Bored siblings have created a lockdown version of Monopoly featuring hand sanitiser, PPE and a vaccine lab.
Instead of Go To Jail, players must Self-Isolate, and to win they must snap up necessities such as Toilet Paper.
Julia Bugelli, 16, and her brother Giovanni, 11, from Prestatyn, hope the board game will raise money for the North Wales NHS charity Awyr Las.
Their parents, George and Tania, are themselves on the Covid-19 frontline.
The youngsters came up with the idea after telling their mum, a Ysbyty Glan Clwyd psychiatrist, that they were bored with all the usual board games.
Tania challenged them to come up with something fresh and Lockdown Monopoly was born.
Familiar Monopoly locations such Old Kent Road, Fenchurch Street Station and Trafalgar Square have all been replaced by Netflix, home learning and Zoom meetings.
Chance and Community Chest cards feature characters like Colonel Tom and the Prime Minister – and if you’re an NHS hero you can collect 200 extra Value Points.
All proceeds are going to Awyr Las and will be specifically targeted to Adolescent Mental Health Services, a subject close to the family’s hearts.
“It’s been stressful with mum and dad working at the hospital and Giovanni has been having nightmares about losing one or both parents,” said Julia.
“But I think we’ve held it together as a family and the board game has definitely helped."
Tania and husband George, an Ysbyty Glan Clwyd anaesthetist, are originally from Malta.
They both played the game once their children had jotted down their ideas and developed the concept.
The family is now hoping the game will be taken up by a big distributor.
“It has not been easy for the children with both of us working at the hospital full time, but they’ve found a way of coping,” said Tania.
Giovanni is in his final year at Fairholme prep school while Julia had been due to take her GCSEs this summer at Ysgol Glan Clwyd, also in St Asaph.
Instead they both found themselves at home with time on their hands.
Each morning they begin with a Joe Wicks PE workout session and they try to structure their days to include schoolwork and music.
Giovanni said Lockdown Monopoly was designed to look like the original but with different pictures and names.
“Having a garden is a valuable commodity as are music and baking goods,” he said.
“You can accumulate upgrades instead of houses, so with baking that could mean an electric whisk instead of a hand whisk.”
After posting the game on Facebook, the pair had such a positive reaction that they wanted to make it more widely available – and to raise money.
DIY copies of the game can be downloaded, in return for a donation, from a link through the website for Awyr Las, the charity covering the Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board area.
- To access the game, click here.
