Video Game / Richman

used with permission:Softstar's official website's article

Richman, or 大富翁 (Dà Fùwēng, literally Big Tycoon,) is a board game based computer game by Taiwanese video game company Softstar. The gameplay functions like Monopoly, but with many interesting gimmicks such as:

• Maps with intersections (or not even a square at all)
• Cards (or items) with special effects such as deciding how much steps you want to go
• A lottery system
• Some mini-games with bonus rewards
• Gods that can gain buffs (and debuffs) to the player possessed
• A stock market
• A spell tent with a socerer casts effects to set players
• Ability to ride a scooter or car, which makes you roll more dices
• A calendar that counts one day in game for each round

…and many other things that one won’t see in a regular Monopoly game. This game is one of the oldest video game from Taiwan, as the first title is released at 1989.

In 2009, after eight main series titles, the series is claimed to be discontinued due to market shrinks and the creator is unable to find ways to make the game more interesting. However, in 2015, the series was announced to return with Richman 9 in the following year, thus reviving the series.

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Games in the Richman series includes:

Main Titles

• Richman 1 (1989, DOS)
• Richman 2 (1993, DOS)
• Richman 3 (1996, DOS)
• Richman 4 (1998, PC)
• Richman 5 (2001, PC)
• Richman 6 (2002, PC)
• Richman 7 (2003, PC)
• Richman 8 (2006, PC)
• Richman 9 (2016, IOS)
• Richman 10 (2019, PC, IOS, Nintendo Switch)
• Richman 11 (2022, PC, Nintendo Switch)

1,2,3,4,6,7,8,10 & 11 are available on Steam. ^note The first three titles are bundled as "Richman: Classic"

Spinoffs

• Richman Online (2006 - 2018, PC)
• Richman 4 Fun (2012, IOS) (2023, Nintendo Switch)
• Richman Fight (2018, PC) (2020 - 2022, IOS)

Cancelled

• Richman Super Fantasy Adventure (2007, Xbox 360)
• Richman Party (2007, PC)
• Richman Universe Online (2010, PC)
• Richman Web (2012, PC)

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Anything for you? Please pick the tropes you want:

