ONE MILLION POUNDS! An impressive amount of money for most people. Imagine having that much cash available and what you could do with it – buy houses, cars, luxuries beyond belief (and you might even be able to afford some gas and electric). You could be comfortable for the rest of your life. But what if you could have a billion pounds instead? Wouldn’t that be much better? If you were offered the chance to turn your one million into one billion, would you take it? What if that involved spending your entire fortune faster than anyone else? Would you take the risk of losing your fortune for bigger gains? Well, most of us don’t have a million pounds to have to worry about situations like that, but in the world of board games we can get as close as we ever will with Go for Broke!
Go for Broke! is a board game for 2-4 players, aged 8 upwards. It is a game where to win, all you have to do is lose a staggering ONE MILLION POUNDS. Easy right? No, it’s not as easy as you think, no matter how good or bad you are with money.
Great Uncle Edward has sadly shuffled off this mortal coil and his billion-pound fortune is up for grabs. But only the worthy one will get this vast fortune and a challenge has been set to get it. Accept the challenge set in his will and spend one million pounds faster than any of the other potential inheritors (your fellow players) and you will become a billionaire!
With one million pounds you could live the high life, charter a yacht, buy and sell antiques, bet wildly on the stock exchange, gamble in the games room or buy a motor racing team, just squander your money as fast as you can. Go for Broke…the game you win by losing a million!
In the box:
- Gameboard
- Pack of money in different denominations
- Company share certificates (oil, gas and steel)
- 2 dice (red with white dots)
- 4 playing pieces
- 4 race cars
- Slot machine with 4 dice (black with gold symbols)
- Stock Exchange spinner
- Auction House hammer spinner
- Racetrack spinner
- Sticker sheet
- Instructions
Note: on first use, before you can play the game the stickers need to be attached to the spinners and slot machine (make sure you get them the right way up).
Setting up to play is simple – the spinners, slot machine and race cars need to be added to the board in their correct places:
- Slot machine in Casino Corner
- Stock Exchange spinner in Stock Exchange corner
- Auction House hammer in Auction House corner (insert it into the holes on the board)
- Racetrack spinner in Racetrack corner
- Line the 4 race cars up in the Pit Lane in Racetrack corner
Select a banker to be in charge of the money and share certificates. The banker needs to sort the share certificates in to three piles of the different companies. The banker also has to distribute one million pounds to each player (6 x £5,000 l 7 x £10,000 l 6 x £50,000 l 6 x £100,000). Each player also selects two share certificates each to get them started on the Stock Market.
Each player selects a playing piece (jewel, jet, limo, gold bar) and places it on the corresponding corner of the gameboard.
That’s all there is to setting the game up – simple. To start, all players roll the red dice and the highest roller gets the honour of going first with play going clockwise around the board.
Playing the game is simple. Roll the dice, move your playing piece clockwise around the board (unless you get to a fork in the path and then you can follow the arrow directions to select which way you want to go). If you roll a double six you pay the bank £100,000 and if you land on a square occupied by another player or players you have to pay them a £10,000 collision fee.
As you go around the board you will land on squares where you have to pay out or receive money, buy shares or visit one of the corners where you can win or lose money (our favourite corner is Racetrack corner where all players get to race their race cars up the track (try not to be in lanes 3 or 4).
Stock Exchange corner lets you spin the spinner (we found it best to hold the gameboard flat whilst spinning the spinner for a better spin) to see if your shares have gone up or down, losing or winning you money. Auction House corner lets you purchase an item to auction and come out richer or poorer. Casino corner lets you play the slot machines for a fee, but match two or more symbols on the dice and you could be a big money winner. Get sent to Snake Eyes and you have to play a game of chance with the dice, don’t roll any ones and you could have to pay the bank a fortune.
The winner is the first player to spend all of their money.
Overall, we had great fun with this game – think of it as the complete opposite of Monopoly, we think that sums it up pretty well and gives a good idea of gameplay. In Monopoly you try to bankrupt your fellow players whilst making yourself richer. In Go for Broke! you have to try and make your fellow players richer whilst bankrupting yourself. There is an old film (1985), Brewster’s Millions starring Richard Pryor and John Candy, that is very similar, which I just love.
The game is very simple to play, no special skills or knowledge are needed so it means that all members of the family can easily play together. The rules are very easy to understand, and the playing time of 45-60 minutes is just about the correct length.
As a family of two adults and two children (10 and 12), we all enjoyed this game. The only slight issues we have were with the Stock Exchange and Auction House spinners, they tend to shoot off the board with spun too hard or stick and not get a good spin – we did find that holding down the board when spinning the Stock Exchange spinner made it work a whole lot better and are still trying to work out the best way to use the Auction House hammer.
Go for Broke! is a simple game where chance and luck play a big part of who the winner will be (if you consider losing a million pounds being a winner). Players of all ages have an equal chance of winning so it makes an excellent family game for game nights.
Rating: 4.5/5
RRP: £24.99
For more information, visit www.johnadams.co.uk. Available to buy from Amazon here.
