Pierce McCammon slides the lid off of a shiny, rectangular wooden box where he keeps his latest creation.

Engraved on the lid is “Under the Sea, A Pierce McCammon Monopoly Experience.”

And what an experience it is to play the game the 18-year-old Trinity Lutheran High School senior made in his advanced 2D art course.

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After the box is opened, McCammon pulls out a custom board, game pieces, Monopoly money and cards.

Once he lays the board flat, players can see a list of characters and puns all over the board with an Under the Sea theme and McCammon’s witty sense of humor.

The board spaces feature everything from popular superheroes and national monuments to the latest internet memes. Some pieces feature Star Wars characters and famous television personalities such as Steve Harvey.

But all are given names with aquatic or fish references. Harvey, for instance, is “Steve Harbor,” and television host Dr. Phil is “Doctapus Phil.”

Instead of going to jail, players “Get Hooked.”

Instead of Community Chest cards, players select “Treasure Chests” cards.

Instead of Chance cards, players select “Oppor-tuna-ty” cards.

McCammon and a couple of his friends recently tried his version of the game out during Carrie Adler’s art course. McCammon had to pull off a lot of work to make the game a reality.

That included coming up with the idea, which came about during his search for an art project for class.

Monopoly is a game he has loved since he was a child and one he would force family members to play with him when he was younger.

“We’d have games go on for days,” he said.

In fact, he had played Monopoly the night before he needed that art project.

That’s when it clicked.

“I can make my own Monopoly game,” McCammon said.

He and other students in Adler’s advanced art courses are given that kind of liberty.

“In this class, they have more of an independent study, so when he told me he wanted to do it, I told him to go for it,” she said.

So he began the challenge of customizing the game, which started with designing it.

“I have Photoshop, and I wanted to try things with online art,” he said. “When I started, I really wasn’t aware exactly how much work I was going to have to do.”

McCammon downloaded a template of a game board and went to work.

From there, he designed all of the spaces, background image, logo and more.

McCammon also designed small cartoon characters with puns for each space.

“That took a ton of time,” he said.

McCammon got stumped again, though. He could not decide on what theme to use after he had come up with so many concepts.

“I had too many conflicting ideas and didn’t have one to fit 26 spaces,” he said.

That’s when a friend reminded him of a time during his sophomore year when he planned to make his own Go Fish card game.

“I decided to unify all my ideas and make each thing a fish,” he said.

McCammon realized when he completed it that he did not know how to get it on the board, so he had the graphic printed on a decal and picked up a blank board to complete it.

He used character pieces from an old Monopoly game featuring bass fishing.

McCammon only planned to spend three weeks on the project, but it took double that.

He had to bring his computer to school to work on the designing part and even worked on the project at home.

“There’s really no way I could only do this in my class period,” he said. “It would have been faster, but a lot of this had glue, which took a long time to dry.”

The finish even had to be dried near a fire because it wasn’t drying.

“I’m really happy about how it all turned out,” he said. “It almost felt like it would never become real, but it became real when I put the decal on it and saw it on the board and realized we could play it.”

McCammon decided to store the game in something special that also went along with his theme.

His grandfather, Dale Allman, is a talented woodworker, so he wanted to build the box to look similar to a treasure chest.

Time spent with his grandfather, or “Poppy,” was something he really enjoyed.

“I just like to be able to spend time with him as we do that, and it’s something we can do together,” he said. “On this, I didn’t get to spend as much with him because of other things I had going on, but I have helped with other things he has worked on. It’s a special talent he has.”

Adler said that was a really special and important part of the project.

“I think it was fun the generations worked together on that, and they will have that forever,” she said.

Adler said she has never had a student at Trinity complete a project like the Monopoly game.

The two talked through the project at various points, and Adler said she was proud of how it turned out.

“I love being able to see how when they’re given simple guidelines and they just go for it,” she said. “You can see the personality through it and how far they come throughout the years.”

Adler said McCammon is a great student and has a witty sense of humor.

“He has an intelligent sense of humor, and it stays very current,” she said. “He’s a really fun kid to have in class, and it has been great to see him grow through class.”

The school has about 60 students in arts classes and has created three freshman introduction to art classes because of students’ interest. The school offers introductions to 2D and 3D, drawing and painting, jewelry and print making, ceramics and sculpture and then advanced courses.

The first time playing the game was a neat experience for McCammon.

“I’ve played it three times,” he said. “I think it turned out great.”

McCammon plans to attend Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis to study digital marketing.