Tropes A-M

• 2D Visuals, 3D Effects: 8 has their characters in 2D (which is called "paper doll" by players)in 3D backgrounds.
• Aborted Arc: 6’s expansion pack has two of the endings unresolved:
  • In Baby King’s ending, four choices are shown to let the player guess what does she looks like when she’s 16. The game implied that it will revealed in 7, in which she’s still a baby and nothing about that is mentioned.
  • Xiaomei’s ending also has a similar demonstration, with choices of her future grooms. As of 2022, Xiaomei is still not married, much to Miss Money (who somehow become her stepmom)’s dismay.
• Achievement Mockery: Two achievements in 10 are obtained by being mauled by dogs and being sent to hospital, and their names are... not pretty.
• Adam Smith Hates Your Guts: Starting from 3, there is a core mechanic called Price Index, which multiples the prices of most things (including income and loss from events) by it. It increases based on the total assets of players or time. Cards are one of the few things that don't get affected by it.
• Aerith and Bob: There are characters with normal names like Daniel, Candy, Sarah and James, and weird ones like DDR, Lanai, Wednesday and Igloo.
• Alien Abduction: A Chance event introduced in 4 involves this, with the character abducted for three rounds. During that the character counts as "missing" and unable to collect rent from others.
• Alien Invasion: News, which acts like Chance spots, can involve one in 4 that destroy some houses, as well as hospitalizing anyone that gets caught in the explosion. In later installments, it just destroys one house.
• Allegedly Free Game: Played straight for 9 and Fight. Somewhat subverted for 4 Fun: You can unlock most characters with coins by keep playing the game, and you already have access to most of the cards and all other game elements. Maps can't be unlocked permanently without paying, but many maps are playable by paying coins for each entry. There are only a few characters that require ingots (the premium currency) to unlock, and they are not insanely powerful comparing to the rest of the characters either as all a character can do is to get a card every month. There are other in-game purchases like cards or scooters or cars, but the game is perfectly playable without them either, especially since there is also the save and load mechanic.
• All There in the Manual: The instruction book in some of the titles reveal all playable character’s informations: ages, occupations, height, weight, pets, and even admired person!
• Always Check Behind the Chair: You have to find all 11 magnifying glasses to unlock James in 8, but it is always hiding somewhere around the maps, even behind background buildings!
• Always Night: Las Vegas in 8, and Sleepless Town and Mountain City in 11.
• Amusement Park: The Softstar Amusement Park from 8 and the Amusement Park Island in 4 fun.
• Amusing Injuries: The characters can be attacked by landmines, timer bombs, missiles, vicious dogs, even a nuke, but all of them are cured after being hospitalized for some rounds.
• And Your Reward Is Clothes: In 8, every character has three recolored skins unlocked by progressing in Story Mode, as well as a swimsuit that is unlocked by collecting puzzle pieces in Story Mode by getting them on the street or performing specific actions.
• Animal-Eared Headband: The lottery girl wears one in most of her appearances.
• Anime Accent Absence: Some characters speaks fluent Chinese all the time despite not being Chinese. This is averted by those who speaks Japanese, those who speak English, and Baby King (who only babbles in all appearances but 6.)
  • The base game of 6 plays this straight on every character, and 8 plays this on Ninja in addition to all new characters despite their origins.
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • The robot doll will not always walk in the desired direction (in earlier installments they will walk down the pre-determined way that they player will also go, but this comes with the problem of potentially removing a good god). 11 fixs this by letting the player decide where it will go.
  • Similarly, Rigged Dice used to be unable to decide where to go at the road splits. Since 10, player can directly choose the destination.
  • You can get rid of a timer bomb on yourself with the Sent Away card.
  • In later games, you can interact with the lottery tiles and card tiles simply by walking over them, instead of having to stop at them to buy lotteries or get cards. This ensures that you won't starve in cards or lotteries for a long time.
• April Fools: When the date reaches April 1st in 7 and 8, every character will get a random event happening to them.
• Art Evolution: The first three titles are in 2D with properties marked by color blocks, compare to later titles being mostly 3D with items representing properties in their base level.
• Art Shift: 2D in the first three titles, then switch to 3D since 4 (except for 8 with some 2D aspect and Fight being fully 2D)
• Ash Face: Anyone who’s caught in an explosion by the landmine, time bomb, missiles or nucular bombs along with bombs in the Coin Catching minigame will have this in 4.
• Asymmetric Multiplayer: In "Coin Catching" and "River Crossing" from 7 and "Cook" from 8, the player need to complete their goal (Catching falling coins or foods, catching animals to let them cross a river,) while another player throw bombs (or bowls, plates and cockroaches in "Cook") to interupt another player.
• Auction: Happens in most titles when someone uses an Auction Card to a property (with the user not participating in the bidding, but will receive the money), someone going bankrupt (with at most three of their lands auctioned afterwards), or when a random event involving one happens.
• Awesome, but Impractical:
  • The Grim Reaper from 4 can make anyone he possesses in great doom, but to summon him, there must be at least two characters controled by human, with one of them bankrupts or surrander. Only that can make the sorceress in the spell hut asking to put the Grim Reaper on selected characters.
  • You can throw a nuke, which is like a missile but with a larger attack range, to the opponents, but it is either only available in the Research Lab for many days (besides 7 where it can appear in shops), or obtained by playing a certain minigame with perfect score in the original version of 8. This is especially the case in 4 Fun since it cannot even erase land ownership. It's somehow better in 10 and 11 since you don't have to enter the research lab just to start the development, and the destruction of the lab will not stop the process of getting one.
  • The craftable cards in 11 can sometimes be considered as this, because collecting 5 cards of the same type might not always be worth it for the effects. It also doesn't help that these cards cannot be crafted on Hard Landlords.
  • One of Wumela's talents in 10 gives her a teleportation card when she's abducted. However, abduction are very rare events and no cards can cause it, making this talent very niche and seeing little to no practical uses.
• A Winner Is You: When playing multiplayer mode in 4 (that is when you have more than 1 player characters), after a game ends, the result screen simply shows the winning character chasing a god with the word "Congratulations! You beat the level!". Justified in that the presence of multiple levels and endings are not supposed to happen in a multiplayer game anyways.
• Banana Peel: One of the usable cards from Online, 11 and the spinoff Fight, which will let anyone stopping on it (or just touching it in Fight) move one space foward.
• Band Land: City of Music from 11 has musical instruments on the board.
• Beast of Battle: In ''Fight', Wu Mhi summons a lion to attack anyone on its path as her skill. There’s also a card called Wolf, which summons a wolf with a similar effect, except it runs two spots less than the lion.
• Betting Mini-Game: 2 and 3 have casino areas where you can bet and get more cash.
