Objective of The Game of Life: Goals
The objective of The Game of Life: Goals is to maximize your score by playing Choice cards that match your Lifestyle card and help you complete Life Goals.
Setup for The Game of Life: Goals
- Separate the Lifestyle, Choice and Life Goal cards.
- Shuffle the Lifestyle cards and deal one card to each player. You can look at your Lifestyle card, but you shouldn’t show it to the other players. The card will tell you what each type of card will score you at the end of the game.
- Shuffle the Choice cards and deal three to each player. You can look at your own Choice cards, but you shouldn’t show them to the other players. Place the rest of the Choice cards face down on the table to form the draw pile.
- Shuffle the Life Goal cards. Place one Life Goal card on the table for each player. Each Life Goal card is double sided. Randomly choose a side for each of the cards. Once the card is placed, it will stay on that side until the end of the game. If there are less than four players, return the extra Life Goal cards to the box.
- The youngest player starts the game. Play moves clockwise/left throughout the game.
Playing The Game of Life: Goals
You will begin your turn by choosing one of two actions.
Play A Card
Your first option is to play a Choice card from your hand. You normally will play this card in front of yourself in your Life Story. There is no limit to the number of cards that you can play to your Life Story. If you play an Event card you will play it to the discard pile. If there is an associated action with the card you played, you will take the action. See the The Game of Life: Goals Cards section below for more details on each type of card.
Draw A Card(s)
Instead of playing a card, you can choose to draw new Choice cards from the draw pile. The number of cards that you draw depends on your current salary. To start the game each player will only draw one card. If you played a Career card in the past, you will be able to draw two or three cards depending on the Career card that you played. You can choose to draw up to the number of cards of your current salary.
Check Life Goal Cards
After playing or drawing a card, you will check to see if you completed a Life Goal. Check out the Life Goal section below for more details.
End of Turn
Your turn will then end. Check to see how many Choice cards you have in your hand. If you have more than seven cards in your hand, discard until you only have seven cards left. Play will then pass to the player on your left.
The Game of Life: Goals Cards
Adventure Cards
Adventure cards have a yellow border. They will score the most points for the player with the Thrillseeker Lifestyle card.
Career Cards
Career cards have a blue border. They score the most points for the Workaholic Lifestyle card.
In addition to scoring you points at the end of the game, Career cards also increase your salary. Your salary determines how many cards you can draw when you choose to draw cards. When you choose the draw action you can draw up to the number of cards of your present salary. If you have played multiple Career cards to your Life Story, you can only use one of the cards for your salary (you choose which one is your current salary).
Some Career cards require a Degree card to play them. You may not play the card unless you already have a Degree card in your Life Story.
Event Cards
Event cards have an orange border.
Unlike most Choice cards, you will not play Event cards to your Life Story. Instead you will play them directly to the discard pile.
When you play an Event card you will take the action printed on the card immediately.
If a player plays an Event card against you, you may use an Insurance card to block the card from affecting you. You will discard both the Event card played against you and the Insurance card.
Family Cards
Family cards have a pink border. They score the most points for the player with the Family Friendly Lifestyle card.
House Cards
House cards have a green border. They will score the most points for the player with the Lover of Luxury Lifestyle card.
To play a House card you need to pay for it. You will have to discard a number of cards from your hand equal to the cost printed on the House card that you want to play. The cards you choose to discard will be added to the discard pile.
House cards that cost two to play are worth double points at the end of the game.
If a House card is considered a Home Improvement, you must already have a House card in your Life Story before you can play it.
Completing A Life Goal Card
At the end of your turn you should check to see if you completed any of the face up Life Goal cards from the table.
In order to complete a Life Goal card, you must have cards in your Life Story that match the symbols printed on the Life Goal card. If you have cards that match all of the symbols, you have completed that Life Goal. You will take the corresponding Life Goal card and add it to your Life Story.
You may collect multiple Life Goal cards during the game, but you may only collect one each turn.
Once you have completed a Life Goal card, you will keep it for the rest of the game. Event cards cannot be used to take away a Life Goal card. Life Goal cards will score you the points printed on the card.
Winning The Game of Life: Goals
End of Game
The Game of Life: Goals can end in one of two different ways.
- There are no Choice cards left in the draw deck.
- The last Life Goal card was claimed by a player.
When the game ends each of the players will tally up the points they scored in the game.
Scoring in The Game of Life: Goals
Most of your points will come from the cards that you added to your Life Story. At the beginning of the game each player received a Lifestyle card. This card shows you how many points that you will score from each type of card in your Life Story. For each card you played to your Life Story (excluding Life Goal cards), you will score points corresponding to the value of the color on your Lifestyle card. You will not score any points for the cards left in your hand at the end of the game.
If you completed any Life Goal cards, you will add their values to the total you calculated from the cards in your Life Story.
Determining the Winner
The player that scored the most points in the game wins. If there is a tie, the tied player that completed the most Life Goals wins. If there is still a tie, the player with the most cards in their Life Story wins.
Year: 2023 | Publisher: Hasbro | Designer: NA | Artist: NA
Genres: Card, Set Collection
Ages: 8+ | Number of Players: 2-4 | Length of Game: 30 minutes
Difficulty: Light | Strategy: Light | Luck: Moderate
Components: 80 Choice cards, 4 Lifestyle cards, 4 Life Goal cards, instructions
Where to Purchase: Amazon, eBay Any purchases made through these links (including other products) help keep Geeky Hobbies running. Thank you for your support.
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If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment below on this post and I will try to answer it as quickly as possible.
Ciara
Tuesday 2nd of January 2024
If someone plays a find a new path card, “Choose any one player to discard a Career card in play”, does that mean they can discard a degree or career (aka job) card?
If either can be discarded and the degree card is discarded, can the player still pick up 3 cards based on the job?
Eric Mortensen
Tuesday 2nd of January 2024
As both job and degree cards are both listed in the Career cards section in the instructions, I would assume both would be considered Career cards. Therefore when the card you mentioned is played against you, you should be able to discard a job or degree.
Your second question is a little more complicated. The instructions don't mention what happens if you discard a degree card after you play a job card that requires one. Therefore it is up to interpretation. I would say that you don't get to draw cards based on a job card if it requires a degree and you no longer have one. It feels unfair that you can collect the higher salary (draw more cards) when you no longer meet the requirements for the card. I would say in this situation you need to pick one of your jobs that don't require a degree. This is not an official rule though since it doesn't say what to do in the rules. This is what I think best fits the spirit of the rules though.
In fact you could make an argument that you no longer get to keep the job card that requires a degree and you don't have one. I probably wouldn't say that you need to discard the job card, but you can't use its benefit until you get another degree card.
In most cases I think you would be better off discarding the job card and keeping the degree card.