Can you play it big in Mighty Mumbai?

There’s windfalls from brand collabs and cricket tournaments, also misfortunes like tax notices and crashes—it’ll take all your jugaad skills to beat the city’s rat race and break into its elite circles in this new game

My friends and I may be many years and crores away from the dream of owning real estate in this city, but for a few hours, we did get to experience the joy of buying property in Mighty Mumbai, as well as luxury cars, and even our own sports team—all for a few thousand rupees. The Mighty Mumbai we’re referring to here is a new board game that’s just been launched and is set in the Maximum City. At first glance, it seemed to be a combination of Monopoly and The Game of Life, both of which account for a large share of our childhood memories, so we were pretty excited to get our hands on this set-up.

At a listed price of R1,999, we found the game to be a tad expensive, and felt quite that a few of the design elements could have been more premium to match the price point. For example, when we first heard we’d get to play a game themed on life in this city, we had hoped to see player tokens in the form of Mumbai-specific icons like, say, Kala Ghoda, a lunch dabba, Flora Fountain or a kaali-peeli. The actual cardboard tokens are not as exciting, and it’s quite hard to keep track of which token belongs to whom, especially because some of the meeples’ colours were almost identical. The packaging—shaped like a double-decker BEST bus—is charming, but has little to do with the actual game. We wish this theme would have carried over on to the board, with a BEST bus meeple.

On the other hand, we enjoyed the fake cash, which looks quite close to Indian currency when seen from a distance. So much so that as we were setting up the board at one of those chess tables on the Carter Road promenade, a chaiwallah came over to us with eyes shining to ask, “Itne saare note! Asli hain kya?”

Paul picks ‘TRP Tandon’ (female media mogul) as her player character from a total of 16 options

We also loved the eight very “Bambaiyya” professions players can choose from—cricketer, actor, businessperson, ad executive, fashion designer, real estate magnate, media mogul and stock broker—with male and female versions of each. These characters go on to determine where you can earn crucial gameplay tokens, what your career milestones will be, potential earnings and losses.

There are two levels of gameplay to mirror life in the big city—all players start out in the Outer Circle, which symbolises the rat race and daily grind the common man is subjected to. This is where you can encounter misfortunes such as road accidents and tax notices, but it’s also where you can make money and accumulate assets. Just like real life, the rich get richer in this game—once you qualify for the Inner Circle, all your assets yield exponential returns. Here’s a pro-tip: Learn to hoard wealth like the world’s top one per cent.

Life in the Outer Circle is harsh; I’m not sure whether it was our combined bad luck or whether the game is purposely designed to be this punishing in the first level, but we encountered far more misfortune than windfalls. At one point, the game felt depressingly close to my life as a journalist—every time my “pay day” came around, I’d end up losing all my money within a few turns to loan payments, pickpockets or some other woe. My friend Avinash, a huge board game buff, quipped: “They’ve made it realistic. It’s very tough to make it big in this city and break into the elite circles.”

Now for the biggest pro-tip we can give for this game: If you land on “Hire a CA”, be sure to do it even if you have to take a loan in ordr to do so. Having sound financial advice can protect you from the impact of bad luck, and in this game, waives R500 from every penalty. It’s the difference between winning and losing.

All jokes aside, if I had to point out one complaint with the game, it is that the gameplay in the Outer Circle can feel a bit stretched because the punches keep coming. There are far too many ways to lose money, and not enough chances to make more of it, or enough chances to buy property. I wish the designers had earmarked some iconic landmarks or neighbourhoods on the board and made them available as properties for sale. Imagine buying Marine Drive or Bandra station, like one can with Monopoly’s Piccadilly or King’s Cross Station!

We loved the packaging, which resembles a double-decker bus, but wished the player tokens were Mumbai-themed too, like Flora Fountain, Kala Ghoda or a kaali-peeli

After a gruelling two hours, the first player among three of us made it into the Inner Circle, and money finally started flooding in. We also discovered the joys of collaborating—while only one person can win the game, players are encouraged to share resources in strategic partnerships, so everyone gets ahead in life. To me, this symbolises all my friends who form my support system in the city; progress for one of us is cause for cheer among all of us. Half an hour later, all of us get into the Inner Circle and start reaping the benefits of all the assets we’d hoarded. My rotten luck didn’t stay away too long, though. Mere minutes later, I got “arrested” and was booted back out into the Outer Circle. Vijay Mallya could never relate. It took about two-and-a-half hours for a winner to emerge and complete the game, although players can also choose to set a time limit and simply declare the richest one as the winner when the timer goes off.

This is a fun game for a night in with family and friends. It’s also an excellent tool to explain the importance of saving—and more crucially, investing—to children. The rule book can be a bit ambiguous at times, so set aside three to four hours for the first time you play, to give you enough time to learn the rules. If some of the instructions don’t seem entirely clear, try referring to the game website, mightymumbai.com. What’s the TL;DR version? We love that there’s a game themed on life in Mumbai, and that it stays so faithful to the daily hustle. We’d have loved it even more if there was more Mumbai in it.

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