Every property game has the same quiet problem. Most turns take seconds. A few take minutes, because somebody is weighing a trade or doing sums on a hotel. The people waiting cannot do anything except wait. A Monopoly alternative worth its name has to answer that problem, and mine answers it with a clock that has two parts.
I build Property Rush, a property trading game that costs nothing to play. This post explains the clock, with its numbers, and says what it cannot do.
How does the clock work?
Each turn starts with 60 seconds. If you finish inside that minute, you spend nothing else. If you run over, the extra seconds come out of your own bank, which holds three minutes in total. The bank is yours alone, and it is never refilled during the game. An auction pauses the clock while the table bids.
That is the whole rule. Two numbers, and one habit it encourages: save the bank for decisions that deserve it.
What does the arithmetic look like?
Say you run 20 seconds over on a turn. That turn costs you 20 seconds of bank, leaving two minutes and 40 seconds. Do it nine times and the bank is gone. Do it never, because you decided quickly, and all three minutes are still yours when the last rent is paid.
So the bank is not a pace you must keep. It is a reserve for the two or three turns that really need thought, such as a big trade, a first hotel or a bid on a city you want badly.
What happens when the bank is empty?
This is where most clocks turn cruel, so it is worth being exact. When a turn's minute and your bank are both used up, a bot steps in to close that turn, and it plays cautiously. It buys nothing, builds nothing, bids on nothing and offers no deals. It only gets the turn over.
Let two turns go by one after another and the bot plays your seat fully until you come back. Any move you make yourself resets the count.
Nobody is thrown out for being slow or away. Bankruptcy is final, but only you can declare it.
Why not remove idle players?
An earlier version of the game took a player out after two and a half minutes without a move. It measured the wrong thing. A person who is trading and building for a long turn looked the same as one who had closed the laptop. On 18 October I replaced it with the bank, which counts time actually spent past the minute.
The bank also spreads the cost fairly. A player who thinks hard once pays for it once.
Is 60 seconds enough?
For most turns, yes. Roll, move, buy or decline, end the turn. That fits easily. A trade review or a build takes longer, which is what the bank is for.
I do not claim the numbers are perfect. Some groups will want a longer minute and some a shorter one. The clock is not a lobby setting, so the host cannot change it. If that matters to your table, you should know before you invite people.
Does a bot make it feel unfair?
The stand-in is deliberately cautious. It cannot make a purchase that you would regret, and it cannot sign you into a trade. The worst it can do is waste a turn for you. For a table that is waiting, that is better than a silence.
Where do I try it?
I run the game on Boardit. The host shares a link, and friends join from their own devices. A table can be played online with friends, and a newcomer only has to enter a name. Bots can also sit in empty chairs, so a short table still has players.
Property Rush is an independent Monopoly alternative.
Boardit is not affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro.
Ahmed Moaz builds Boardit, a free browser game site.