The Game of REAL LIFE - the inside story

THE INSIDE STORY

When I sell the game at fairs some people ask me where the ideas come from : my life, my friends life, newspaper articles etc..The Inside Story is a space by space brief description of each space.

PRE-GAME

The pre-game establishes the idea of fate. No one chooses to be male or female. You are just born male or female - fate.

It is fate whether you are born into a poor family, a middle class family or a rich family - fate.

I worked with adults with severe disabilities. Most of them have been disabled from birth. I, on the other hand, have always had the ability to dance. Again, the DNA you start with is -

fate.

It happens. If you are aborted you just have to do the Pre-game again.

One time a customer bought a game and said she would just put a sticker over this space. I think she got it wrong. This space, if anything, is anti-abortion. Because the player has given themselves a name and has started to 'live' only to be aborted.

The space also presents the concept of reincarnation.

The next rows have the jobs for rich people.

These are the jobs for the middle class people.

These are the jobs for the poor people.

The next four spaces are direct parodies from the original Game of LIFE.

HOME BUY A GAME!	THE INSIDE STORY When I sell the game at fairs some people ask me where the ideas come from : my life, my friends life, newspaper articles etc..The Inside Story is a space by space brief description of each space.
	PRE-GAME The pre-game establishes the idea of fate. No one chooses to be male or female. You are just born male or female - fate. It is fate whether you are born into a poor family, a middle class family or a rich family - fate. I worked with adults with severe disabilities. Most of them have been disabled from birth. I, on the other hand, have always had the ability to dance. Again, the DNA you start with is - fate.
	It happens. If you are aborted you just have to do the Pre-game again. One time a customer bought a game and said she would just put a sticker over this space. I think she got it wrong. This space, if anything, is anti-abortion. Because the player has given themselves a name and has started to 'live' only to be aborted. The space also presents the concept of reincarnation.
	My friend Aria wrote a newspaper article about male circumcision as she was pregnant with her son. She discovered male circumcision was just another unnecessary operation. The medical community claimed male circumcision was for good hygiene and did not hurt the baby - these were both proven wrong. Are we living in the 21st century or what? Female characters get a because they are happy to be girls.
	I am a big fan of organic food. This space also introduces the idea of the parents influence on your character which is not in the original Game of LIFE.
	Again - fate. No one ever knows when tragedy may strike. This space is good for the DIARY. How did your parents die or did they just abandon you? Since most of the parent spaces are negative being an orphan comes in handy in the game.
	While making the game I would ask other people for ideas to add a different perspective to the game. For this space I asked my friends son - Daniel. He was eight years old and I asked him for his happiest memory.
	Fate. You do not choose your parents. You only hope they love you. 4. THEY TRY - means they don't really love you but they give you the basics - food, shelter, clothes etc..
	Bad luck. But it happens.
	This is the first drug space. To me sugar is a drug. My definition of a drug is: anything you take for the effect not nutrition. Sugar starts kids on a life of drugs. Drugs are all over our society. But drugs are always a personal choice and always a risk. Just because someone offers you a piece of candy does not mean you have to take it.
	I believe cute people have advantages in life. Adults give cute kids little presents etc.. Meanwhile, ugly kids get made fun of at school. Hopefully, they have enough Health Points to survive.
	I worked with a guy who said this happened to him as a child. He grew up in Boston. He said he was hung by a chain and his mother came home and found him hanging. I thought saying chain would be confusing. A black woman playing the game landed there and said," Oh my - a lynching."
	Its roughest on the kids.
	Now your character is 10 years old and someone is offering them tobacco. You could hang out with the cool kids and smoke in the bathroom (), you might get bronchitis or you might get addicted. Or just say no and do nothing.
	Everyone remembers their first kiss. My first kiss was a cutie at a movie. I was about 11 years old. My friends and I went to the movies. These two cute girls sat behind us. Somehow I ended up sitting with the girls. One girl and I made out during the movie. I never knew her name and I never saw her again. Your first kiss might be a smelly kid - you are the victim of Spin the Bottle.
	Why do people steal? I read a biography of Clarence Darrow. He was a defense lawyer in the 1920s. He coined the phrase "All crimes are socially motivated." So in my game if you are rich you do not need to steal. If you are poor (with 0$) you may be tempted to steal. Just to stay competitive in the game.
	It happens. 'Rich Exempt' - life is not fair. Rich people do not live in the ghetto or anywhere close to it.
	When I was 14 my dad tried to make some wine. He threw it out but I retrieved it from the garbage. My friends and I drank it on a camp out. I never puked so bad in my life. So if you roll the die on Alcohol you might have a good time with no problems (), you might have a good time but also have a bad hangover ( and lose 3 HP), you might have a good time lose HP and be addicted. One player may land on alcohol, roll the die and they get . The next player comes along, lands on Alcohol they roll the die and get addicted, roll again and get addicted again, roll again and get addicted again - they end up losing 25 HP. The alcohol is not the problem it is you - the way your body reacts to alcohol. Life is not fair.
	Racism is a terrible thing.
	Susan - my first love.
	Sex is like drugs - always a choice and always a risk. I am a big fan of personal responsibility. If someone offers you a drug or wants to have sex with you - it is your choice to say yes or no. There was a play I saw about syphilis. The husband gave it to the wife, the wife gave it to the gardener, the gardener gave it to the maid, the maid gave it to the husband. Sex is always a risk. The SEX space is a good place to enhance your DIARY. Maybe the first time you land on SEX your boyfriend or girlfriend wants to have SEX. Maybe later in the game your boss wants to have SEX with you - What do you do? Yes or NO?
