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Description

This game is based on the Game of Life boardgame. Each team starts at 'home' with £150,000. There are two paths through life.

(1) College track – you pay for a college degree. The jobs you’re offered will use your brain rather than your brawn. College track is good for teams who want to solve puzzles and stroll around town.
(2) Career track – you’ll be able to afford a car long before the graduates can, so you’ll go for work which is further away. It won’t pay as well, but you’ll be able to get started straight away. Career track is good for teams who want to get moving and keep moving.

Teams will prove that they have completed their jobs by taking a photo on a mobile phone or otherwise showing proof to a leader as requested in the job description. Leaders will sign off on the job and ‘transfer’ the pay to the team bank account / balance sheet. Teams can only take one job at a time. If they don’t want to complete the job, they can pay £10,000 to draw another one.

Teams on either track can start a family, buy a pet, go on vacation or take up a new hobby by drawing a card from one of the 4 packs. The value of all of these is counted up at the end of the game.

Resources

- A briefing note and a pencil for each player.
- Cards / slips of paper for children, pets, holidays and hobbies. Print from the attachment and cut into slips.
- Cards / slips of paper for college track and career track jobs. Print from the attachment and cut into slips.
- Puzzles for the college track teams. Print the attachment.
- Some change (one of the jobs involves taking £2 from a leader to buy them a gift).
- A bank account / balance sheet for each team. Print the attachment.
- An envelope for each team to hold their children / pets / holidays / hobbies records, and their bank account / balance sheet.
- I took a camp table, but you could also use a bench.

Instructions

Trident ESU played this game from Abbey Gardens in April 2026. It was dark by the end of the game. We allowed 75 minutes for play, then a further 10 minutes for final purchases. Adding up the scores took three leaders five or ten minutes at the end. We had six teams of Explorers and one team of leaders (who were disappointed to finish second).

You could probably play this with Scouts, but you might need to add an adult to each team and adapt the puzzles, depending on ages / how sensible your Scouts are / whether your Scouts have mobile phones.

Hand each player a copy of 'Game of Life plan for OSM' and a pencil. Form the players into teams of six.

Each team can choose whether to follow the college track or the career track. College track teams receive a starting puzzle. This puzzle is a 'college degree' and three jobs in one. College track teams pay £100,000 to join the college track, hoping to make it back in lucrative graduate jobs. Once they have completed the jobs on their puzzle sheet, they can draw more college jobs, and these must be completed one at a time, returning to base to be 'paid' after each one. Career track teams draw career track jobs and complete them one at a time, returning to base to be 'paid' after each one.

At base, the teams can also choose to take a chance on a hobby or holiday, or can 'buy' a child or a pet. They need to spend all their earnings before the end of the game - money is worth nothing at all when you tot up at the end.

When we played, the winning team was on college track, but the teams coming in second and third were on career track. The range of jobs, holidays and hobbies adds a big slice of luck to the game.

If you have questions, you can find me at Trident ESU or 6th Winchester Scouts. Vic Bolton.

Tags

• strategy
• wide game
• Winchester

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