Back in the 1960s I played The Game of LIFE a lot.
I was a child and it was my favorite game. So the first idea for a parody came to me when I was 10 years old. It was 1968 and the United States was deep in the Vietnam War. There were protesters in the streets and I remember wondering why WAR was not in The Game of LIFE. It seemed to be a big issue - why is WAR not in a game called: LIFE?
Then junior year in high school my girlfriend and I had sex every weekend - puppy love and puppy sex - I thought this was great! And I wondered:
Why isn't SEX in The Game of LIFE?
Then I went to college and started smoking Marijuana and drinking alcohol and I thought:
Why aren't drugs in The Game of LIFE?
That is why WAR, SEX and DRUGS are the cornerstones in my game.
They were the first ideas.
Getting back to my childhood, my Uncle Ed created a board game about golf. So he planted the entrepreneur seed in me.
In the 1980s I sat down and tried to develop a board game of total life - gender, race, religion, nature, zodiac sign, cultural pressures, individual factors, body type, moods, emotions, relationships - everything. I soon realized that a game of total life would create 8 billion people and I could not fit it into a box. So I put the idea away.
In the 1990s, when my personal life was giving me some heavy blows, I thought:
what if i just make a parody of The Game of LIFE and limit it to gender, money, health and happiness?
And so, after a year of work
The Game of REAL LIFE was born.
Good omens kept me going.
I was working at a group home for severely disabled adults at the time and my manager - Karen Deskins - threw a lot of parties so I was able to test the game out at all these parties.
As I finished the game my friend, Kevin Dougherty, started his own graphic artist business
- dawg eat dawg graphics - and I was able to become his first customer.
The third good omen was living in Eugene, OR where we have something called Saturday Market. Saturday Market is a hand made crafts market so for a very small fee you can sell any product that is hand made. And direct sales to the public is the best way to find out if your product works. I made 50 games for Christmas 1997 and sold them all.
Now I have been selling the game for 15 years and I have sold over 24000 games. I still mainly sell at craft fairs : Saturday Market(Eugene), Portland Saturday Market, Seattle Hempfest, Seattle Freemont Fair, Seattle U-district Fair, the Emerald Empire Hempfest(Eugene) and online.
So I first thought of the game 37 years ago, I worked on it 20 years ago, 10 years ago I developed the parody and now i make my living selling the game.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- I would like to thank my Uncle Ed for developing his Game of Golf and showing me it could be done.
- All the staff a T-street especially Karen Deskins and Jennifer Arre for throwing parties.
- Kevin Dougherty and Dawg Eat Dawg Graphics.
- Saturday Market.
- Chris and Elaine for buying so many games when i first started.
- and Susan Terrass.
THANK YOU.