, glue stick, a ruler that was slightly bent.
- Some colored paper scraps for making cards.
- Little trinkets and buttons from a junk drawer to use as playing pieces. Didn’t have proper ones, obviously.
Finding this stuff took longer than I thought, actually. Had to really dig through boxes.
Making the Board and Bits
So, I flattened the cardboard best I could. Drew out the squares, like in Monopoly, but made up my own names for the spots. All related to trees and lights. Stuff like “Sparkle Spruce Station” or “Tinsel Town Tangle”. Probably sounds silly, but it was fun at the time. Getting the lines straight with that bent ruler was a pain, gotta say.
Then I cut up the colored paper for the property cards. Wrote down made-up rent prices and stuff on each one. My handwriting isn’t the best, so they looked pretty rough. Also made some ‘Chance’ style cards, called them “Fairy Light Faults” or “Star Topper Surprises”. Things like ‘Pay for new bulbs’ or ‘Found a perfect tree spot, advance two spaces’. Simple stuff.
The ‘twinkle’ part was mostly the theme, but I did try gluing a bit of glitter onto the corner spaces. Made a bit of a mess, glitter gets everywhere, doesn’t it? Didn’t have actual lights to put on the board, that would’ve been too complicated.
Trying it Out
Once it was all sort of finished, looking very handmade, I convinced a couple of friends to give it a try. We used some dice from another game. It was kinda chaotic. The rules I made up on the spot weren’t totally balanced, I guess. Some spots were way too powerful, others totally useless. We spent more time laughing at how dodgy the board looked and arguing about the made-up rules than actually playing seriously.
One friend landed on “Tinsel Town Tangle” about five times in a row and got really annoyed, which was funny. The button pieces kept sliding around. It wasn’t smooth like a store-bought game, that’s for sure. But, you know, it worked. We played a full game, sort of. It definitely monopolized our evening, trying to figure it out.
Looking Back
So yeah, that was the twinkle tree monopoly project. Just a homemade game born out of boredom and some cardboard. It wasn’t perfect, far from it. Looked rough, played weirdly. But the whole process of making it, from drawing the board to cutting out little cards, was actually pretty satisfying. Kept me busy. And playing it, even with the flaws, was a good laugh. Don’t know where the board is now, probably got recycled. But it was a fun little experiment, that’s the main thing.
