Metro Mania was a D.C. subway-themed board game for students - The Washington Post

The long-awaited completion of the Silver Line had me casting my memory back to my childhood in Prince William County, Va. In my later elementary school years, which would have been 1979-1981, I have a distinct memory of being introduced to a board game based on the (then-new) Metro rail system. We played it in the classroom, and I remember being fascinated by the different colors of the subway lines. I wonder if it was a local promotional or educational effort to help familiarize residents with the lines and stops. Google has yielded nothing over the years. Can Answer Man help? Did such a game exist?

— Ellen Carpenter, Reston

Such a game did exist, but it probably isn’t the one you’re remembering. The timing isn’t quite right. The only educational Metro-based game that the folks at WMATA can remember came out in the 1990s.

It was called Metro Mania and was the brainchild of an educational consultant named Grace M. Sammon. Sammon’s company, GMS Partners, had a contract with the D.C. public school system to train teachers in how to connect classroom learning to the wider world. Eventually, someone suggested that she devise something for students themselves that would get them out into the community.

The project started at Anacostia High and included connecting students with mentors in the adults’ workplaces. Sammon soon found that many students were uncomfortable leaving their neighborhoods.

“The idea of kids going across the river was really challenging to them,” Sammon said. “We decided to make it fun. I said, ‘Let's create a board game.’”

Sammon hired a graphic designer, found a printer and assembled the games in her Silver Spring basement. The Metro Mania board displayed the five Metro lines and their stations, along with illustrations of different area sights, such as Union Station, RFK Stadium, the Washington Monument and the Pentagon.

Players threw dice to move around the board. Destination cards directed players to different stops. Other cards had District trivia questions on them, such as “What library was founded in 1800 with only $5,000 and began as a one-room reference collection for Congress?” and “Can you take a Greyhound or Trailways bus from Union Station?” (The answers: the Library of Congress and yes.)

What started as a classroom game evolved into something like a field trip, as students were directed to head out on Metro to visit adults at businesses, law firms and government offices who had agreed to meet them.

Metro Mania was in use from 1992 to 1996, played by students in 16 District schools, Sammon said. It didn’t stretch to Prince William County. (If you know of an earlier Metro-based board game, let Answer Man know.)

Sammon lives in Sarasota, Fla., now. She’s traded educational consulting for writing fiction and hosting internet radio shows on the craft of writing. She still has a few copies of Metro Mania.

“I had a total fantasy that this was going to become the best thing in the entire world for everybody,” she said. “It did turn out to be one the best things for kids.”

In his research, Answer Man came across two other only-in-D.C. games, though they were not as public-spirited as Metro Mania. In fact, they were downright mean.

A game called Public Assistance: Why Bother Working for a Living? came out in 1980, the creation of Bob Johnson of Maryland and New York printer Ron Pramschufer. Penalties included drawing a “Working Person’s Burden” card that cost the player $500 for a losing high-paying government job to a beneficiary of affirmative action.

The game sold 80,000 copies, despite being criticized by politicians, civil rights activists and social workers (“ugly and damaging” said the head of New York’s welfare system). It later emerged that Johnson had himself once been on welfare.

In 1988, an Arlington man named Myron McKee marketed Home Rulette, a game spoofing the District government. According to an article in the Washington Times, the game focused on “the District government, elected officials and black ministers. It also takes shots at the homeless, homosexuals and women.”

The game’s inventor — a one-time Republican congressional candidate from Minnesota — said it was all in good fun. District Council chairman David A. Clarke disagreed, telling a Washington Times reporter, “It goes beyond the bounds of legitimate satire and in some respects plays on negative racial stereotypes.”

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