For Christmas my kids got the new Game of Life Twists & Turns - the updated version of the classic game we all grew up on. Last night we decided to have a family game night and while I missed putting the little “people” in my car as I drove around the board, the new “credit card” and LIFEpod banking/playing system is pretty cool.

This game definitely requires reading the rules and having the guide handy the first few times you play it, but once you get the idea, the game moves pretty quick. Another feature I like is the ability to control the length of the game. Using the LIFEpod, you can decide if you want to play for 15 “years” (which takes just under an hour) or 30 which takes closer to two hours or some other life span.

Each player has a fake Visa card that you insert into the LIFEpod at the beginning of your turn. The pod calculates your salary, accounts for expenses, earnings, and other life events. It takes a lot of the math out of the game but certainly speeds it up. You start the game earning $5,000 in the career field of your choice and your first means of transportation is a skateboard. As you go through the game you can increase your education, get promotions, buy a car, a house, get married and have children.

You navigate through the areas of the board - Learn it, Earn it, Love it and Live it, drawing “Life cards” as you land on spaces. The life cards are what makes the game fun! Invent a cure for baldness and you get $900,000, go camping in Yosemite and lose $20,000 but gain 2,000 life points. The twists and turns of the game are fun.

I highly recommend this game for older kids - 9 and up - as it is complicated. We let our 6 year old play with us and she needed a lot of direction from us and she lost interest pretty quickly.

We haven’t tried the new version of the Monopoly game yet (Monopoly Electronic Banking Edition) - something tells me the kids would like it though.

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