• Beware of Vicious Dog: In most titles, a dog occasionally stops on any place on the road, mauls anyone who stop at its spot and sends them to the hospital (which is similar to jail.) You can run over it by riding a scooter (except in 8) or a car.
• Big Bad:
  • King Octopus is the main antagonist in 8, 10 and the WeGame version of 11. What's interesting is that in the first game, he is not revealed until you complete Story Mode, and is easily arrested. He's still revealed when you play as Princess Sarah or James, who are both secret characters.
  • 9 introduces a giant robot who concludes that money is mankind’s worst enemy and decide to “save” mankind by creating clones of previous characters and let them take over the entire world’s money for him. Thus, the main cotestants have to defeat their clones to stop the robot.
• Bilingual Dialogue: While some characters speaks Japanese, some speaks English, some speaks Chinese, even with a baby who only makes baby noises, everyone seems to understand each other when attacking.
• "Blind Idiot" Translation: The official English translation sometimes can be to literal, such as Miyamoto saying “Long Live!” where the voice is obviously “banzai!” ^note  means “horray!”
• Black Market: 2 and 3's card shops are named as such. Ironically, not only do they look perfectly normal, the cards are also sold in reasonable prices.
• Boss Battle:
  • The discontinued Online had some bosses that can be fought in PK mode (the Brawl Mode's prototype where players fight each other with bombs and missiles).
  • The challenge mode in 11 let players challenge different bosses, called “Landlords” in game, in three different difficulties.
• Bowdlerise:
  • In the Steam version of 4, the stage selections are list as "Stage 1", "Stage 2", "Stage 3" and "Stage 4" instead of "Taiwan", "China", "Japan" and "U.S.A" in the original. This is probably done due to Chinese censorships. Interestingly, while the maps in the expansion packs are not based on any countries, they're also changed to "Stage 5" to "Stage 8".
  • 11 changes many cards and dialogues due to Chinese censorships removing any mentioning of harming people, causing some oddities like the Revenge Card (which let any character who’s accused or sleepwalked to make the opponent attacking them share the same fate) renamed "In the Same Boat."
  • The WeGame version of 11 turns this up to eleven (no, not that adventurer girl with the same name who's a playable character in some versions): The dice is changed to be a block with numbers on it (similar to the ones in Mario Party), almost all kinds of explosives are changed into magic spells like mini tornadoes, ice bombs and bubble bombs, the hospital and jail become cafe and library, Big Gamester is outright removed, and October, Daniel, Ninja and Miyamoto speak Chinese instead of Gratuitous Foreign Language like the other versions.
• Bullet Hole Spelling: John Joe can perfectly spell his name with bullet hole on the wall of a bar in his ending from 4’s expansion pack.
• Cartoon Bomb: The Landmines in most titles looks more like those than actual landmines.
• Catching Some Z's:
  • In 4, a character with sleepwalk status will have yellow Z's above their head.
  • In 10 and 11, characters with the sleep status constantly emit blue Z's, while characters with sleepwalk status use a snot bubble instead.
• Chekhov's Volcano: The Burried by Volcanos map in 11 has a volcano that will erupt sometimes and block some of the spots with lava, making them non-functional until the lava is gone.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Notorious across all titles as many characters appear only once in their debut title and disappears ever since. Some characters are lucky to come back in later titles though.
• Coat, Hat, Mask: The Mysterious Man from 11 wears those while offering players two cards in a cheaper cost.
• Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: In earlier installments, each character has their properties marked with a specific item as well as a unique color, like Xiaomei with red color and her shoe and Baby King with cyan color and her pacifier.
• Comedic Sociopathy: During a chance event or fined by the police officer by stop at his spot in 3, a Laugh Track will occur.
• Competitive Balance:
  • Fight has an activated skill and a passive skill for each character, and they continue to get changed through updates.
  • Starting from 10, every characters have talents that add some advantages such as being immune to certain obstacles or obtaining extra cards.
• Compilation Re-release: The first three titles are often bundled as "Richman: Classic" in later re-releases. Additionally, 4, 5 and 6 had a limited physical re-release named I'm the Richman.
• Continuity Nod: King Octopus mentions how owning many properties reminds him of the time when he was Princess Sarah’s butler in 10 & 11.
• Contractual Boss Immunity: The Landlords, being the "bosses" of the game, are universally immune to Magic (split and swap cards with a target), Poverty/Richness Average (split cash) and Audit (take 15% cash from the target).
• Co-Op Multiplayer: 11 can make you starts a 2 vs 2 fight, along with the Challenge mode, where four players challenges a Landlord.
• Critical Annoyance: Visual example. In 6, when low on cash, the cash value will begin to flash in black and red color. This is because there isn't a deposit system in 6 and if you run out of cash, it's game over.
• Culture Equals Costume: As many playable characters are from all around the world, some of the characters wear clothing according to where they from (such as October wears classic outfits of a Taiwan farmer and Xiaomei wears a Qipao)
• Cut Short:
  • The game once has a spinoff called Richman Universe Online, which sadly discontinued after a one week run in China with many plotline unresolved.
  • 9 is discontinued at the end of 2020, causing the story of defeating a malfunctioning giant robot left unsolved.
• Damn You, Muscle Memory!: When playing different titles, you can sometimes get screwed over different mechanics of certain items/cards. For example, the remote dice will chance all the dices to the selected value if you are using a bike or car in 3, so you'll need to manually switch the dice numbers to 1 before rolling.
• Death or Glory Attack: The Nuclear Missile in 11 costs 200 coupon to use and deals massive damage, but heavily reduces the user's attack and defense afterwards.
• Defeat Catchphrase: Every playable character (along with all Landlords in 11, who are the equivalant of bosses) has one when going bankrupt.
• Depending on the Artist: Before 7, most returning characters are drawn differently across title. Examples including October didn't have a mustache in 4 and 5, Miss Money had black hair instead of purple in 2 and 3, and Miyamoto having black hair and blue clothes instead of green hair and clothes in 6 (including the expansion pack)
• Developer's Foresight:
  • In 4, the chance spot event that has you being fined will change the reason why you're being fined depending on the transportation tool you are currently using (jaywalking if walking, not wearing a helmet if using a bike and overspeeding when using a car).
  • In most games, when a character is asleep (under sleepwalking or hibernation effect), they will no longer react to anything with their usual quotes until they wake up. Additionally, in 4, if a character is traveling or kidnapped, they'll also say nothing because they aren't present to see the damage caused to their properties.
  • In 8, you can use NPC or God cards on anyone. Normally, you'll be using good god or NPC cards on yourself and bad god on opponents, but you can do the reverse, and there are specific dialogues for them too.
• Digital Piracy Is Evil:
  • One chance spot event in 4 involving the player going to jail for nine days for selling bootleg video games.
  • When booting up 7, there’s a message that warns players about this among other important things about gaming (such as taking a break after playing a certain amount of time.)
