Teen Creativity- Monopoly

You may have noticed there no TeenageTells in the title.

If you're a writer, it doesn't mean you just have to write and read. You can explore other faucets of your creativity, and learn to use it beautifully.

I love the world of Fourth Wing. It's lots of fantasy, but not too complicated, and the characters are so lovable. So, in my (definitely not an) obsession, I designed and made a Fourth Wing version of Monopoly, using online fanart and my own (limited) digital design and creative skills. And there's a lot of parts. There's over 50 hours of work that has gone into this, and so many expansions on the original Monopoly. So... I'm going to create a page on my site to show my non-writing creative projects. (And if you just came from there, thanks for visiting!)

How did I make it?

If you don't care, you'll have a lot of skipping to do. (Plus, you're probably not on the right site. Or at least page. Or post...)

I made it using a lot of different skills.

First, designing everything digitally. From the property cards, to 3 different board designs (for an events side, then people, but also the dragon magnetic pieces), to every Codex/Archive card (chance/community chest). I don't know how I summarised that into two sentences, because in reality this took forever, because I was simultaneously thinking of all the names for the places, and making sure the dimensions were right, and finding lots of fanart, so it won't all just be boring.

Secondly, prototypes, for figuring out how the board would fold (especially figuring out how the thicker part would work, because there would be magnet strips inside for the Dragon parts). Plus, I made the shrink art, which was super fun. Outside of the game, I made different patches which appear in the book, from The Gauntlet Patch, to 3 little stars, so you could belong to any year. My sister also made a little Venin token, which doesn't look anything like Venin do canonically, because she imagined them as evil bunny rabbits, but... that's what we went with. It's actually one of the all-round favourite parts of the game in my family.

Next! Printing. And more printing. And then some glueing and cutting... then some more printing because the sizing was wrong. Then some laminating... This part was repetitive and took up a lot of unnecessary time. But I did listen to some Fourth Wing-inspired music, so that was fun. My spotify wrapped will be so confused this year.

Finally, I brought it all together. Made little dice. The board itself. The box, and a way to hold the cards, which I made in the worst way possible, so that I'd have to stick my fingers in tiny holes where they do not fit, but it worked. Eventually.

And a practice run! I actually did two and they were super cool. At the last minute I added a quiz to do to figure out which dragon you would 'bond' for the game; it would be your token!

Why am I writing about this? It's not to show off. I just really love it and am so excited to share it and let you know that creativity should be developed. Encouraged. My parents were great and let me get the things I needed, and played the first test game with me. Mum did it even though she doesn't like Monopoly, so I'm super happy.

We should all inspire others to develop their passions. If someone is super creative, just listening feels amazing to them. Even if you just nod, we (and I think I speak for more creative people, especially those who are possibly more shy) feel so happy. Appreciated. Like it's worth it.