Like a lot of our Minecraft projects, this started with Willow having an idea that sounded simple at first:
What if we built a Monopoly board?
Apparently neither of us knows how to do anything on a normal scale, because that quickly turned into building the board across an entire Level 4 map — 2,048 × 2,048 blocks — in our survival Realm.
We came up with the idea pretty early in the life of the Realm, which started at Day 0, and now the world has passed Day 6,000.
So yeah… this one has been a while in the making.
At this point the project isn’t just about building the board anymore. We’ve built farms, stockpiled ridiculous amounts of materials, filled shulker boxes with dye, and created whole production systems just to support it.
And the funny part is that the actual board is still mostly just the framework.
Stage 1 — Planning and Layout
The first real challenge was figuring out how to make Monopoly work at this scale.
We had to establish the edges of the Level 4 map, work out the outer border, determine the size of each property space, and make sure everything would line up correctly by the time we made it all the way around the board.
The outside border is 16 blocks wide, with the property areas and separators measured out consistently around all four sides.
A lot of this stage was measuring, placing blocks, realizing something was off, adjusting it, and measuring again.
Not glamorous, but absolutely necessary on a build this big.
Status: Complete ✅
Stage 2 — The Board Outline
This is the part that is actually built right now.
The entire outer Monopoly board layout is in place.
All four sides are outlined, the property spaces have been divided, the color-strip separators are laid out, and the board finally has its full recognizable shape.
That alone took a huge amount of work.
Standing somewhere in the middle and looking toward an edge really puts the size into perspective, because this thing stretches across essentially the entire map.
Board outline: 100% complete. ✅
That does not mean the individual properties themselves are finished yet. Right now we have the skeleton of the board.
The detailed property builds come later.
Stage 3 — Preparing the Property Colors
This is where we are right now.
We’ve been producing and storing the dyes needed for the colored strips that identify each Monopoly property group.
We are not building the full properties yet.
For example, when we say Brown, Dark Blue, or Red is “done,” what we actually mean is that the dye/material preparation for those color strips is complete.
We still have to decide what the finished properties themselves are going to look like.
One of the biggest design questions we haven’t answered yet is whether the properties will be:
raised above the board, inlaid into the board, or some combination of the two.
We don’t want to commit thousands of blocks to one design and then decide halfway around that we hate it, so that part is intentionally still being worked out.
The traditional pink Monopoly properties are also becoming magenta on our board.
Current dye preparation:
- Brown color-strip dye — ready
- Dark Blue color-strip dye — ready
- Red color-strip dye — ready
- Light Blue — about 2.5 of 3 worth prepared
- Remaining colors — still in progress
- Pink will be replaced with Magenta
So there’s progress, but there is still a massive difference between having the dye and having the properties built.
Stage 4 — The Center
The center of the board is planned to use light gray concrete, and even preparing for that has become a project of its own.
Right now, what we have stockpiled is mainly the dye needed to produce the center material.
The center itself is not filled.
We’ve been producing light gray dye in bulk and storing it so that when we reach the point where we’re ready to start the center, we aren’t constantly stopping to make another few stacks.
At this scale, “a few stacks” stops meaning much pretty quickly.
Eventually you start measuring things in shulker boxes and double chests instead.
Stage 5 — The Production Infrastructure
One of my favorite parts of this project is that the Monopoly board has basically forced us to industrialize parts of the Realm.
We’ve built or expanded several farms specifically because of the amount of material this project needs.
The carrot farm helps feed our bone meal production.
The squid farm provides ink.
The skeleton farm adds bones and other useful resources.
The gold / XP farm keeps tools and repairs manageable while we’re working at this scale.
And then there’s one of the most important pieces of the entire operation:
the concrete water farm.
Making concrete powder is one thing. Converting tens of thousands of blocks of it into actual concrete by hand would be miserable.
The water setup lets us process large quantities of concrete much more efficiently, which is going to matter a lot once we start moving from material stockpiles into serious construction.
At this point the farms are almost a second project attached to the first project.
Stage 6 — Designing the Properties
This is still ahead of us, and honestly it’s one of the parts we’re thinking about the most.
The outline tells us where everything goes.
Now we have to decide what everything actually looks like.
Do the properties sit flush with the board?
Do we build them slightly raised?
Do we inset lettering and artwork?
How much depth do we give the railroad and utility spaces?
What do Chance and Community Chest look like at this scale?
And then there’s the center.
We have plenty of ideas.
That is not necessarily the same thing as having a plan. 😂
Where the Project Actually Stands
Right now, the easiest way to describe it is:
The board has been engineered. The materials industry is running. The decorating hasn’t really started yet.
The complete outer layout is in place and we know where everything belongs.
We’re stockpiling the enormous amount of dye and concrete materials we’re going to need.
What comes next is figuring out the final visual language for the properties themselves and then beginning the long process of actually filling this monster in.
More Than 6,000 Days Into the Realm
The Realm started at Day 0, and we came up with the Monopoly idea fairly early.
Now we’re over Day 6,000.
Obviously, we haven’t spent every one of those days working on Monopoly. We’ve built farms, explored, worked on other projects, gathered resources, and generally done all the normal ridiculous things that happen in a long-running Minecraft world.
But the Monopoly board has become one of the big projects that we keep coming back to.
It’s Willow’s idea that somehow turned into a map-sized construction project, a dye-production operation, multiple supporting farms, and several double chests full of future work.
Which feels pretty appropriate for us.
Current Project Status
Realm: Day 6,000+
Level 4 map: 2,048 × 2,048
Board outline: 100% complete ✅
Property layouts: marked and divided ✅
Property color strips: dye/material preparation underway
Property designs: not finalized
Raised vs. inlaid properties: still deciding
Center: light gray dye/material stockpile underway
Center fill: not started
Concrete water farm: operational
Supporting farms: operational
Actual finished properties: not started
Our ability to make a small project: still nonexistent
Still a Long Way to Go
This is definitely one of those Minecraft projects where finishing the outline feels like an accomplishment, and then you realize the outline was basically just the beginning.
But that’s also why we like it.
We’re not rushing it.
We want the finished board to look like something that deserves the ridiculous amount of time and resources going into it.
So for now we’ll keep producing materials, working through the color strips, figuring out how we want the properties designed, and slowly turning Willow’s original “What if?” into one very large answer.
Big builds take time. They’re a lot more fun when you’re building them together.
— Esra & Willow