• Dirty Cop: Some of the titles have police officers on the street that fines the player or sends them to jail when the player stops at his spot. When the characters using the Police card (Sealed polices from the effect of the Seal card,) they also turn into one with similar effect, and those who have Thief card (Sealed thieves) will have to serve longer in jail.
• Early-Installment Weirdness:
  • 1’s map is a full quadrilateral with some intersections instead of having wierd-shaped maps with lots of sharp turns in later titles.
  • The movements are determined by dices automatically rolling in 1 & 2 instead of rolled by the characters in most titles.
  • The card shop is called the black market in 2 & 3.
  • The Robot Doll destroys an obstacle or grab a god for you instead of clearing everything in front of you, which can result in Damn You, Muscle Memory! sometimes.
  • The House Swap card would require a house to be built on your property first before you can use it in 3. On the other hand, you can use it on any two properties in 4 even if neither are yours.
  • Some of the cards are labled as items and sold in a different store in 3 & 4.
  • Properties at their base level are represented by colored blocks only in the first three titles instead of having something represent the characters. In 11, they're represented by character dolls instead of items.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: Literally as this is based on Monopoly, and everyone has their own unique ending in 3, 4 (expansion pack) 6, ^note with a different one in the expansion pack 7 and8.
• End-Game Results Screen: At the end of each month (or twenty days in 10 and 11) in most titles, there will be a screen to show who has the most assets, while sometimes showing who has the least.
• End of an Age: 8 was the last main title as the creator discontinued it three years after its release. This is averted before its revival seven years later.
• Excuse Plot: Most games' plots are simply the characters entering a tournament to compete with each other, each with an ending where they use the prize to do something they want to do, or show their general lore.
  • 10's Story Mode could also be considered this since it's just the 6 protagonists traveling around the world trying to defeat King Octopus with a few examples of Giant Space Flea from Nowhere (like Xiaomei suddenly being brainwashed).
  • While the International version of 11 doesn't have a story at all, the WeGame version has one, explaining how the maps are actually training fields created by Doctor Y inside his time album that has been turned into a Gilded Cage by King Octopus to trap Doctor Y and his friends as he goes to plunder the Earth's resources. There isn't a property Story Mode either.
  • The only Aversion is 8 where there is actually a plotline about how King Octopus is captured by Coolva and James, how the Lucky Star ends up being returned to the alien that accidentally killed James when looking for it, and how Monster ends up being at the circus with Kimchi.
• Expansion Pack: Some of the main titles has these:
  • 4’s “Multiverse Journey”, which includes four new maps and bonus ending cutscenes for all characters.
  • 5’s “Ninja’s Treasure Hunt” , which includes six new characters and twelve new maps.
  • 6’s “Let’s Earn Money Together”, which includes three new characters and five new maps.
  • 7 has two expansion packs: “Hong Kong Tour” and “Taiwan Tour”, which introduced nine new maps. (six are exclusive to some of the packs with three are in both packs)
• Expressive Health Bar: In 6 and its expansion, the character's portrait has 4 variants depending on their current status: A neutral one, an unhappy one if the character when possessed by a bad god, a happy one when the character is possessed by a good god or under a free/invincible/invisible buff, and an unconscious one when the character is asleep, hospitalized, kidnapped or bankrupt. In 4 Fun the character's face will also be shown sleeping if the character is put to sleep.
• Failed a Spot Check: In Xiaomei’s ending from 8’s Story Mode, after she left the circus once more, she builds a hotel with many experts, but somehow she forgets to hire a cook.
• Final Boss:
  • Princess Sarah serves as the final boss in 8's Story Mode, except when you play as herself.
  • King Octopus is the final boss in the Main Story in 10, and even worse, you also have to fight against his clone at the same time!
• Fireball Eyeballs: Salonbus has those after learning Miss Money is in love with a mysterious superhero.
• Floating in a Bubble: The Bubble Card in 8 gains the player using a bubble shield where they walk or drive in.
• Flying on a Cloud: Courtyard above Cloud from 11 has special spots that spawn one when the player passes, bring them to another section of the map.
• Forced Sleep: The Hibernation Card can put all opponents (or one selected opponent since 10) to sleep and make them unable to do anything for a few rounds (although in 4 and Online it freezes them solid instead).
• Foreshadowing: 8’s Story Mode has some of the character interactions as forshadowing to some of their endings:
  • Tuu Zed is impressed by the eel mark on James and ask him if he can help promoting his canned of braised eels. James takes the offer after he defeats King Octopus.
  • Xiaomei is impressed about a monster and want it to be her replacement at the circus, causing a chain reaction: She offers the monster (along with Kimchi, who befriends the monster in an encounter with it while scared away the other contestants) to the circus, thus foiling Baby King’s plan to take over the world, making Wumela, who want to use the monster in her latest film, need to find another way to film, and causing Igloo to follow the circus as he has to stay alert at the monster!
• Four-Leaf Clover: When a character get one on the street in 8, they’ll get two extra cards.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation:
  • Aya is stated to have the ability to use advanced ninjutsus when sleepwalking in Fight, but in reality her ability is to put others to sleep, and she still can't do anything when sleepwalking.
  • It's heavily implied that Candy is so rich that she can buy a resort with her pocket money, but when bankrupt, she'll become a beggar like everyone else.
• Gelatinous Trampoline:
  • 11 introduces the Jelly Wall Card, which bounces anyone who bumps into it two squares back.
  • Also from 11 is the Candy Fight map, where jellies are at the end of each path for players to jump on to the next layer of the cake.
• Go-Karting with Bowser: You can play as King Octopus and Odd Bioguy in 10 despite the fact that they’re the villain of the game.
• Green Hill Zone: Knight Manor from 11 is a calm landscape near a river, with no special mechanics unlike other maps.
• Grenade Hot Potato: The Timer Bomb will follow anyone who gets it until it explodes, and if one player with one is too close to another player without one, they can end up like this as the former make the latter hold it by passing over them and vice versa!
• The Grim Reaper: One of the Gods that appears in 4. Anyone who’s possessed by him will lose all cards, pay all other player’s rents and have all of the durance of bad events double to them, and worst of all, he last for thirteen days compare to other god’s seven days possession. It also appears in 5 where it actively seeks players and stun them in place if touched.
• Guest Fighter: Some of the titles has playable characters from Softstar’s other game:
  • Mili, Yiwana and Nicole from 5. Mili originated from the obscure game Aya’s interdimensional travel, Yiwana originated another obscure game Mazhong Flagship Hello Jacky, and Nicole originated from Xuan Yuan Sword 3. Also, Xiaomei in this game is delibrately designed over Zhao Ling'er.
  • 7 includes Li Xiaoyao, Zhao Ling’er, Lin Yueru and A Nu from Sword and Fairy as secret characters.
  • The discontinued Online had Li Xiaoyao and Zhao Ling'er appearing as a Dual Boss.
