Let me start by noting that I usually ignore the recommended age for games, but the 13+ suggestion for this game – and by extension this post – is reasonable. The humor is a bit off-color, and if your preteens start asking about – or already understand – the Moonshine Chart results, it’s not my fault.
That all said… Redneck Life! Because somebody looked at the Game of Life and decided this version needed to happen. For any of you who aren’t familiar with Life, the basic premise is that you roll, move, resolve the text of the space you land on, and you’re trying to have as much money as possible by the end of the game. Or, in Redneck Life, the most teeth left. In this variation, you start the game with no money, but you also don’t need to have money to purchase things; you may instead choose to take red Check ‘N Scrams, worth $100 of debt each. At the end, every $100 you have can be put into buying new teeth to replace the ones you’ve lost, while every $100 of remaining debt is another tooth gone.
Like in Life, there are a few Stop spaces you’ll land on no matter what you rolled. At the first Stop, you’ll roll for the school grade you completed (and its corresponding career, i.e. if you dropped out after 7th grade you’re a taxidermist) and buy a rig, which will have to fit however many young’ens you accrue, or else you’ll have to buy another. I’ve found it’s cheaper to buy high capacity vehicles to begin with, since you can’t sell them back to the Rig Rodeo if your family outgrows the car. At the other Stops, you will inevitably get married and buy a house, get divorced, and marry again. You’ll have at least one red-headed step kid named “Darryl,” and you could just as easily have six, in which case we like to spell them all differently, just for giggles. There was one game I finished with eleven young’ens total, so like I said, get a big car!
There are many other entertaining features, like the Tobacco and Moonshine Charts, Go Redneckin’ cards, and the hilarious names that abound (my favorites being “Denise” and “DeNephew”), but I’ll let you discover them for yourselves, if you’re so inclined. It’s good for a laugh! Just, as I said, not entirely child appropriate. Rest assured that we had no idea my grandma owned this game until all of her grandkids were old enough to play.
