Squatter (game)

Squatter is an Australian board game invented by Robert Bob Crofton Lloyd and launched at the Royal Melbourne Show in 1962, and it went on to become the most commercially successful board game ever produced in Australia, with more than five hundred thousand copies sold by 2007. Each player begins the game managing their own sheep station and competes to be the first to improve their pastures, install irrigation, and build up a fully stocked flock of sheep. Along the way players draw event cards that mirror the real hazards of Australian pastoral life, droughts, floods, bushfires, livestock disease, and swings in wool and meat prices, blending genuine strategic planning with an element of chance. Although its board layout invites comparison to Monopoly, Squatter differs in an important way: no player is ever eliminated, and everyone stays in the game from the first turn to the last. Its authentic evocation of Australian farming culture has earned Squatter a place in the collections of the National Museum of Australia, the National Wool Museum, and the Australian Stockman's Hall of Fame.