  • 4 fun has the main cast from Sword and Fairy returning, along with the main cast from Sword and Fairy 5 and its prequel. There are also the main cast from Xuan Yuan Sword 6, along with Lianlian and Pupu from the obscure online game Xuan Yuan Sword Online 2: Flying Adventure.
  • The discontinued 9 also includes some of the characters from Sword and Fairy.
• Guide Dang It!:
  • While 4 has some of the most in-depth instuctions, it does not tell the player that The God of Properties would appear alternately with the dog, while saying which gods will appear alternately otherwise.
  • The instructions of 10 does not tell the player that Sleep, Sleepwalk and Turtle status cannot co-exist and will override each other. This can frustrate people who attempt to give Turtle to a sleepwalking opponent in this game as it was doable in previous games. In 11, the interface instruction mentions that these three status are put together while others (like gods, hospitalization and jail time) use separate status slot, hinting that they cannot co-exist.
  • Speaking of which, the instructions in later games tend to miss out important interactions with other cards or events.
  • There are completely no hints about how to get the rest of the puzzle pieces other than the ones visible on the road in 8; you are supposed to figure them out by yourself. Best bet would be trying to achieve something based on the characters' personalities, settings or abilities, such as having Miss Money, who is known to be a stock market investor, have more than 500k in stock market, but Wumela, who isn't known for having anything like that, has to do it too.
  • If a character would charge more rents than usual due to their talents (like Xiaomei and Bear from 11), the information that shows up when you check their properties won't tell you the exact amount of rent they'll charge.
• Guilt-Based Gaming: In 6, the mini gods will begin to get angry at the character if their MP is low, telling the character that they're mistreated. If the character continues to neglect them, they'll leave telling the character that they are heartless or they hate them. If their MP is depleted by the mini monster, the character will say a much milder quote instead.
• Hoist by His Own Petard:
  • Cards like "Revenge" or "Scapegoat" ("In the Same Boat" or "Deflect" respectively in 11) can make your attempt at harming another character with a false accusasion or a card backfire at you.
  • In 7 Expansion, one of the easter egg transformations is an orange slime with glasses, which causes you to charge others of rents instead of paying them rents.
• Home Stage: All starter characters in 8 has their own map as their first stage in Story Mode: Big Gamester had Las Vegas, Xiaomei had Shanghai, Miss Money had Hong Kong, Salonbus had Arabia, Ninja had Tokyo, Baby King had the Softstar Amusment Park, Wu Mhi had Austrailia, Wumela had Hollywood, Lanai had Hawaii, and Tuu Zed had Taipei.
• Idle Animation: In many games, characters perform idle animations when they're not moving, like looking around, yawning, adjusting their glasses (if they wear one) or others. In 6's Active Time mode, characters will actually fall asleep if they are not moving for too long, and their properties will also stop charging rents until they move again.
• Inconsistant Spelling: Even without major or drastic changes, some characters' English names have different spelling throughout the titles, like Xiaomei is spelled "Sun Hsiao Mei" or "Xiaomei", or Wumela being spelled as "Wumeila".
• In-Game Banking Services: The Bank can let you store money, apply for loans, and gives 10% interests at the end of each month (or every twenty rounds in 10 & 11.)
• Instant Emergency Response: An ambulence will come and take any player as they're injured.
  • When someone is going to jail, a policecar will instantly come and take them.
• Invincibility Power-Up:
  • The Invincible Card from 6 can block all enemy cards and external damages for the user when used. The Flower Fairy can grant a similar effect when her ability is activated. This card can be upgraded to the Invisible Card to avoid paying rents as well. All three methods are prone to be replaced by a god though.
  • The Invisible Card from 8 can let the player use it to get away with any rents for 10 rounds. They can still get possessed by gods or attacked though.
• It's Been Done: In Lanai’s ending from 8’s Story Mode, she told everyone that she will be the first person to travel around the world, while the other characters replied her that someome else has done that before.
• Jump Scare: All the bad Gods in 4 will do so along with taunting anyone who’ve possessed by them. The worst offender is the Grim Reaper, who’ll walk close to the camera with his face covering the whole screen!
• Kaiju: One of the cards in most titles, Monster, can summon a giant monster to destroy a house. In 8, the monster is actually a plot-relevant character.
• Laugh Track: Happens during bad events happened to the characters in 3.
• Land Mine Goes "Click!": One of the items the characters can put on the road. It explodes when anyone stops at it, and the character is sent to the hospital afterwards.
• Land of Tulips and Windmills: The Netherlands in 7 and 4 Fun.
• Lethal Lava Land: The Mechanic Maze in 11 combines this with lots of gears that rotates some of the streets when someone activated the mechanic spot.
• Level Ate:
  • The discontinued Online features some dessert-themed maps, including the tutorial stage where you fight a Salonbus with a cupcake costume.
  • Candy Fight from 11 is a giant cake with jellies that bounces players to its upper layer.
• Lighter and Softer: While the series has always been a party game with a lot of comedic moments, the titles starting from 4 uses a more cartoonish style.
• Limited Wardrobe: Nearly everyone wears the same outfits since 6.
• Loads and Loads of Loading: 10 and 11 are notorious of this, especially the initial release of the latter, which shows nothing but rotating hints when loading. This is fixed in later update as the background indicates the map you’ve chosen.
• Luck-Based Mission: Some of the minigames are like this:
  • 7’s “Number Guessing” make all players take turn choosing a number. The Little God of Wealth will tell the players the number is too large or small to the target number. Also there is "Bomb" which will have a character get hospitalized if they pick a wrong detonator, and "Wheel of Fortune" which has quite a few outcomes.
  • 8’s “Pirate Barrel” chooses one player to put in a barrel, making other players stab them with swords a la Poke-a-Pirate. If the "pirate" is stabbed, the one who stabbed them can get coupons, with the one stabbed get hospitalized; if no one succedding to stab the "pirate," they receive coupons instead.
• Luck Manipulation Mechanic: The remote dice allows you to choose the number (as well as which direction to go starting from 10) so you can get to somewhere you want to go and won't fall victim to Random Number God. Other cards that affect movements like road blocks and stay can also do this to some extent.
• MacGuffin:The Lucky Star from 8 is a diamond which legend has it that anyone who owns it gets a lot of fortune.
• Magikarp Power:
  • One chain store charges very little rent. Have enough of them, however, the rent skyrockets.
  • Shops and shopping centers in 6 start off charging the least rents comparing to factories or houses, but when upgraded enough, they charge the most rents. They can also be upgraded to level 5, the highest level of all.
  • The Computer Lab from 7 is this along with Increasingly Lethal Enemy; it charges neglectable rents at first, and even worse than the the hotel which also doesn't charge a lot but would force the opponent to stay for 1 turn; however, when enough time has passed and/or it's sufficiently upgraded, it's among the most powerful buildings in the game.
• My Nayme Is:
  • Barkeley from 6 is spelled with an extra “e”.
  • Kimchi Kin from 8 has an “n” where the “m” from “Kim” should be.

