WAXHAW, N.C. (QUEEN CITY NEWS) - A new craze has hit one Union County community as a new board game has shown up in stores. This game is all about the town.
Waxhawopoly is self-explanatory. It's a monopoly-style game all about Waxhaw, but Milton Bradley and the Hasbro Parker Brothers aren't behind this version.
A family-run business of 40 employees based in Cincinnati, Ohio created this Monopoly version and dozens of others about cities and towns across the country.
Waxhaw is a community of a little more than 15,000. Despite the rapid growth happening there, it still has a small-town feel. Waxhaw is now big enough, to have its own board game.
"I am a part of a Facebook group called “buy nothing Waxhaw” and somebody had bought about 10 of these games around Christmas and had gifted them to people in the area and everybody was like, this exists? It's really cool and very unique,” said Waxhaw resident, Stacey Walker.
Just like in town, you'll travel using the same roads on the board. You can always spot the water "tank", so it's a stop on the game board.
Instead of going to jail, you'll run into a traffic jam. Businesses you can buy are actual places in the center of town.
"First of all for someone to do a monopoly game about our little town here is great, but then to find out we are on it. That's pretty neat,” said Dream Chasers Brewery Owner, Neil Gimon.
Dream Chasers is one of the businesses you can purchase within the game. The people building the classic game with a local feel, aren't local at all. They're based in Cincinnati, Ohio.
The makers use the power of the internet to do research through the Chamber of Commerce and town websites.
"We try to stick around the points of interest just to make it a little less of who’s-who in the game as much as you can,” said Michael Schulte from Late for the Sky games.
And the who's-who requests a local version of monopoly games in Wal-Mart. Late for the Sky has a contract with the store to create these monopoly games for places all over the country.
"Everybody has grown up playing a version of this type of game before and why not it be about your hometown,” said Schulte.
While hometowns can change with people coming and going, the monopoly versions of towns will always stay the same.
"It's still in the box but we are waiting for our granddaughter to get a little and say, hey that is grandpa and grandma's place there,” said Gimon.
Leaders at Late for the Sky say Monopoly gameplay is not copyrighted, meaning any version of the game can be created as long as the board, pieces and names within the game are different from the original version.
0 Comments