 | |
| Designers |
|
|---|---|
| Publishers | Psychology Today |
| Publication | 1970 |
| Genres | Board game |
| Chance | High (dice rolling, card drawing) |
| Skills | |
Blacks & Whites is a multi-player economics-themed board game inspired by Monopoly that was created in 1970 by Robert Sommer and Judy Tart in partnership with Psychology Today .
Blacks & Whites was originally designed in 1970 by University of California, Davis, professor Robert Sommer and Judy Tart. The game was subsequently modified by students testing it out for Psychology Today , which had commissioned the project. [1] With Sommer's permission, the comedy duo Never Sad, comprising Nehemiah Markos and Jed Feiman, designed a 50th anniversary edition of Blacks & Whites that was released in 2021. [2]
The gameplay of Blacks & Whites is similar to that of Monopoly, with movements on the board made according to the roll of the dice. [1] The object of the game is to own the most properties in various "neighborhoods": the Ghetto Zone, the Integrated Zone, the Suburban Zone, and the Estate Zone. [3] Additionally, players must choose to identify as either "Blacks" or "Whites"; the former begin play with $10,000, whereas the latter start with $1,000,000. "Blacks" are forbidden from directly purchasing property in the Suburban Zone and must have a net worth of $1,000,000 before they can purchase Estate Zone properties. Each player group has their own "opportunity card" deck to draw from. "White" players are immediately ejected from the game upon reaching bankruptcy, while bankrupt "Black" players can live on welfare and collect $5,000 from each "White" player. [3] According to Wyatt H. Day of Swann Auction Galleries, "the game is strategically designed to make a black win impossible". [4]
According to Wired writer Sebastian Skov Andersen, Blacks & Whites "was popular as an educational tool to teach people about privilege from a young age". [2] Writing for Simulation & Games, E. O. Schild described Blacks & Whites as a "poor game" and an "occasion for role-play", [1] while also remarking that "the weakness in the basic game structure outweighs the potential strength of the good ideas". [5]
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Robert Sommer was an internationally known Environmental Psychologist and held the position of Distinguished Professor of Psychology Emeritus at the University of California, Davis. Sommer wrote 14 books and over 600 articles, he was best known for his book Personal Space: The Behavioral Basis of Design (1969), which discusses the influence of the environment on human activities.
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Game design is the process of creating and shaping the mechanics, systems, and rules of a game. Games can be created for entertainment, education, exercise, or experimental purposes. Increasingly, elements and principles of game design are also applied to other interactions, in the form of gamification. Game designer and developer Robert Zubek defines game design by breaking it down into its elements, which he says are the following:
Monopoly Star Wars is the 1997 Monopoly franchise Star Wars video game based on the board game and set in the Star Wars fictional universe. It is one of many Monopoly video game adaptions. The game was developed by Artech Studios and published by Hasbro Interactive. It was released exclusively for Microsoft Windows computers. The game employs the same basic ruleset of traditional Monopoly gameplay, but the Star Wars theme includes famous characters and locales in place of the original game pieces and properties.
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