We really love board games in our house and now my children are getting older we are finding some great games that we are all enjoying playing as a family.

The latest game in our collection is The Game of Life. To play the game you need to navigate through various life events, such as going to college, getting a job, getting married, and having children, while aiming to accumulate wealth and success. You have a spinning wheel as a dice which adds an extra fun factor for the children. The dice wheel also doubles up as a roulette style wheel where it can land in a red or black section which means different things as you move throughout the game.

To start the game off you need to decide if you take the college or work route. To start on the college route you need to pay for your education, you start on a separate bit of the board, but this means you have access to better careers as you land on the various career spaces on the board. I personally love this aspect of the game, as initially my children wanted to go straight to work as they didn’t want to pay the money straight up front. Now we have played the game a few times and they have seen how this has played out they really think about this choice, which is great for real life.

As you move throughout the board you pass through life events like getting married, having children, having a mid life crisis and retiring at the end. You have to pay to get married and have children, but you get an extra person in your car each time you do a task like this. My children love picking out which of their real life friends or pets are coming along for a journey and then you get paid a bonus at the end of the game for every extra person you have in the car.

Along the way there are various challenges, like those in the action cards. You have the ability to win or lose money with each of these cards, very similar to real life situations.

You also have the option to buy property as you go, which you can sell at the end to add to your wealth. This is when the roulette red or black dice come into play, as you have two prices you can sell your house for, depending on which colour you land on. You can either lose money or make more money than you originally bought the house for, which again, I think is a great introduction to real life.

I would highly recommend The Game of life as a family board game. My daughter is 7 and she fully understands it and can play. I would probably try and play with children as young as 6.  My children also love playing this with their friends, so it doesn’t always need to played with adults. So if you are looking for a fun new game to add to your collection, this is it!

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