Board Games
How to play The Game of Life
Travel through a fictional career and family life, collecting cash and hidden-value LIFE tiles. The largest final dollar total wins.
What you need
1991 board, spinner, cars/people, money, career/salary/house/stock cards, insurance, loans and LIFE tiles
Set up the game
- Give each player ten thousand dollars and a car with one person. Separate card types. Mix LIFE tiles facedown; put four at Millionaire Estates. Highest spin starts clockwise.
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Playing The Game of Life
- Choose career or college. Career draws a permitted career and salary; college borrows forty thousand tuition and later offers a choice among three careers and three salaries.
- Spin and move forward. Skip occupied destinations to the next open space. Follow orange spaces; blue directions are optional. Collect salary when landing on or passing Payday.
- Stop at red Job Search, Get Married and Buy a House even with movement left; resolve, then spin again. LIFE spaces give a hidden tile. Match career symbols to determine who receives payments.
- Insurance and stocks are optional purchases under their printed rules. Each twenty-thousand loan repays twenty-five thousand.
- At retirement repay loans and choose Millionaire Estates or Countryside Acres. After everyone retires, richest Estates retiree takes its bonus tiles; Countryside tiles are protected and it grants one tile. Reveal LIFE values and add cash. Highest total wins.
Debt changes the retirement comparison
You hold two hundred thousand cash and two loans. Repaying fifty thousand leaves one hundred fifty thousand before LIFE values. Another player with one hundred eighty thousand and no loans may be ahead despite the smaller cash pile you saw earlier.
Read the career symbol
A space may pay another player rather than the bank. Check the matching career before exchanging money; if you hold that career, no payment is needed. For the special Police Officer speeding rule and tax amounts, follow the sheet and salary card rather than applying a general flat fee.
The spinner is not financial advice
This game represents life through large random jumps and simplified choices. Children can practice counting money and comparing totals without treating its career salaries or college payoff as real-world predictions. Discuss a surprising event after resolving it instead of changing the outcome because it seems unfair.
Beginner decisions
- Keep loans separate from cash. A larger cash pile is misleading if several loans still need repayment.
- Compare insurance cost with remaining exposure rather than treating every optional purchase as mandatory.
Common rule mix-ups
- Selling the house for a modern-edition payout absent from this sheet.
- Declaring the first retiree the winner.
Questions about this game
Can retired players collect stock payouts?
Yes; the 1991 sheet tells them to keep stocks active.
Are all retirement tiles safe?
No. At Millionaire Estates they can be taken when the draw pile runs out; Countryside protects them.
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Sources and edition notes
Milton Bradley The Game of Life, 1991 4000-X1 rules, including LIFE tiles and separate salary cards. Modern editions change money, careers and retirement.
Sources and stated format checked October 14, 2026. This records a document check, not a claim of hands-on testing.
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