Portland now has its own Monopoly edition, so we made a Bangor one

Toy and game companies Hasbro and Top Trumps unveiled on Thursday an official Portland-branded version of the perennially popular board game Monopoly, now available to purchase in stores and online.

The Portland board features beloved landmarks and organizations like Hadlock Field, the Victoria Mansion, Portland Head Light, the University of Southern Maine, Longfellow Books, Becky’s Diner, Casco Bay Lines and the Eastern Promenade. The game play remains the same, but the look is all Portland. It’s available online via Amazon and other retailers, as well as in a number of local shops in Portland.

That got us thinking — what sites would be on a Monopoly board themed to other cities and towns in Maine? And, of course, that made us want to make our own board for Bangor.

Behold: the Bangor Daily News’ version of a Bangor-themed Monopoly board, lovingly crafted by Emily Burnham, Leela Stockley and other Bangor-centric BDN staffers. We used the blank board provided online at monopolyland.com as the template.

What do you think? Did we get it right? What would you change?

Do you think Stephen King’s house and the Paul Bunyan statue are the right choices for Boardwalk and Park Place? Leave your thoughts in the comments below, or feel free to download the blank board and make your own choices.

And if you want to make a board for your own town, we’d love to see that too. What would a Belfast board look like? Orono? Madawaska? What about the University of Maine campus in Orono? The possibilities seem endless.

The new, official Portland board is the only officially licensed Maine-related Monopoly board presently available, though it’s far from the first Maine-themed Monopoly-like game. More than a decade ago, Hasbro licensed a Maine edition of the game, which featured towns and places like Moosehead Lake and Camden alongside items and businesses like L.L. Bean, pine trees and a “clam bed.”

There’s also a company called Late for the Sky, which will make a “finance game” for you that looks an awful lot like Monopoly, but technically isn’t. It released a Bar Harbor version of the game last year.

Will you buy the Portland game? Are you a Monopoly fan? And, as a bonus question — if you were to choose Maine-themed game pieces, what would you pick? There’s got to be a blue ox in there. Maybe a menacing clown-demon. A coffee pot sandwich. You get the idea.