Tropes N-Z

• No MacGuffin, No Winner: None of the playable characters (and King Octopus) get the Lucky Star at the end. Double subverted as the diamond is actually in Baby King’s stroller, who’s knocked out of it in her ending, then double subverted again as Wednesday, who knows where the stroller (along with the diamond) is going, finds it and later gives it to the alien who accidentally dropped it to Earth as he thinks the alien is the messenger of their god.
• Nerf:
  • The Hibernation Card can put all other players to sleep for a few rounds, but only one player since 10.
  • The Monster Card can wreck a building back to its base status in most titles, but can only downgrade a whole street in 11. Also, in earlier games where it can destroy a building, it can be used on any building in sight, but in 7 and 8 it can only work on the house you're standing at, meaning that you have to go there first.
  • Events and cards that cause players to be unable to move are nerfed in general throughout the series. For example, in 4, there were events where players can get jailed for 9 days (and even more if the player is possessed by God of Unlucky), while in 11, they won't last for more than three days.
• New Work, Recycled Graphics:
  • 8 reuses some of the cards’ graphics and character voicelines in 7.
  • Similaly, 11 reuses most of the cards’ graphics in 10.
  • 4 Fun can be considered a frankenstein of this: it has most functions (and NPCs) from 7, character models from 8 (with characters not playable from 8 having new ones based on their previous appearances,) and voicelines all over the place ^note Anyone playable from 4 and the NPCs uses 4’s, Big Gamester, Wumela and the main protagonists from Sword and Fairy uses 7’s, Anyone debuted in 8 use 8’s, and everyone else uses newly recorded voicelines.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: King Octopus hired a bodyguard just in case his arch enemy, James, ever find him in the contest. This gives said bodyguard a chance to ge close to King Octopus and arrest him red-handed when James revealed his idendity.
• No Antagonist: Since this is a party game, most of the titles has no antagonist. Averted in 8 and 10 with King Octopus and the giant robot in 9.
• Nuke 'em: The Nuclear Missile card is a rare card that completely destroys every property in its blast radius, as well as inflicting severe damage on the players. It's changed to a Quantum Missile in 11.
• Obvious Rule Patch:
  • In 6's Active Time Mode, characters will fall asleep if they don't move for too long, and their properties won't charge rents. This is done to prevent a player from standing still safely and let other opponents go bankrupt after they eventually land on something that will deal the last blow to them. This isn't present in 7, though.
  • In 10 and 11 where you use cash to buy cards, there is a limit that you can only buy 3 of them at a time because it would be way too easy to fill your inventory with cards at the cost of some cash (unless the rule makes the starting cash to be scarce, or you happen to be lacking in them), especially if one of them is the likes of Poverty/Richness Average that can easily offset the amount of money you have spent. There are some characters and special building that can get around this to an extent.
  • Landlords are immune to any card that directly affects their cash because one of them could easily remove a large portion of their total assets and make the user gain a lot of free health.
  • In the base game of 7 and starting from 10, you cannot place anything directly at a hospital or a jail to Stun Lock other characters. The closest you can do is to place a bomb at the spot next to the hospital or jail, which the character can react with a Teleportation or Robot Doll. Placing a landmine or a bomb at where a character has disappeared (such as a hotel or an event tile) is possible in some games, but the items will do nothing.
• Oddball in the Series: Fight, compare to the main titles, makes players attacking each other and uses money as their healthbars. This is later rebranded as Brawl Mode since 10.
• One-Steve Limit: There’s a character named Tuu Zed that is related to October in 2 and 8, with the former is his son and the latter being his grandson.
• Our Gods Are Different: The game has different gods that stay on the road until someone stop at their spots. After that they’ll possess the players and give them buffs and debuffs depend on their characters.
• Percent Damage Attack: Audit takes away a portion of the opponent's cash (usually 15% of their current cash).
• Percussive Maintenance: During a randomly appeared News event in 8, demonstrated by a Newslady and a television, sometimes the Newslady will hit the fuzzing television before its screen works properly, and she announce the news afterwards.
• Polygon Mix: 7 has 3D maps with characters, obstacles and gods being 2D sprites sprited in a set angle.
• Pop Quiz: One of the gimmicks in 8. When stepped on, the host will ask you a random question about the game (or other games by Softstar,) answer correctly rewards the player something (like extra cards or cash) while wrong answer punishes the player (like losing cards or cash)
• Press X to Die:
  • In 4, there is a surrender option that will instantly make a player go bankrupt when they choose it. They can summon the Grim Reaper to possess another player afterwards.
  • In 8, using Property Raid does not require the user to have enough cash... or enough total assets. Trying to use Property Raid on a property when its price is higher than your cash and deposit combined will result in your successfully buying it... and going bankrupt.
• Production Foreshadowing: Dollar the Kungfu Donkey, Diner the Cheese Dog and Pound the Dice Pig from the discontinued Richman Universe Online appears at the Softstar Amusement Park in 8 before their game even announced.
• Random Number God: The games often seem to favor the CPUs when it comes to factors with RNG like dice throwing and chance card pulling. CPUs can often get a good god and avoid they player's houses with normal dices. But when it comes to players, expect to get bad gods, mines, dogs or opponents' houses more likely than you think it would be when you are not using remote dies. And depending on the installment you play, sometimes no card will save you from any accident that happens to you, either.
  • In 7 this seems to be more apparent, as the CPUs tend to always use a card when a specific condition is met, but the higher the difficulty is, the more likely the CPUs will get themselves useful cards in shops and walk into good gods or other useful stuffs by walking normally.
• Recruiting the Criminal: In 4, you can free a thief or a robber in the Jail with coupons, along with a gang and a spy in the Hospital with the same method. After that the freed will wander across the map and do the following for the player who give them freedom until they go back to the Jail or Hospital, or attacked by the dog or landmine:
  • Thief steals treasure chests and gift boxes along the way and receive it to the players, while stealing half of the other players’ coupons when passing by;
  • Robber robs the Bank and give the players 20% of other players’ deposits while stealing one random card from other players when passing by;
  • Gang takes protection rackets when stopped at other players’ properties and give it to the one freed him;
  • Spy takes the previous rent a property has taken or a corporation’s profits when stopped by one.
• The Reveal: Done three times in the ending of 8’s Story Mode: Just as the host is going to reveal the Lucky Star, James jumps out of the chest where the gem should be and reveal that the host is the international criminal King Octopus. Then King Octopus revealed that he has a bodyguard just in case he's revealed, and said bodyguard revealed she’s actually from the special force, and she's tasked to arrest him!
