Payday
About
Created in 1975 this is a roll and move game where the board is a calendar month and you move your person along the month getting paid, getting bills, and trying to buy and sell deals for a profit.
There are now three versions of the game. The original from 1975, a revised version from 1994, and a "Big Payday" from 2009.
Unfortunately the online consensus is not good. While they increased the prices and modernized some things they also messed up the balance of money and bills making the game far too easy and less interesting. All of the reviews online say the same thing. If you want to play this, find an old copy.
Thoughts
Tim:
I have the 1975 version and I like it. If you want a simple roll and move game you can do far worse. Some families play Monopoly but more often we gravitated to Payday. I always loved the buying and selling of deals and what other game actually makes getting junk mail a part of the game?
Laura:
This was a fun game combining choices and luck. Instead of the long and luck based game The Game of Life, this is more of a micro view, focusing on 3 months of gameplay. I enjoyed the skill/luck ratio, as I started out with drawing quite a few expensive bill cards but ended up being able to buy and sell one of the more expensive items in the game. It's clearly much better than the Game of Life, and I appreciated the ability to go into debt momentarily, as well as have an interest bearing savings account (thought sadly, I didn't have enough cash at the end of the month to use that feature.)
Trivia
- Rule changes were made in 1994 including removing saving accounts and reducing loan amounts from 20% to 10%. The old version would have an income for $325 a month with bills as high as $500-800. The new version has an income of $3250 a month with bills only as high as $500-$3000.
7-22-2020