The Game of Life (Windows, 1998) Gameplay

The only game where you can be a doctor and still only make minimum wage.

(If you want to just see the enhanced mode straight away, skip to 59:39)

The late 90s computer adaptation of the classic board game! You have probably played this game at least once, and I'm sure you all know the premise -- you traverse down a one-way board starting either at college or with a career straight away, and go through the twists and turns of a full life up to retirement. This is a very faithful adaptation of the game, and has a great presentation going for it, even if a lot of the CGI does look rather dated now. It includes both the classic board game which is one-to-one with the original (at least at the time; the rules have changed a bit on the current version), and a new "enhanced" mode that foregoes the Life tiles in favor of money-grabbing minigames.

This video shows both the Classic mode and the Enhanced mode, with me against five other AI players both times. The Classic mode went abysmally for me -- I not only got struck with the early luck of going last, I also spun poorly my first several times and ended up being last to get a career, with the worst possible salary at the college option, and I picked the doctor which I had totally forgotten upon recording was a terrible choice as he has extremely few spaces, basically dooming me to playing horribly. Oh, and for some bizarre reason, even though everyone except me retired to Countryside Acres, I didn't get the four free Life tiles at the end even though you're supposed to be locked out of those in Countryside (I guess it was a bug of some sort?), so as a result, I ended up locked in dead last. Oof. I'm really interested in knowing where I would have placed had I gotten the Life tiles like I was supposed to. Also, for those who may ask -- the last time I landed on the "Trade your salary card" space, I picked 90K because the AI will only go for who has the highest salary, which ended up being a miscalculation because that space never got landed on afterwards. Oh well.

As for enhanced mode, I think it's easy to say the game decidedly went a lot better for me...however, once I reached the end, it was clear I wasn't going to come out on top if I chose to retire to Countryside, so I decided to try my luck at Millionaire Estates again and...well, the results speak for themselves. Oh well, everyone has their bad days, right? Also, all of the minigames except Cannonball got hit at least once which was nice. I only landed on two, sadly.

Also, due to a bug, one of the AI players ended up choosing a stock that I already owned. I don't know what would cause this but it did. I guess the "Stock market soars" space doesn't account for stocks already owned if an AI player lands there.

I hope you enjoy the video!

Видео The Game of Life (Windows, 1998) Gameplay канала Mr. Eight-Three-One