New Monopoly edition commemorates Alan Turing

Alan Turing, the ‘father of computer science’, has been celebrated by custom board-game maker Winning Moves– with his own commemorative edition of Monopoly.

This comes after a hand-drawn version of the game that Turing played on was unearthed in the home of Max Newman, Turing’s mentor, at their family home. A facsimile of that board is included with the commemorative edition, as well as a fully playable Monopoly board with the spaces on the board changed to reflect important landmarks in Turing’s life.

The Bombe, Turing’s device to decipher German signals during World War II, replaces the electric company space; cross-country running appears in place of train stations. All of the money in the game also features Turing’s face as a nod to the real-life campaign to have his face adorn the new £10 note.

Some of the stranger features of the hand-drawn game, such as the “turn around” square, a direct line of extra properties from ‘Go’ to ‘Free Parking’, and a mystery blank square with just the letter X in it have been omitted from the produced board so the game is still playable.

Web giant Google have bought the first thousand copies to donate to the Bletchley Park Trust at the National Museum of Computing, but the game will be on sale to the general public in November.

Iain Standen, CEO of the Bletchley Park Trust, said that “bringing this board to life has been one of the most exciting and unique projects we’ve been involved with here, and we’re thrilled to see it finally available for others to enjoy”.