HACKERARE M0N0P0L1 (HACKING M0N0P0L1) is an educational board game (technically, a ‘serious game’) aimed at explaining the housing issue in Italy (and, more generally, issues and problems of contemporary urban transformation) to a non-specialist audience (in particular, high school and university students, but also ordinary citizens). Through the medium of the game, the aim is to promote information and critical discussion on issues such as the right to the city, gentrification, climate crisis, and housing policies.
Specifically, HACKERARE M0N0P0L1 is an expansion (consisting of new cards, tokens, and markers) which, when used together with the classic version of Monopoly, transforms the latter into a game that combines a playful dimension with an educational/informative component. The ‘hacking’ operation affects both the software and hardware of Monopoly (i.e., both the rules and components such as the ‘Chance’ and ‘Community Chest’ cards), making the game dynamics more relevant to the real processes affecting contemporary cities. For example, different starting conditions are established (some players start with only a modest amount of money, others have a lot of money and a property with a house on it, others own a chain of hotels, and so on); by rewriting the “Chance” and “Community Chest” cards, events are proposed that reflect realistic situations or public policies (for example, processes such as studentification or privatization of real estate assets); by “redefining” certain squares on the board, elements are introduced that allude to the real structure of the real estate sphere (for example, the residual presence of public housing) and the social sphere (for example, each time a player completes a lap and passes GO, they receive a different salary depending on their starting condition).
How to obtain the game
HACKERARE M0N0P0L1 is a non-profit project, created for educational and training purposes and protected by a Creative Commons Licence 4.0 BY-NC-SA. It is distributed free of charge in two forms:
1- the various components of the game (i.e. the new cards, the new rulebook and the ‘Small Dictionary of Housing Issues’ booklet) are freely downloadable from this page and can be printed with a simple home printer.
2- a limited number of packs of the game have been produced, available to those who intend to use it for educational or training purposes (e.g. secondary and high school teachers, university lecturers, activists* of social movements for the right to housing). Anyone wishing to receive a free box of the game (while stocks last; new boxes will be printed through the crowdfunding campaign indicated below) is invited to contact: francesco.chiodelli@unito.it
Anyone who would like to receive a pack of the game for individual use can participate by donating to the crowdfunding campaign: https://sostieni.link/38980
The printed pack of HACKERARE M0N0P0L1 contains: 6 people cards; 6 discrimination cards; 6 tokens; 4 ‘public housing’ markers; 1 ‘building abuse’ marker; 20 probability cards; 20 contingency cards; 3 ‘Contingency or probability?’ cards; rules; ‘Small dictionary of the housing issue’.
DOWNLOAD THE MATERIALS HERE to make the game at home.
