University Games Game of The Year

Amazon.com This complicated board game requires sophistication and patience; there are a number of rules-within-rules that must be learned before play can even begin. Played on a foldout board that displays the days of a year in calendar form, the object of Game of the Year is to have the best year you possibly can as you make your way across the calendar to the last day of December. The winner is the player with the most points in at least one category (Fame, Family, Red Letter Days, Holidays, Money). As you proceed across the calendar, landing on a "picture" day yields both an interesting fact (Elvis's birthday, or maybe the day Henry Ford sped up factory production on his cars, etc.) and an opportunity to pick up a Chance or Hazard card. (Each has instructions players must follow either to their advantage or detriment.) Progress in the game, as in anyone's real-life year, lurches along, a few steps forward, a few back. Be careful with the small pieces around young children. --Tom Keogh