A board game originally created in 1860 by Milton Bradley, as The chequered Game of Life (and later produced by the Milton Bradley Company of Springfield, Massachusetts). The Game of Life was America's first popular parlour game. The game simulates a person's travels through his or her life, from college to retirement, with jobs, marriage, and possible children along the way. Two to six players can participate in one game, however, variations of the game have been made to accommodate a maximum of eight or ten players.

The modern version was originally published 100 years later, in 1960. It was created by toy and game designer Reuben Klamer and was "heartily endorsed" by Art Linkletter. It is now part of the permanent collection of the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. It later spawned a book, The Game of Life: How to Succeed in Real Life No Matter Where You Land (Running Press), by Lou Harry.

The game was originally created in 1860 by Milton Bradley as The chequered Game of Life. This was the first game created by Bradley, a successful lithographer, whose major product until that time was a portrait of Abraham Lincoln with a clean-shaven face, which did not do well once the subject grew his famous beard. The game sold 45,000 copies by the end of its first year. Like many games from the 19th century, such as The Mansion of Happiness by S.B. Ives in 1843, it had a strong moral message.

Bradley's game did not include dice, instead using a teetotum, a six-sided top.

The game board was essentially a modified checkerboard. The object was to land on the "good" spaces and collect 100 points. A player could gain 50 points by reaching "Happy Old Age" in the upper-right corner, opposite "Infancy" where one began.

In 1960, the 100th anniversary of The chequered Game of Life, the first modern version of The Game of Life, a collaboration between Reuben Klamer and Bill Markham, was introduced.

The modern game consists of a track on which players travel by spinning a small wheel (in the centre of the board) with spaces numbered 1 through 10. The board also contains small mountains, buildings, and other three-dimensional objects. Playing pieces are small, colored, plastic automobiles which come in red, blue, white, yellow, orange, and green; each car has six holes in the top in which blue and/or pink "people pegs" are placed throughout the game as the player "gets married" and has or adopts "children". Some "early modern" editions have eight automobiles.

Each game also includes a setup for a bank, which includes play money (in denominations of $5,000, $10,000, $20,000, $50,000, and $100,000. The $500 bills were dropped in the 1980s, as were the $1,000 bills in 1992.), insurance policies (automobile, life, fire, and/or homeowners' insurance depending on the version), $20,000 promissory notes and stock certificates. Other tangibles vary with the game version.