Custom Monopoly Board

When I was 18 I made a custom Monopoly set for my best friend, Jon, called Jonopoly. I butchered an existing Monopoly set from a car boot sale, and printed out new properties out on a cheap black and white dot matrix printer and stuck them onto the board.

I spent hours painstakingly making the game, and I was thrilled when he recently posted some photos of the board, along with a message that I forgot that I'd written on the inside of the lid:

"There's a piece of my soul in this game, so even after I die, I'll still be alive. Please don't throw it away, even if you've forgotten all about me or hate my guts. If we can't keep the good memories what's the point of living? If it's past the 21st October 2014 and you haven't seen me for a while (even if it is because I ran off with your wife) find out where I am and call me - if you read this out I'll forgive anything you've done. See you in the future whatever may be happening. Love from Mat x"

Needless to say we are still in touch, and I haven't run off with his wife (yet).

As is the way of life, these things come full circle.

Some friends gave me a game called Make Your Own Opoly. Remembering Jonopoly, I was excited by the idea of making a version for the sleepy Cornish town where we now live.

However after reading the instructions I was utterly horrified at how much they'd massacred the game. A quick look at TDC Games' website will show you the kind of thing I'm talking about. So I decided I could do it better.

First of all, I bought a 2002 edition Monopoly set from eBay (I love eBay) and discovered that someone had created a Monopoly board template using Adobe Illustrator. I downloaded that, updated the board to the stardard UK format, changed the property names and got the board printed as a 20" square poster by Asda Photo of all places, which cost about £10.

Actually it cost me £20 because I messed up the first one after gluing it to the board. Then I re-created the property cards, community chest and chance cards in Illustrator, and printed them at home.

Finally I designed a new box and had it printed by Asda Photo again (co-incidentally the box template is also 20" wide), cut it out and glued it to the existing box.

Ta da!

Let me know if you'd like me to email you the files you'll need to make your own custom Monopoly board. You'll need Adobe Illustrator to edit them. My guess is that you'll need 5-10 hours spread over a week or so in order to make your own.

What board game would you customise?