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| Parker Brothers 1955 edition |
Game: Careers
Publisher: Parker Brothers
Designer: James Cooke Brown
Year: 1955
Price Paid: $2
Playing Time: 60 minutes
Recommended Ages: 8 and up
Synopsis: Careers is a game in which players make life decisions as they move around a board attempting to fulfill a success formula; a balance of fame, fortune and happiness, determined by the player at the start of the game. Various career path and unexpected events will add or remove points for these three categories. The first player to fulfill their success formula is the winner.
Components: 6 player pawns, 2 six-sided dice, 28 Opportunity Knocks cards, 28 Experience cards, Paper money with $50, $100, $500, $1,000, $5,000 and $10,000 denominations, 1 pad of score sheets, 1 rule book
Thrifting Notes: There are numerous versions of this game, and the components are not compatible. The 1955 and 1965 releases are the same, as are the 1971 and 1976 releases. After that, each release has different player pawns and paper money style. The 1979 release features a simplified rule set, and the 2008 release only has 4 player pawns.
Gameplay: In Careers, players start by coming up with a Success Formula, which is a combination of Happiness points, Fame points and money (in thousands of dollars) that adds up to 60 points. This is kept secret from the rest of the players. That Success Formula is each player’s victory condition. Each player begins with a $1,000 salary and $1,000 in cash.
A player sheet is used to keep track of various data that is accumulated throughout the game. The hidden Success Formula, Fame and Happiness levels, Salary levels, Occupation Record (keeping track of the various career paths completed) and College Education.
Players take turns moving clockwise around the board, rolling 2d6. Around the board there are a number of career paths. When a player lands on an entrance to a career path, there is a requirement for entry, such as a certain amount of money, previous experience in the career or the appropriate education. If they player has the requirement and chooses to do so, they may enter that career. In a career, 1d6 is used to roll-and-move. There are special spaces that force a player to roll a certain number to leave that space, and another space where a player may STAY on that space if they roll a certain number. Opportunity cards are gained by landing on certain spaces, while Experience cards are gained by either landing on certain spaces or completing career paths.
Once a player completes a career path, they add it to their Occupation Record. When a player completes a career path, they earn one Experience card for each time they have completed that path. So, if a player completes a path once, they receive one Experience card, twice and they receive two Experience cards for a maximum of three cards. They may complete the path more than three times, but will only receive three cards for each successive completion. Also, after three completion of the same career path, a player may “retire”. The only benefit of retirement is that they may, in place of rolling dice, move immediately to the Vacation space (different versions have different vacations: Florida, Hawaii, etc) on their turn, which offers 4 Happiness points each time you land on it.
One exception to this is the College path. It may only be followed once. Upon completion, instead of Experience cards, the player receives a $2,000 increase in salary and may choose a specialized degree. There are four specialized degrees possible (again, various degrees depending on the version of the game) and a general College degree. Each specialized degree may only be earned by one player, so successive players to finish college must choose between the remaining degrees.
Play continues until a player fulfills their Success Formula and reveals it to the rest of the players. If players become bankrupt during the course of the game, they are not out of the game, but must start from the beginning again, with a $1,000 salary and $1,000 in cash.
There are several other rules regarding trading, paying other players for services and “bumping” players (only one player may occupy a space at a time). There is also a “partnership” variant that allows up to 6 players to play as three teams, pooling their points and money, with Success Formulas totaling 120 points.
Over the years, the contents of the board have changed. While the points, cards, actions and cost stayed relatively static, the careers themselves were altered, as were a lot of the flavor text for different spaces. The original 1955 (and 1958 and 1965 editions) featured Uranium Prospecting in Peru, Expedition to the Moon, Farming, Hollywood and Going to Sea as potential careers. These were altered in the 1971 release to careers such as Ecology, The Arts, Space, Sports, and so on.
Review: Considering the time in which it was released, this was a pretty forward-thinking game. Various paths to victory, secret agendas and decisions that affect your ability to accomplish things later in the game (ex. an Engineering degree allows you to become a Uranium Prospector for free). The theme is pretty solid, as well. As you move around the board, each circuit represents a year of your life, earning a salary at the start of each new year. As you gain more experience in a career, more rewards come your way and your salary increases, and the spaces that have required actions, while a bit random, fit in with the theme of “life”. Pretty impressive for 1955.
There is also a bit more strategy than you normally would see in a game of this vintage, with planning on how to achieve your goal, trying to figure out other player’s Success Formula and perhaps preying on them when they fall on hard times through bartering. There are choices to be made throughout the game, and it plays very quickly.
All that said, this is a roll-and-move game of the highest order, and so luck plays a major factor here. You may WANT to be an astronaut, but you didn’t land on College until after someone else already earned the Science degree, meaning you now would have to pay to be allowed into NASA. Also, some of the random action spaces are just frustrating, forcing you to lose a lot of money or roll the correct number to start moving again. Thematic, perhaps, but it takes away from the overall experience.
Despite these flaws, Careers is a pretty fun game. Not deep, but it allows players to invest themselves a little into an old style game and try different formulas in successive playthroughs. Also, the partnership variant helps reduce the annoyances of the actions spaces and random events. Best with 4 players (6 in a partnership game) and good for families, Careers is still good, light fun for a game from this era.
Rating: 7
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