Game of Life

  That's Life

Sincerelyornot of Oregon, 11/29/2011

Ah, life, the good old fashioned game of buying and selling and... oh wait, that's just how I play all games. Life is a hybrid game, part chance, part conquest, part trading up, part strategy, and all going down on a complex board taht gives you choices at crucial points.

At the beginning of life, you get a person, a car, and the option to go to college or skip right to your job. Throughout the game, you spin to find how many spaces ahead you go-- and finishing first may or may not be to your advanatage.

Along the way, each space has an activity, some of which you can't skip - getting married, buying a house, chaning careers, or just plain paying for the little things of life like a nose job or rock concert for your daughter's sweet sixteen party. Other spaces let you add LIFE tiles to your stockpile, which you add up in the end to reveal your accomplishments to the world. If you think you have the most money, retire in the expensive community: otherwise, hang out in the country and save your LIFE tiles from pillage!

TIP: Barring any home rules, the college route is both expensive and hard to justify unless you think you can draw the doctor's career card and keep its potential $100,000 salary card for most of the game. The non-college jobs all have perks that add up over the course of the game and mitiate or even surpass any advantage gained by education (my favorite: teacher, which allows you to pick a second career and collect money from players landing on either of two icons on the board.)