I think you could do either. just every year you could change the peices and the background. Most of the propertys should be the same.
However a general one is a better idea. It just seems like its more universal.
This is true. I have a game called “City Limits” which is the exact same as monopoly except the “Chance” cards aren’t called chance and don’t look the same and the properties are more realistically priced (20k, 40k, etc) with less realistic monetary denominations (20k, 40k, etc)
Essentially, the items trademarked are: Railroads, Chance, Property names, Go to Jail, Names of Properties and Utilities, Community Chest, “GO”, Physical look of money, play pieces, and cards.
The other main legality is “for profit.” Just like music and videos, you stay under the radar of the companies by simply distributing it to a small group for free. As long as you don’t use the above trademarks, you have a 99.9999% chance of not being noticed.
If you just distributed the game to FIRST members, I’m sure you could slip under the radar of anyone else seeing it and noticing similarities. Personally I think it’d be an awesome game!
did you email monopoly they probably will let you. They have alot of monopolys like starwars, and the simpsons. They probably would let you call it first monopoly
yes i have emailed hasbro, they said no because they have too many games out there with the opoly name…
that sucks. ive also heard that there are sites with a make your own 'opoly you could check and see how they do it.
ok well this idea kind of died for a while, ive also been very busy with things lately…ok well id like to start working on this and dedicate some time to it and at least get a semi-playable version out 
so anyone who wants/still wants to help post here 
I can start working on this again, but not for couple weeks. Like I said earlier I can do most of the programming.
ok keep in touch via pm when you are available again…
I’ll be able to really spend some time on this in December, but keep me posted. I might find some time before that. 
ok well now if anyone can, i would like a list of “community chest” and “chance” cards you would like to see (note:these will not be the names of the cards), Please Theme them to the 2006 Aim High Season
examples:
Your team orders poof balls pay $200
Your crate is involved in a shipping accident pay $400 for repairs to your robot and crate
Now they dont exactly have to be 100% truthful, but try to stick to the theme, even a mix of 05/06 would do…
Or you watch from the stands fed-ex almost tip your crate over while moving it-until a mentor from our team who happened to walking by caught it…true story, im sure there are some other shipping horror stories out there but thats another thread
anyways
Overweight! you are disqualified…do not pass go, do not collect $200
or
De-score(d) tetra (queue penalty)
ok thats along the lines of what im looking for, thanks…for those that post any ideas for cards if it is specific to a year, please inclue that year that is being used
Here’s one that happened to us:
Local shipping company donates extra crate of parts, collect $400
We ended up running into a company that does bulk with FedEx, they let us use their ID# and instead of an extra $400 of parts that we shipped, it only cost us $78.
And a few more:
Camera sensor fails, lose one turn.
Forgot to change battery, (move down in rankings) go back three spaces.
Get corporate sponsorship, collect $500.
Well, this happened to us this year: our processor broke and we ended up programming everything the day before we had to ship.
Some more good ones:
-Lose sponsor
-Fail inspection
-Go out on the field with a dead battery
I guess none of you have seen this. My mom gets this magazine and I look through it sometimes and saw this the other day.
http://kyle.fnsnet.net/images/monopoly.bmp
http://www.whatonearthcatalog.com/whatonearth/Item_Make-Your-Own-Opoly-Game_AV3832.html
Someone had already suggested that, but this is intended as a PC game.
Maybe seeing how the software of the “make your own opoly” game runs would help the designers? I haven’t been keeping up with the development of the game so forgive me if I’m just restating things others have said.
the “make your own opoly” game is not available for pc, it is solely a board game…
I’ll test the game!