• Retcon: Some of the characters have their settings changed across titles, some notable examples are:
  • Many character’s birthdays are changed across titles.
  • While Xiaomei is always Chinese, she’s 18 and hosts a cooking show in Japan in 2, then a cook in a Chinese restaurant in 3, then a circus performer who is 9 since 4, and finally become 14 in 8.
  • Miss Money is an assassin in 2, then changed to a PR manager since 3.
  • Wu Mhi is from America in most titles, but South American in 8.
• Roll-and-Move: Well, it’s a Monopoly-based game, what do you expect?
• RPG Elements: In 5, characters can level up by moving on the map, and they'll unlock special skills as they level up.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here:
  • In 8’s Story Mode, after completing stage 2 as Ninja, a monster suddenly appears. Ninja’s scared since he accidentally summoned him before and causing huge wreckages, and he runs away to the final round.
  • This also happens to all opponents when playing as Kimchi when the News announces a monster attack, while Kimchi fights and befriends the monster.
  • King Octopus ends up fleeing the scene after Odd Bioguy's Heel–Face Turn at the end of 10's Story Mode.
• Sea Mine: The landmines in 4 looks like those rather than regular landmines.
• Severely Specialized Store: The Card Store only sells cards.
• Shifting Sand Land:
  • 6 and 4 Fun has a map based on Ancient Egypt.
  • Desert Cyclone in 11 sets in a desert with a tornado randomly appearing on the board, shuffling anything it touches.
• Shooting Gallery: Some minigames involved this:
  • 4’s Colorful Balloon has balloons with numbers on it floating across the screen, with the player click to pop the balloons to earn extra coupons.
  • 7, 4 Fun & 10’s God Shooting has Gods appear randomly on screen, and the players have to shoot the bad gods to earn extra coupons or cash. Even funnier in 4 Fun is that sometimes other player character will appear as target, and shooting them earns more coupons!
• Shout-Out:
  • 4 has a News that stops all characters who walks for a round, which is demonstrated with a picture of a girl in a suspanded skirt frowning at a large pig near a bus station, similar to the iconic My Neighbor Totoro’s poster.
  • There’s a card in 8 called the Takecoptor that can bring the player to anywhere they want, referncing one of Doraemon’s iconic gadget, which let the wearer fly to anywhere they want.
  • Dr. Yao from 1 and Dr. Y from 11 are based on series creator Yao Zhuongxian.
  • Xiaomei's name is based on an ice cream brand which the creator likes.
  • Baby King's name is based on a diaper brand in Taiwan.
  • Salonbus' name is based on a Japanese medicine called Salonpas.
  • The Swapping card (which swaps the player with another opponent’s place) is called "Linsanity" in 4 Fun, referencing the hype for Jeremy Lin at the time (with an expy of him being playable in this version!)
• Single-Use Shield: The Bubble Card in 8 can let the characters in it block one attack from mines, timer bombs or any kind of missiles.
• Sleepwalking: The Sleepwalk Card can let the player choose another opponent in a set range and let them sleepwalk. During sleepwalking effect, the player can only roll the dice and move and is unable to collect rents.
  • There's also the God of Confusion in 7, 8 and 10, which gives a identical effect when possessed. He averts this in 11 as he is nerfed so that he only sometimes makes the player fail to use a card or turn around at the start of a turn.
• Slippy-Slidey Ice World: Antarctica in 4 Fun, Online and 10. There’s also the Memory mini game in 4 and 8, where the players control a penguin to dig up treasures shown before the game strats, that take places in a snowy area in the former and the glacier in the latter.
• Smart Bomb: Several.
  • The Hibernation Card before 10 puts all opponents to sleep for a few days. In some games, not even being in hospital, jail or on vacation will protect you from this effect.
  • The Rapid Missile from 11 fires a missile at every opponent on the screen. However, if the user happens to stand on the same tile as an opponent they'll be caught in the explosion too.
• Sore Loser: Some of the characters have this attitude when bankrupts.
  Big Gamester: How can it be? Someone cheated!
  Daniel: It’s not fair!
  Princess Sarah: Someone must have cheated!
• Space Episode: The "Star" map from 4, the Space Station from 6, Space Tour from 4 Fun and another Space Station from 10.
• Spiteful A.I.:
  • In 4, there are 3 levels of AI personalities for each character. The "cunning" setting will turn characters into this, making them focusing a lot on hurting other players, often to the extent of ignoring their own needs of buying properties or other actions of benefiting themselves.
  • The CPU characters in 7 (especially on harder difficulties) and 10 almost always use harmful cards on you while ignoring other CPU characters.
• Springs, Springs Everywhere:
  • Fight has the Spring Card, which bounces anyone bumps into it six squares back.
  • 11 introduces the Jelly Wall Card with a similar effect, but it only bounces two squares.
• Static Stun Gun: Fight has a Taser Card that, when equipped, deals damage to opponents on contact as well as paralyzing them, causing them to receive the 1-step dice effect.
• Status Buff:
  • Good gods can be considered as this. God of Wealth grants immunities or reduction of rents or explosive damages (though likely due to a program oversight he won't prevent damage from properties in Brawl mode). God of Fortune gives cards on obtaining and allows the character to buy properties for free and/or build houses easily, God of Properties will cause all the properties one touch to be possessed by them, and God of War increases the range of cards. Fight also has some cards that give the user a good god to increase their attack power or give them chips every turn.
  • The mobile version of Fight has some special tiles that boost its power when stopped at:
    • The Missile Spot shoots one missile to the opponent, causing them to lose money. When stopped at again, it will shoot one more missile.
    • The Cactus Glove Spot gives the player a Cactus Glove, sent the opponent to that spot and attacking them. Stop there again and the Cactus Glove can deal more damage! The Cactus Glove card does the same thing when used.
• Status Effects:
  • God of Poverty causes the character to pay more rents or take more damage from explosions.
  • God of Misfortune causes the character to be unable to buy properties (or just build houses from 10 and onwards).
  • God of Confusion either causes the character to sleepwalk for the duration of his possession, or causes them to randomly turn around or fail to use a card. In Online and Fight there is a variation of the latter called the Ghost which will sometimes have a character turn around.
  • God of Terror causes the character to be unable to use shops, buy lotteries, claim free cards and cash at specific tiles or use the bank, though it also disables magic houses and chance tiles that can sometimes be really dangerous.
  • When a character is hospitalized, in jail, kidnapped or going on a holiday, they effectively get removed from the map and cannot charge other characters rents, unlike the actual Monopoly. Starting from 10, they also won't be targeted by chances or magic house spells.
  • Turtle causes a character to move fowards for 1 tile for 3 turns, though a remote dice will override it in 10 and 11.
  • In Online and Fight, the 1-Step Card and 6-Step Card can be used on opponents to force them to move for the specific numbers of steps for their next action.
