Game Focuses on LB

How ‘bout a game of Monopoly – or rather – Long Beach-Opoly?

With the arrival of summer came stacks of boxes of the Monopoly spinoff to the Walmart Supercenter in the Long Beach Towne Center. Apparently a popular item with customers, Long Beach-Opoly, with its dice, game pieces, cards, tokens and play money, is played like the classic version. But instead of using Atlantic City properties, it features local landmarks.

The game references the Queen Mary, Long Beach State, the Aquarium of the Pacific, Ferris Bueller’s House on Country Club Drive, the iconic Skinny House on Gladys Avenue, the Museum of Latin American Art, Martin Luther King Jr. Park, the Craftsman Bungalow, rap and hip hop music, the El Dorado Nature Center and so on.

PCH & MLK, the former location of world-famous VIP Records, gets a shout out too. Long Beach artists Snoop Dogg, Warren G and the late Nate Dogg recorded there.

A contingency card with a gondola ride reads, “Advance with the token of your choice to Naples Canal. Advance both tokens.”

Another says, “You placed first at the Dew Tour Skateboard Competition. Collect $20.”

And another, “You ate too much chicken & waffles at Roscoe’s! Lose 1 turn.”

“This game does hit home for me because I’ve been a part of most of this stuff,” said Long Beach resident Phillip “Casper” Simmons, 42, as he looked at the board while at the beach. “This is cool.”

Cincinnati-based company, Late for the Sky, has made lots of different Opoly entertainment over the years showcasing many universities, a long list of U.S. cities, various pet and wild animal Opolys, a Bible-Opoly and numerous others. The various games can be found at lateforthesky.com, with the Long Beach one costing $24.95.

“Late for the Sky Production Company began making specialty board games in 1984,” reads the company’s website. “Our first game was Miami-Opoly, based on Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.

“Company founder and president is a 1980 graduate of Miami University and her time spent there served as the inspiration for the first game. The title list soon spread to around 80 major U.S. colleges. Each game is a walk around a specific university and the board spaces are the campus buildings, local businesses and traditions that are special to that school.”

Regarding Long Beach-Opoly, “While it’s impossible to include everything, we jammed all the Long Beach we could into this box,” indicates Late for the Sky in an online product description. “It’s full of sunny skies, outdoor adventures, urban culture and of course … a legendary ocean liner – a little something for every Long Beacher.”

Bill Schulte, one of the owners of Late for the Sky, explained how making the local games came about.

“We research several cities and communities around California to make a very localized game about a specific area,” he said in a statement. “We always make sure that the locals love their town before we take on a project. We make the content as authentic as possible.”

Long Beach-Opoly retails at Walmart for $19.98.

kirt@beachcomber.news