	I am for the legalization of Marijuana. I have smoked Marijuana for 30 years. I do not know why it is illegal. You will notice on the Drug Chart Marijuana has a very low addiction level (only if you roll a six). I think the addiction level of a drug is the big issue with drugs. Tobacco is very addictive, heroin is very addictive, cocaine is very addictive - Marijuana is not. I first smoked marijuana when i was 18. When I was 21 I started smoking cigarettes. After six months of smoking cigarettes I decided to quit. I thought it was like stopping smoking marijuana. No. It took me six months of concentrated effort to quit smoking cigarettes. I know Marijuana is not addictive.
	This was just an extra space I threw in but when I tested the game everybody who landed on it went "Woo-hoo!" So I left it in.
	Petabyte is the next size after Terabyte. The progression is Megabyte,Gigabyte,Terabyte,Petabyte
	In the first three versions of the game this space only got one . My sister carol complained. Her religion is very important to her. And " worth more than just being in a band."
	Now your character has "connections." They can choose whatever drug they want.
	What does your character do with their extra time? Take on a second job? Work out? Or party?
	Here you follow the path of the class you were born into: rich, middle or poor. I saw a documentary film: The Seven Ups. In the film the director brought together thirty 7 year olds from different classes and areas of England and interviewed them about life and their aspirations. Then they interviewed the same people every seven years: age14, age21, age28, age35. One discovery was that the children as adults returned to the class they were born into. The poor orphaned child had aspirations to get out of poverty but ended up having six kids of his own and living in poverty. Even the rich girl, who grew up on the manner, at age 21 she tried to deny her rich life but by 35 she found she was most comfortable around people like herself - rich people living in the country. She did not fit in the middle class or poor class. So in my game your job is based on what class you were born into.
	This was the phrase used when I went to college for people who were partying a bit too much in college.
	A friend of a friend was camping and did not have a hat. So he cut up some pants and made a hat out of the thigh area of the pants. He thought this was such a good idea he decided to market the hats. He was looking for investors. They might sell.
	On Jan.6, 1996 JOHN E. DuPONT , heir to the DuPont Chemical Company fortune, shot and killed Olympic Gold medallist David Schultz. Mr. DuPont was found to be mentally ill and sentenced to 30 years in prison or a mental institution.
The next rows have the jobs for rich people.
	Your parents cut you off and now you are on your own.
	I met a trust fund baby once. His parents put $100,000 in a bank account for him and $100,000 in a bank account for his brother. So each year each brother got $10,000 in interest. The brother was a stock broker so he just added the money to his stock portfolio. The man I met moved to Spain and lived off the money all year.
	Must be nice.
	Ken Saro Wiwa was an environmental activist in Nigeria. He was working to protect his native homeland from oil drilling. Shell Oil is very influential in Nigeria. Shell oil wanted to drill in the homeland. Ken Saro Wiwa was arrested and hanged by the Nigerian government. In the first three versions of the game I had only one income. But some women complained. They reminded me that women executives do not get paid as much as men.
	This is like a super trust fund baby.
These are the jobs for the middle class people.
	This is not a job just an extra space. When I was18 years old drinking alcohol was legal. I think young adults today are being abused. Why can an 18 year old go to Iraq and have the responsibility to shoot or not to shoot someone but our government says they do not have the responsibility to drink beer?
	This means your character went to college, got a degree but you work at McDonalds.
	Middle class people work in middle management. Here women also make less.
	A butt doctor - somebody has got to do it. There have been so many proctologist jokes the medical community changed the name to : gastrointestinal physician. They still have to stick a finger up your butt.
	Day traders play the stock market online. I found out I got this statistic wrong. Statistically, Day Traders lose 75% of the time.
	As the saying goes," You bought the farm." I know this refers to dying but I wonder if the saying originated from being deep in debt when you buy a farm.This player starts deep in debt.
These are the jobs for the poor people.
	Historically, the foot soldiers in the military come from the lower classes. These are people in need of a job and in the military there is the possibility of social advancement. Because their job includes room and meals, military people are not paid much.
	The worlds oldest profession.
	I like this classification. It is a worker who wants to work but does not have the right 'papers.' Like a birth certificate or USA citizenship papers. I could be an undocumented worker in another country.
	A job that needs to be done and makes as much as a mid-management jackass.
	I think if I were born poor, as a teenager, I would probably have become a drug dealer. I have a mind for business and if all other avenues were closed I would have tried to sell drugs. Its a no brainer.
	When I was first working on the game I thought just poor people could become shamans and maybe middle class but then I remembered that Buddha was a prince who chose to walk away from his fathers wealth. So anybody can become a Shaman. My definition of Shaman is like a little Shaman. I think a Shaman is anyone who is doing what they truly love.
	When I first made the game all players died before they got halfway through. I thought this made the game tough and in an evening a person would play four or five lives. You would start one and die then start another and die etc.. But my friends testing the game said they wanted that first character to live about three quarters. I still liked the idea of the first 20 spaces being tough to stay alive. I have a pre-20th century concept when children died frequently. So I kept that and everybody lands on this PAYDAY so everybody get an extra 20HP to help them get through the rest of the game.
The next four spaces are direct parodies from the original Game of LIFE.
	In the original Game of LIFE if you Discover Uranium you get a lot of money.
	In the original Game of LIFE if you climb Mt. Everest you get money.
	In the original Game of LIFE if you Save A polluted Lake you just lose money.
	In the original Game of LIFE you HAD to get married. In my game marriage is a choice. It might be good or it might be bad. Its a roll of the die. Number 3 has been confusing to people. This is like honeymoon sex in Tahiti. So you double what you get on the SEX CHART. It is doubly bad if you get a disease on your honeymoon. And a double blessing to be pregnant with twins from your honeymoon.
MORE TO COME!