Life Goes On (Game of Life)

Member Name: belfin

Product:	Game of Life
Date:	20/12/05 (330 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Another old favourite that can provide hours of fun

Disadvantages: setting up can take a while

I received this game as a xmas pressie about 20 something years ago but it is still all in working order and has been played over and over again throughout the years - starting with myself and then with my own children as they have grown up.

Games like this seem to have taken a back seat these days since the arrival of the many dvd games available now but I feel that this type is great for getting the family together on a cold rainy day when there is nothing on telly except the usual repeats.

Game of Life is quite simply about living your life and making choices along the way. It has an element of luck involved but there are important decisions that have to be made for each player as they make there way through life. Aged from 8 upwards this is a game that takes a little bit of learning and has quite a few rules to remember but once you get the hang of it, there is a lot of fun to be had.

What's in the box?

When you open the box you come face to face with a large playboard covered with different roads and paths to take - each with instructions on the separate spaces. There are spaces in the board for various buildings such as a church and a retirement home to be placed. There are larger spaces for a toll bridge and mountains to be added for crossing over certain routes. Near the centre is a space for the spinner. This is instead of using a dice and has the numbers 1 to 10 on it which enables you to move round the board or to win or lose money on lotteries or the stock exchange.

The mountain pieces and bridge all have stickers which need to be added and the spinner is easy to put together and can be left complete as the interior of the box is molded so that the individual pieces fit neatly into slots and compartments. This is really useful at the end so you can quickly see if a piece is missing.

There is a handy money rack for putting all the money into whilst playing although we've found using this to be a bit of a nuisance as the notes tend to slip to the side and fall out if the appointed banker has larger hands. It is easy to put the notes in separate piles at the side of the playing area so this doesn't spoil our enjoyment of the game.

There are six cars which take you round the board coloured red, yellow, orange, blue, green and white. These cars can be filled along the way by blue or pink pegs as you go through life getting a partner and children if you are blessed enough to land on the correct spaces. You may even get twins if you are lucky!!!

As well as denominations of 1,000, 5,000, 10,000, 50,000 and 100,000, there are promissary notes which are used when you run out of money and are the equivalent of a loan. Worth 20,000 each you pay back interest of 2,000 when you have enough money to pay them back to the bank. Other documentation in this game are insurance policies which may be needed throughout the game. Car, Life and Fire insurance and well as Share certificates can all be very useful but cost you as you go round the board and you have to decide whether you want to buy them or not.

Status symbol cards are available to buy if you land on the right square and these range from a luxury yacht to a race horse. They each cost different amounts from landing on the appropriate squares on the board and can be used to give you an income when you retire.

Share the Wealth cards are available if you land on one of the many pay day squares around the board and there are 3 types - collect, pay and exemption. More about these later.

The lucky number board has the numbers 1 - 10 and is for use when you land on a lucky day space on the playing board. You are given 2 x £5,000 and choose whether to keep them or gamble them on 2 separate numbers. If you win you get £150,000 but if you lose you get nothing.

The Rules.

At the start of the game you are given a car, a car insurance certificate and £3,000. This is to see you through either university or go straight into the business sector. Don't worry you just have to spin and move along - there are no tricky business decisions to make or exams to sit. We tend to follow the university route as there are jobs available with larger salaries than the £5,000 business one. You could end up being a doctor, lawyer, teacher, physicist or even a journalist which can earn you £20,000 every time you pass or land on a Pay Day square. Sometimes though, as happens in real life you can leave university with only your degree and no job to speak of. This gives you a salary of only £6,000.

After this initial choice you all follow the same journey although there are short cuts for those racing towards retirement. The aim of the game is to get to end of the game with the most amount of money and it is not necessarily the first to get round who will win the game. Sometimes slower players will land on more profitable squares such as discovering treasure whilst deep sea diving or inventing an automatic cocktail shaker. There is also a chance of course that they will land on more costly squares too including inheriting a skunk farm and having to pay to get rid of it or forking out to go to a health farm because you are overweight.

There are also choices of whether to speculate on the stock exchange but of course this can cost you if the market is down and if you buy a share certificate you may have to pay costs if you land on certain squares round the board too. The rewards are tempting though and we tend to go ahead and have a gamble.

Suing for damages is another way of earning some cash and stopping your winning opponent in their tracks and amounts range from £50,000 to £200,000 as you go through life. Money will also be given to you when you get married or have children - they are good for something.

The other way of getting money from your opponents is if you have a collect share the wealth card. This can be given to your opponent when they have a windfall of over £10,000 to claim half of it. To save money you can hand one of the pay cards over to an opponent when you are faced with a bill of over £6,000 to make them pay half too. If you are handed on of these cards and have an exemption card then you do not have to pay out.

When you reach retirement you can choose whether to go into a retirement home or head for the millionaire's mansion. If you are first to arrive or have some status symbols then it's beneficial to head for the mansion as you can receive £100,000 for being first there. The status symbols all have varying amounts from £1,000 to £4,000 on them and each time it is your turn you spin the wheel and receive money from the bank. If your symbols total £6,000 and you spin a 7 then you would receive £42,000 which is worked out by multiplying the 2 together. If you don't have status symbols then the retirement home is the best option as you are given your salary on each turn and you choose whether to keep it or split it over 2 numbers like on the lucky day squares. This time if you win you get 5 times your salary.

The game ends when all players have travelled through life and enter retirement. All that matters then is the money and the winner is the one who has earned and saved the most.

Although it sounds like quite a complicated game, the rules are quite easy to pick up as you play it and although you may have to have the instruction book handy to start with you'll soon be shooting round the board without the need of it. I hadn't played this game for quite some years but we aired it again at the weekend and found that I remembered most of it and what I didn't was easy to pick up again.

All my family enjoys playing this as it doesn't go on and on the way some games can yet it's not over before it starts either. A game of 4 players usually takes us around 45 minutes to play but obviously with 2 it will be slightly less or with 6 it will be slightly longer.

We love it not only for the competative nature of this game but for the fun comments on the squares around the board. My family thought it was hilarious that they had all got jobs with £20,000 salary and I had left without a job with just £6,000. They didn't think it was so funny though when I ended up landing on winning squares such as winning on the horses and getting £50,000 and selling my life story for £100,000 and they were landing on squares such as being left 50 stray cats by an aunt and having to pay for their upkeep or being made to finance an unsuccessful exhibition to the South Pole. My daughter still ended up winning but we had a lot of laughter on the way round as fortunes came and went.

This game can be bought for around £10 which I think is excellent value for money considering the playability of it. There are also Simpson and Star Wars versions available which you can buy for around £15. My bloke has the Star Wars version which I bought him for Christmas last year but it is a bit more complicated to set up and I am not a fan of Star Wars like him so I still find the original a lot more fun - but he gets very animated about it because it is Star Wars.

There is only one thing that does get a little bit annoying and that is the squeak from the spinner after a while. This can however be remedied by rubbing a little bit of butter on the centre piece that the spinner sits on. After that you should find that it not only spins more freely but more quietly too.

All in all this is a very good game for the price and if you are looking for a fun board game that has withstood the test of time then give this one a go. You never know where life will take you.

Summary: Great fun for all the family