  • In Fight, characters can be frozen. They will be unable to move or interact with the tile they're at, although in the mobile version cards can still be used.
  • In 11, characters who touch a trap will be paralyzed, causing them to be unable to move for the rest of the turn as well as the next. They can still use cards and interact with the tile they are at, however.
• Stealth Clothes: The thief from 4 wears a purple cloth on his head to imply that he’s a thief.
• Studiopolis: Hollywood in 8.
• Sudden Name Change: Some characters has different names throuought the series in English text:
  • Big Gamester is named "Mr. Poker" in Fight. In addition, he also received name change in Simplified Chinese version of 9 and 11 to remove the gambling element.
  • Miss Money is "Madam Chyan" in other appearances, except Fight where she’s called "Madam Rich".
  • Miyamoto is "Miyamoto Treasure" in 10 and "Samurai Hozo" in Fight.
  • Ninja is called either "Jintaro" or "Nintaro" in most titles.
  • October is originally "Uncle Tuu" in most titles.
  • Salonbus is called "King Oil" in Fight.
  • Wu Mhi is called "Umi" in Fight.
  • Probably the most bizarre example is Wumela, whose name was spelled "Nalar" in 6, with her Chinese spelling is still "Wumela".
• Super-Deformed: The character designs since 4 looks much smaller than previous titles (which sometimes characters are shown Animesque in the monthly report.)
  • This is especially so in 10 where all characters having large heads on top of fingerless torso.
• Symmetric Effect: Some of the News in 4 can make all players pay 5% of their cash for taxes.
• Taunt Button: In Online and 11, players can send taunting messages to other players.
• Teleportation: Many installments has teleportation spots that can teleport the characters to another one of them.
  • The Teleport Card from Fight can teleport you to the furthest teleporter without triggering it, while costing 10% of your remaining money.
  • The Portal Card in Fight can make a portal anywhere, and if you put two of them, stop at one will teleport you to another! In 11, it teleports a character to a random spot.
• Time Bomb: One of the items the characters can put on the road (or directly on a character in Online and Fight). Anyone stepped on it (or just passing by since 10) will have to hold it, and it will explode in a certain steps, causing anyone holding it (and anyone who is too close to the holder) to be sent to the hospital, as well as damaging the houses caught in the explosion. You can also let other player hold it by pass over them.
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill: The rents can easily reach ridiculous amounts without having to raise the price index in some games. Notably, a few max level regular houses on a street can already cost money in high hundred thousands even at price index 1 in 4 Fun, and max level shopping malls and hotels in 10 and 11 can easily be a One-Hit Kill if someone manages to build them, unless the starting cash is high enough.
• Time Machine: One appears in 4 as an item avaliable for crafting in the research lab. It allows the user to travel back to the previous turn. Though, considering the fact that you can do it indifinitely and without any of the trouble in the lab by actively backing up your save state, and that it won't bring you back to before you're disappeared, hospitaled or jail or lost all your cards, it's a Useless Useful Spell at best.
• Tournament Arc: This is the main premise in 8’s Story Mode, with a Richman Tournament is held and characters old and new participate in.
• Two Halves Make a Plot: The mobile version of Fight has tiles with half of a treasure chest on it, which the players collect when passing by. Collect both of them can wither boost your attack or defenses, or take the opponents’ money.
• Toy Time: Toy Party in 11 is a map with lot of blocks and a DJ robot.
• Under the Sea:
  • The discontinued Online featured some underwater maps, with an undead pirate captain boss using it as his arena.
  • Deep Sea Melee in 11 takes place under the sea with sea turtles that turns around when someone triggers him.
• The Un-Reveal: Just as the host is goin to reveal the prize in 8’s Story Mode… James jumps out of the prize crate and reveal the host is actually the international criminal King Octopus.
• Use Item: When using a card or item, the game will imply that "(player character) uses (cards or items.)"
• Vague Age: The character’s ages are inconsistant across titles. Miss Money in particular is never given an age, as her age is "top secret".
• Versus Character Splash: There’s one shown before a round starts in Fight, along with the loading before a round starts in 10.
• Video Game Cruelty Potential:
  • NPCs and gods in 4 can be removed by shooting a missile or a nuke at them. The four gangsters can also be bombed by a missile or a mine and they'll end up in the hospital afterwards, meaning that you have hurt them.
  • In 8, being poked in the Pirate Barrel minigame will make the one in the barrel end up being hospitalized.
• Video Game 3D Leap: 6 is the first game in the series to be fully in 3D. While 7 and 8 use 2D sprites for characters, starting in 10 the game is fully in 3D again.
• Video Game Time: In this game, one round equals one day in game. Also in most titles, the starting date is based on your computer's date.
• Visible Invisibility:
  • The Invisible card in 6 turns a character half-transparent and they are immune to both rents and attacks for a few rounds or 30 seconds.
  • When using the Invisible card in 8, the character will be shown transparent. During that, they won’t need to pay any rents for ten rounds.
• Warp Whistle: The teleporter (or the Takecopter in 8) from most titles can take you to anywhere on the map. It can only be created in the research lab in 4, along with the Memory Card minigame besides the aformentiond method in 4 Fun.
• Watch Where You're Going!: In 5, when a player stops at another player (or walk pass a player who stops by a special spot (such as the bank,) this will happen as the latter will get dizzy for a few seconds. During that they can’t collect any rents, even worse is that they might even automatically turn back!
• Wheel of Decisions: One will appear when someone stops at other player’s hotel or supermarket to determine how much they’ll spend (and how long they’ll stay for hotels.)
• Wins by Doing Absolutely Nothing: You can beat 7's Active Time mode by doing absolutely nothing. The CPUs will eventually go bankrupt themselves.
• World of Technicolor Hair: Many characters has unusual hair color: red (Xiaomei as she appeared in 4, Margarethe, Kimchi), purple (Miss Money since 4, Takeko, Doctor, Lanai), turquoise (John Joe since 4), Orange (Wu Mhi), Blue (Lin Jiaojiao), green (Miyamoto^note except in 6 where he has black hair, Yiwana, Igloo), white (Duke), and light blue (Coolva).
• World Tour: Some of the titles have maps based on different location of the world.
• You Are Already Dead: If you are on a loan and lose money afterwards, your total assets can sometimes be shown in negative values yet you are still playing. Even without the negative value, if the time limit for the loan hits and you don't have enough cash or deposit to pay it, you'll go bankrupt. This is often the fate of the CPUs as they often apply for a loan when their cash and deposit is low.
• You Will Not Evade Me:
  • The Magnet Card in Fight lets the user teleport the opponent directly onto the same tile as theirs.
  • Also in Fight, Ninja's Gravity Bomb teleports the opponent directly to it when it explodes.

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Overexertion from keeping browsing TV Tropes. Send to hospital for 3 days.