Ah, the Game of Life.
It’s about as offensive as a bowl of Jello.
But the original one from a hundred years earlier?
It had squares like...this.
The first Game of Life wasn’t just a game.
It was a form of moral instruction.
And it says something about how society thinks life should be lived then and now.
In a way, the Game of Life started when this chin disappeared.
Milton Bradley was a young lithographer — basically a printer — in Massachusetts when he made
a thousand prints of this man running for president in 1860.
When Abraham Lincoln grew a beard, those prints were worthless.
So Bradley had to pivot.
He took his printing skills and let them loose on a young medium: board games.
The Checkered Game of Life was his first game — and it became a hit.
Players started at infancy.
They spun a teetotum — this thing — to determine options for their move.
You had control to choose your move once you spun.
The goal was to hit 100 points, through 5-point milestones like college, and Congress,
or big ones, like 50 points for Old Age.
The game’s patent shows that Milton Bradley’s Life was more than just a social
game.
It was about great moral principles.
Elizabeth Peabody founded the first English kindergarten in the United States in 1860.
Milton Bradley published this portrait of her well after his Lincoln failure.
He also volunteered to teach his own daughter’s kindergarten class in Springfield, Massachusetts,
after the success of Life.
And he used his business, Milton Bradley and Company, to publish games and educational
tools, including more than 40 books about the new Kindergarten curriculum.
They made a wide variety of learning tools, from educational puzzles to influential color
wheels.
Education became Bradley’s passion, and the original Game of Life predicted that — it
was a way to teach “the checkered journey of life” to children — and adults.
That weird spinner, the teetotum?
That was originally to avoid cards and dice, because they were associated with gambling.
The location of each spot also taught a lesson.
Old age was surrounded by many difficulties.
“Poverty lies near the cradle,” but passing through it didn’t hurt you in the beginning
of the game.
Setbacks didn't earn you points, but most didn't kick you out of the game, either.
Honesty led to happiness.
Industry, to wealth.
And perseverance led to success.
“I made 50,000 in the stock market today.”
“That’s Life” In 1960, long after Milton Bradley died, the
company — which by then was mostly making games — dug Life from the archives, choosing
it over a long list of other games the company had once published.
They adapted it to 1960s America with a candy-colored spinner and stacks of cash and cars that could
load up a full family of baby boomers to places like Millionaire Acres.
“I went to the Poor Farm.”
“I’m on Millionaire Acres!”
It centered around paydays, where the value of winning a Nobel was the cash prize that came
with it.
The winner is the person with the most money.
Today’s versions are almost identical, with tweaks for jobs and hot brand integrations.
“That’s life.”
There was no more disgrace but there also wasn’t bravery, or honor, or truth.
Both versions are the Game of Life.
Which one should we play?
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Do you know how many times I had to spin this thing for this video?
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