The Reality of Life at Play NYC | Real Life Lessons in a Monopoly-inspired Tabletop Board Game

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2maC6qAZag

We recently hit Play NYC, a New York-based convention that highlights local video game and tabletop game developers. We spoke with Lloyd Williams, creator of the tabletop game The Reality of Life. The Reality of Life is inspired loosely by Monopoly. It adds real-life challenges and pitfalls, like addiction, which stand between you and your success.

PopGeeks: What is The Reality of Life Tabletop Board Game about?

Lloyd Williams on The Reality of Life: When you start the game, you get an employment card. The employment card will tell you what job you have, what you make a year, how much money you make a month, your rent, and your utilities. When you get this card, you get your monthly salary. But you have to pay your rent and your utilities automatically. This teaches you that just because you have money does not mean that you don’t have responsibilities. 

You’ve got to stay away from this right here. This is a drug addiction card. They land on his card. [Valium] It’s the #15 drug in America. Every time they roll the dice, they have to pay $50. This is to teach that there’s a monetary cost to drugs. It’s not just that drugs are free. There’s a cost to drugs. You cannot win the game with a drug addiction. The only way you can get rid of this card is that you’ve got to get to rehab. There’s only one spot on the board, which is rehab. One spot, which will make it difficult. Just like in America, we’re going to help you get drugs. So, we’ve got two spots to get addicted, right? That’s just the reality.

Unlike Monopoly, there’s no physical place for your properties. When you buy a property, you no longer pay your rent; you pay your mortgage. [This is] to teach you there’s a difference between renting and mortgage. You want ownership, which is very important. And then you have these cards here. Tough luck and good luck. With tough luck, difficult things happen, you lose property, and you can get laid off or something. This allows you to speak to the child, or whoever, like, “Listen. This is real life. This is what happens.” Then you have good luck, where good things happen. So it’s a balance, just like life is a balance; you’ve got to balance between the difficult things and the not-so-difficult things. 

So, you need three properties, no drug addiction, a job, and 25,000 to win the game. Well, your friend, you can be getting ready to win. And she can get you laid off, you can get you bankrupt. She can do all sorts of things. And that’s how she kind of blocks you, unlike Monopoly, once you own all the stuff. The game is over. Here, you’ve got to maneuver. But she was a crackhead during the game too. But she got herself together. You get yourself together, and that’s what the game is about. That’s the whole premise. And because we’re trying to get them to not just always be online, not just to always be connected to the phone, physical game, quality time, and we talk, and we move forward.

PopGeeks: What was your inspiration for The Reality of Life?

Lloyd Williams: Honestly, God. Everything that I did, I got the requirements from God. In fact, I don’t know if I still have it, but I want to show you something that’s really important. This game, I actually made this game in 1999, and I didn’t put it out until 2020. 21 years later. It was inspired during the pandemic. Everybody was going through it. They were going through it, and I just heard God say, “Listen. Put the game out.” So, if I’m inspired that way, I’ve got 30 days to do it. And this is the product.

Lloyd Williams: The original game. It didn’t look anything like this. Marketing is important. Difficult. Networking. It’s just a lot. This is the original game. Made out of vinyl and cardboard. This was the start of the idea. That piece of paper, the squiggly lines. The design of the board. And that’s how it came about.

PopGeeks: What would you say to anyone else out there who has an idea for a game but they’re just sitting on it?

Lloyd Williams: Just go for it. I think a lot of times, people talk themselves out of it. Don’t talk yourself out of it. In fact, during the pandemic, I asked my friend. I was like, “Yo, God told me to put this game out. What do you think?” He was like, “No, not right now.” You have people not working. I was like, “Yeah. Imma do it.” As soon as he said that, I did the opposite. And it paid off. The game was expensive and took all my money, but I wasn’t doing anything else during COVID. Everybody was locked in. I didn’t need the money to do anything else at that time. This is a result of it. So, we dumped a lot of money into it.

We think children today don’t have any real way of knowing what it means to pay bills. You say I gotta pay rent. They hear that, but they don’t know what is going on here. No, no, no, no. Give me that. On here, they’re the banker. On here, they’ve got to be responsible. They become responsible for the financial integrity of the board. And that’s what you want to teach them. And that’s what her son was doing at the time.

He was like, “Mom. I’m running out of money.” I’m like, absolutely. That’s what life is. You keep begging me for stuff, asking me for things, and these are the things we have to take care of. And I got frustrated. “I don’t want to pay bills.” Well, this is life, the reality of life.

Lloyd Williams: These are the rules. We try to keep it very simple without a lot of complications, even on the cards. The cards tell you. Everything is self-explanatory. It explains everything. Like, even if you keep playing the game, after ten rolls, you can go to rehab. Because after a while, it gets hard. If you’ve got two drug additions, you can’t. But if you’re getting ready to win the game. You can’t.

PopGeeks: Is The Reality of Life geared more towards family or schools?

Lloyd Williams: Schools and families, in fact. Both. As well as adults. I’ve had adults play it, and they’ll act like their kids. But they were having fun, using quarters and dimes, because there were only five pieces on the board with 12-sided dice. But they were playing with nine people. One had a quarter, nickel, dime. 

It’s just a lot of fun. And it’s reminiscent of when we used to play board games. Now, everything is digital. Four kids are in the house, and it’s quiet. We used to play board games a lot, but now we need new board games. Monopoly has about 50 different versions. They’re still going for it. I’m trying to get it out there like Monopoly. I wish it does Monopoly’s success, which was made by a woman, by the way. So you know they made a lot of money. But this is where we’re going. This is where we’re at. This is our journey. Let’s see what happens.

If you’d like to learn more about the reality of life, visit therealityoflifestore.com. Thank you so much for watching. If you want more pop geeks, interviews, and podcasts like and subscribe. See you next time.