Life Is But a Game (original) (raw)

Seeing as how it’s the Fourth of July and Game Monday, I’m going to take a look at a distinctly American game, the Game of Life. I remember playing this one quite a bit in my childhood. The predecessor for this game is called the Checkered Game of Life, and was invented by Milton Bradley in 1860. In fact, it was apparently the first game he ever made. It was played on a checkerboard, on which players move from infancy in the lower left corner to Happy Old Age in the upper right, receiving rewards and punishments along the way.

It was a century later (in 1960, for those of you who lost count) that the company came up with the board with the track, with cars as playing pieces.

Players decide whether to go to college or straight into business, then continue to follow the road based on the spin of the spinner. It’s been updated several times, with certain elements modernized, including the dollar amounts. I think the version we had might have been from the sixties, and Beth has one that’s somewhat newer but basically the same. I recall seeing a more recent version at the house of a woman my dad was dating at the time, and it looked complicated. I’m not sure whether that’s become the standard edition or not. I’m going to talk about the one I know best, which had Art Linkletter on the box heartily endorsing the game.

There were a few elements to the game I found bizarre, including:

• If you go to college, you always made more money than if you go into business. Even if you don’t land on any of the spaces that actually give you good salaries, you’ll still make slightly more. I can tell you from experience that it doesn’t really work that way. Was this a product of an earlier time when college meant more, or the fantasy of someone who never went to college?
• You HAVE to get married. No choice in the matter. I thought this game was American! Mind you, getting married doesn’t affect the game one way or the other.
• If you have kids, you receive money for each one when you reach the Day of Reckoning. All I can figure is that you sell your kids.
• There’s a space called the Poor Farm. I wonder what they farm there.

Yeah, I know they can’t make a game too realistic, and it wouldn’t be any fun if were just like real life, but come on! Kids don’t bring parents MORE money! They’re an expense!