Life
The Game of Life, also known simply as
LIFE, is a board game originally created in 1860 by Milton Bradley,
as The Checkered Game of Life. The game simulates a person's
travels through his or her life, from college to retirement, with
jobs, marriages and children (or not) along the way. Two to six
players can participate in one game; however, variations of the
game have been made to accommodate a maximum of eight or ten
players. The modern version was originally published one hundred
years later, in 1960 (then "endorsed" by Art Linkletter, with a
circular picture of him on the box) by the Milton Bradley Company
(now a subsidiary of Hasbro).
History
The Checkered Game of Life
board
The game was originally created in 1860
by Milton Bradley as The Checkered Game of Life. This was the first
game created by Bradley, a successful lithographer, whose major
product until that time was a portrait of Abraham Lincoln with a
clean shaven face, which did not do very well once the subject grew
his now-famous beard. The game sold 45,000 copies by the end of its
first year. Like many games from the 19th century, such as the The
Mansion of Happiness by S.B. Ives in 1843, it had a strong moral
message.
Bradley's game did not include dice,
but instead used a teetotum, a six sided top (dice were considered
too similar to gambling).
The game board was essentially a
modified checkerboard. The object was to land on the "good" spaces
and collect 100 points. A player could gain fifty points toward
this goal by reaching "Happy Old Age" in the far corner, opposite
"Infancy" where one began.
In 1960, the one hundredth anniversary
of the game, the form of the game now known as The Game of Life,
was introduced, designed by Reuben Klamer. There were many
re-publishings over the years, including 1959, 1961, 1966, 1978,
1985, 1992, 2000 and 2005.
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