When I was growing up in Miami, my parents spent a lot of time (unsuccessfully) trying to figure out their lives. So, my brother, sister, and I used to spend a lot of time playing board games. Of course, before starting, it was first necessary to reach a consensus about which game to play.
We all liked Monopoly, but my brother was not so keen on the Barbie Game (which entailed going to the prom with Ken or Poindexter). So the exchange rate was one game of Pigskin (a ghastly football game) for two of Barbie.
Another game that we often played was called Life. The objective was to become a millionaire and not end up on the Poor Farm. Each player started out on Life’s highway with a high school diploma, a car, and $2000.
Along the way, it was necessary to make decisions such as whether to go directly into business or take the longer route to college, and choose a profession. After finding a job or profession, each player got married and had various children. Winning the game not only depended on the Wheel of Fate (the spinner), but also on the decisions taken. As each player traveled on Life’s highway, he/she could meet with success or failure.
In the 1960 version of the game, the board had a green-and-black space labeled Revenge. The player that landed there was entitled to either to collect $200,000 from any other player, or send any other player backward 10 spaces. We all loved to land on that space and usually chose the first option to get the money.
After my childhood, the next time that I played the game was 50 years later with my grandchildren. To my great surprise, I found that Life was not quite the same as I had remembered it. Among other changes, there was no longer a Poor Farm, and Revenge had been eliminated. It had not occurred to me that a board game could be edited like a research paper,
Of course, poor farms had long ago been abolished as a concept, but I wondered whether Milton Bradley had erased Revenge so as not to encourage the natural desire for vengeance that we all harbor deep in our heart. This made me curious about the history of the game.
Much to my surprise, I discovered that Life dated back to 1860 and owed its existence to Abraham Lincoln’s beard. Milton Bradley, a young printer, had invested a lot of money in beardless Lincoln pictures. When Lincoln suddenly decided to change his look and grow a beard for the presidential election, Bradley went bankrupt. (This was before the days of PhotoShop.)
Bradley then decided that he would change his career path to something more lucrative. To recoup his financial losses, he invented “The Checkered Game of Life”, which is the proto-ancestor of Life, as we know it.
In this game, players moved on a board with squares depicting virtues and vices. Spaces on the game board included options such as Suicide, Poverty, Intemperance, Crime, Disgrace, etc. This indicates that back in 1860, Life was rather depressing. (The Revenge space could not hold a candle to Ruin.)
The winner was the first player to accumulate 100 points. Since Milton Bradley was an educator bent on teaching morality, this version of the game had no money (the root of all evils). It also had a spinner instead of dice, which might encourage gambling.
In this prehistoric version, the main objective was not to become a millionaire, but rather to have a "happy old age” (without money). This admirable but difficult feat was achieved through prudent living. When players went about Life the wrong way, they risked landing on dismal squares like Ruin or Suicide.
Not surprisingly, a player that landed on Suicide was expelled from Life (possibly because of the obvious incompatibility of the two concepts). Over the years, the game surrendered to Capitalism, and by the 1960’s, winning was no longer based on good moral decisions, but rather on good money decisions.
Now, in Times of Coronavirus, our lives have changed. Like Milton Bradley, who lost his fortune because Lincoln grew a beard, we have lost our normal life because of a virus mutation in a Chinese pangolin.
So given this brave new world, it is time to create a pandemic version of Life (Coronavirus Edition). In this game, each player would start out on the Pandemic Pathway with a mask, hand sanitizer, optional health insurance, and an immune system. He/she would begin in Phase 1 of confinement and have to follow the rules in each phase to be able to progress to the following ones.
The main objective would be to not get infected and finally reach Normal Life (end of the journey) by successfully avoiding the Virus spaces. Winning would depend partly on the spinner, but also on healthy decisions. As each player traveled over the board, he/she could land on spaces such as Virus, Symptom, PCR Test, Quarantine, Hospital, Recovery, or Death.
As players progressed through the confinement phases, they would be presented with an increasing number of choices. Of course, they would have to choose whether to acquire an F2 mask, wear gloves, or wash their hands.
As restrictions were progressively lifted, players would also have to decide whether to put on their mask to buy groceries and medicine. They would be asked if they wished to attend barbecues or large birthday parties. They would have a choice of either staying at home or going to a protest march or political rally.
Poor choices and decisions would enable players to take (deceptive) shortcuts to Normal Life. However, these shorter routes would be infinitely more dangerous because players might reduce the coverage of their health insurance or lose it altogether. (This would be a non-event in the European version where the NHS would cover everything.) Even worse, there would be more Virus squares on the shortcuts, which could land them on the spaces for Hospital or Quarantine.
However, players that wished to strengthen their immune system and possibly accumulate antibodies would have the option of eating broccoli instead of Big Macs, drinking fresh orange juice instead of Coca-Cola, and practicing yoga instead of smoking. Players would be able to skip Virus spaces by washing their hands frequently, disinfecting surfaces in their homes, and wearing masks.
However, if players were so unlucky or foolhardy as to be sent to the Hospital, they would have to find the path to Recovery. Depending on their insurance coverage, players might or might not be able to draw a Remdesivir card (though Dexamethasone would always be an option).
Once in the hospital, if their immune system were not sufficiently strong, players might have to lose a turn, waiting for an ICU bed, thus decreasing their chances of survival. They might be able to draw an Oxygen card though not a Respirator card. All of this would depend on their previous decisions, which would make them more or less respirator-worthy.
The three exits from the Hospital would be Full Recovery, Long-Term Side Effects, and Death. Needless to say, players that landed on the Death space would no longer be eligible to continue on the path to Normal Life. These players would lose the game. The good news is that In Life (Coronavirus Edition), one can always play again.
