Everyone love the Simpsons. At the time of writing, the series has 739 episodes over 34 seasons. Having been around since 1989, the Simpsons once enjoyed viewership of over 30 million householders per episode. While the number has dropped significantly over the subsequent decades, its viewership still smashes many modern TV series. A result of this cultural phenomenon is merchandise, at the end of it all, money makes the world go round. Today, its Simpsons Board Games that we are most interested in exploring and trying to pinpoint what exactly makes them good (or not!).
Table of Contents
- Simpsons Monopoly
- The Simpsons Board Game (2000)
- Codenames: The Simpsons Board Game
- The Simpsons: Loser Takes it all
- Simpsons Trading Card Game
- Doh! The Fate of Simpsons Board Games
Simpsons Monopoly
Hasbro has issued licencing to Monopoly to everyone and I mean every-one. Checking in the US alone, we could see over 600 editions since 1935. There are franchises from Rick and Morty to Marvel, Attack on Titan to Disney. The Simpsons is no exception and its version released in 2003, around season 14 and 15. Still very much at its peak, it was a decent commercial success and lead to the release of The Simpsons Electric Banking Edition and The Simpsons: Treehouse of Horrors Edition.
The question of whether you will enjoy this game or not should rather be a question: do you like Monopoly? Nothing has really changed, it is just a “Simpsonified” version of the original, the same number of properties, same number of chance cards and same number of community chest cards.
Stand out properties include:
- Brown – Springfield Tire Yard
- Light Blue – Kwik-E-Mart (Should be higher ranked it my opinion!)
- Purple – Moe’s Tavern
- Orange – Sir Put-a-Lots
- Red – Ye Olde Off-Ramp Inn
- Yellow – The Frying Dutchman
- Green – Itchy and Scratchy Land
- Dark Blue – Burn’s Manor
- Monorails – Springfield Station
- Utilities – Springfield Nuclear Power Plant
If any of these landmarks are of interest it is probably worth picking up. Ultimately, if you do not have a version of monopoly it might be worth looking this up because it functions as a normal monopoly game whether you like the Simpsons or not.
The Simpsons Board Game (2000)
The Simpsons Board Game is the official board game for the franchise. It is not really and independent board game by itself, rather a series of mini games whose results determine the outcome of the overall game.
The aim of the game is to have the most rubbish on the living room rug. The game is over when the rug is full of trash – not really an appealing sentiment for a game! You get trash by winning the mini games. Mini games are overly simplistic, it is clear this is targeted at a younger audience, but the mini games just do not do it justice. They are often clones of games like snakes and ladders or as simplistic as “move a player 3 spaces” when you land on this tile.
In fairness to the game, this was published back in 2000 and it reflects the mechanics and ideas of other games at the time. The more complicated or innovative board games were just beginning to be published at this time and they had not gathered enough momentum at this time to be considered a success or not.
Overall, we probably would not recommend this one as who is really growing up their children on the Simpsons in 2022? It is more of a passionate, older, fan base that is keeping the series going.
Codenames: The Simpsons Board Game
Codenames: The Simpsons takes the Codenames formula and Simpsonifies it. Objectively, this is a better game than Monopoly. There’s more skill, more variety, and, in the end, it’s a quicker overall experience. For a lot of people, monopoly does drag.
A short description of the Codenames formula if you do not already know it: The Spymaster (one of the members on your team) gives one word clues that describe one of the words or pictures (in this case) on the board. The other players on the team will try to guess what that word is without describing the other words around it. The great part of Codenames is when you use one word to describe multiple words on the board and then tick off multiple words at once!
The comments for this game are similar to the Simpsons monopoly. It does not do anything particularly different, but if you do not already have Codenames, there is no harm in picking it up.
The Simpsons: Loser Takes it all
The Simpsons: Loser Takes it all is an out and out party game. The aim is to have the least number of points at the end of the game hence the title. The game is dominated by the spinner with which you begin every turn.
Players spin the wheel and then take the corresponding action, typically a movement on the board. The space you land on the board will then dictate an additional action for you to take. It might be a true or false question, or a truth or date: “What is your favourite film”. It is not ground breaking stuff, but it is designed as a party game, so does a good job of helping you get to know the people you are playing with.
Simpsons Trading Card Game
As with all big franchises, a trading card game is inevitable. The game is quite a small venture, only having 156 cards in total across five theme decks and eleven booster packs. To put this into perspective, it is half of the launch volume of Magic the Gathering, who did not have the backing of a huge fan base like the Simpsons did in 2003 – this game’s release. While not strictly a Simpsons board game it does a better job at being unique than other games on this list.
In the game, theme decks include: Bart, Homer, Lisa, and Charles Montgomery Burns; it is really surprising not to see Marge as one of these decks to be honest. These theme decks are the basic decks that you will then build off of.
The game is all about completing scene cards. When there is a scene in play you must place character cards into the scene where appropriate. Points are given if the scene is completed. Alternatively, scenes are trashed if eligible characters are not used. It is almost like being the director in an episode, which is quite a nice change from the typical trading card game format. It is certainly the most original idea on this list, if not incredibly short lived.
Doh! The Fate of Simpsons Board Games
Upsettingly, as much as we enjoy the TV show, it has not translated well into board game form. The best Simpsons Board Games are, more often than not, the licensed version of games we already know and love. The Simpsons Monopoly, for example, springs to mind. It is nothing personal, most sitcoms have tried board game spin offs and they have not worked either, just think of the 1999 Friends game. What is most important when playing these licensed board game is having a genuine love of the series. There is nothing really novel about any of these board games, but people will still enjoy them if they love the Simpsons.
