"Welcome to the Silicon Valley! You'll soon be traveling through the Santa Clara Valley on its main highway, earning income, buying a new car, buying a home, and making investment decisions. Naturally, you can succeed or fail; just like reality, some of the decisions are up to you."



Game Play
like The Game of Life, players simulate a career, with the winner ending with the most money
...but focused in the Silicon Valley in the mid-1980s.

in the first few spaces players choose
a "Business" career with a static, higher salary
or a "Academic" salary which is initially lower, but gets boosted $10k every time the player lands on a Advanced Degree space (which does nothing for a Business player)

spaces are color coded
Green spaces are like Monopoly's "GO" space, with passing it getting the salary, and landing directly on it getting an "Opportunity" card
Orange spaces are newspapers, like Monopoly's "Chance" card, with a random bonus or penalty
Red spaces (concentrated in the last third of the board) are large money penalties

there are 3 kinds of investment spaces
yellow spaces are banks - get paid 10% of your current cash, take out a loan, make a payment on your loan
blue spaces (concentrated at the end of the first third of the board) are car dealerships.
you can own only one car
There is a penalty for never buying a car
Your car has a resale value (!) and you can upgrade your car
each dealership has a choice of 3 makes/models of car, and no one else can buy that car
more expensive cars are immune to more hazards that are on later spaces

white spaces are real estate agencies
you are encouraged to buy as many houses as possible. The prices are comparable to the real neighborhoods/cities at the time.
you only ever have to pay 25% of the price of the house, but there are some penalty spaces that will make you pay off another %50%
the resale value is always higher. This is the Silicon Valley in the 1980s!
to buy, roll the die. The number corresponds to the properties available, they start with 4 in each (24 cards). Pick one to buy it. A given house can have only one owner.


Opportunities cards are small businesses you buy now (when landing on a green space) and have a value that is randomly calculated on its table at the end of the game
some of the die roll results pay back less than the Opportunity cost!
you do not have to buy an Opportunity

once everyone gets to the end, players all total their assets
cash
opportunities (rolling for each one)
resale value of the car
sale price of real estate based on if it's paid off 25% or 50%
minus any other outstanding loans





Historical notesMany elements in this game were real businesses at the time

the careers are from companies from the area at the time: Intel, HP, Varian, Memorex, National Semiconductor
the newspaper is the San Jose Mercury News, which at the time was owned by Knight-Ridder
the car dealerships are all real businesses, mostly around Palo Alto and Mountain View
the banks were all real local banks
the real estate spaces were real agencies


"No one was ever charged to be in the game. "

Write Comment

We currently have no price data for this game.