The Game of Life - 7 Facts

  If you are old enough, you remember those commercials on the tele advertising The Game Of Life.  My family never owned it but I had friends who did and we'd go over and play it.  A game could take a few days because we played after school and before we had to be home.  It was as popular as Monopoly but it included more

This game dates back to the beginning of the Civil War.  In 1860, Milton Bradley created the original version that he called the Checkered Game of Life but 100 years later in 1960 it was given a face lift and called the Game of Life.

If you aren't familiar with the game, it's been designed to mimic life from the end of high school through family raising years to retirement and the path is determined by the spaces on the board.  In the original game, players moved across a checkered board with morals based on the inventors beliefs so there were negative moves for suicide, gambling, jail, etc.  In 1960 the board was changed so it represented a journey through life following one of several paths.

The game has been changed several times since the 1960's but the game is still basically the same.  now for the interesting facts about The Game of Life

1.  The original game was designed by Milton Bradley, a lithographer.  He created the game after a his portrait of Abraham Lincoln did not sell because Lincoln grew a beard after the pictures were printed.

2.  The three dimensional version of the game was created in the 1960's and it was the first time any game board featuring molded plastic buildings, mountains, etc.

3. As of 2010 over 50 million copies in 20 languages have been sold.

4.  Milton Bradley used a spinner rather than dice because he believed that using dice was gambling and he disapproved of gambling.

5.  The Checkered Game of Life was the only game created by Milton Bradley.

6. The life tile awarding a person the $100,000 Nobel prize was replaced by the person winning the same amount for appearing in a reality show.

7.  The most recent version of the game introduced the credit card.

Have a nice day and you'll find information on another game in the near future.