The Game of Life

The Game of Life is a board game in which 2 to 8 teams (or individual players) can participate. The game starts with a decision to make for each team; either start your life by going to college or choose to directly start a career. The team or individual player who acquired the most money at the end of the game is designated to be the winner. The game of life is designed to give the players a feeling that, if they delay earning money by going to college at the very beginning of the game, there is a higher possibility for the player(s) to earn more money during a later part of the game. The game also tries to teach the player that more money equals more happiness. Although by now it is obviously clear that the latter lesson the game tries to emphasize is generally not true in real life, but more money does tend to give more opportunity to the individuals towards a better shot at living a good and happy life.

From the experiences that I had playing the game was somewhat contradictory from what it really intends to teach the players. Investing money in education was supposed to give a better career in the future. The one team that did not invest money in education was doing better almost throughout the entire game. To me personally, that made me feel like the game is based more on luck than the decisions that the individual teams made. Another important aspect of the game was that the game does not discriminate against same sex marriage. That part of the game was a little bit shocking to me since a lot of younger audience who plays the game might take this controversial ethical issue a lot more lightly than it actually tends to be.

From my personal experience, I think it would be better if the game had a more age restrictions, and emphasized the older participants to accompany the younger participants of the game so that they do not have the wrong notion of what the game is actually trying to emphasize on. For the people who do not have a pre-existing idea of what a true happy and good life consists of, the game may end up conveying the wrong message; that money is the key and primary root of happiness and the ultimate good life.