Review: Bailout Board Game

By Alicia Bayer
December 18, 8:29 PM

The Examiner rates this:

As I reported recently, the Bailout! board game was developed by a homeschool family after discussing the U.S. bailout going on last year. Eager to find out more about the game and the story behind it, I contacted mom Shari Sopourn and she sent me a copy to review.

Our family tried the Bailout! board game today and really enjoyed it.

While the box says it's for ages 14 and up and the web site says it's for ages 12 and up, we found that it could easily be played by anybody old enough to read. My husband and I played it with our kids Jack (6), Anna (9) and Victoria (11). While Jack needed a little help with some of the rather large words on some luck cards, he easily got the hang of the game and understood the concepts behind it.

Game play took about an hour. The game is played by rolling a die and moving a game piece along game squares (shaped in a big dollar sign) around the board. Players start with a deed to their bank (banks have names like Worth Farless, Bankruptcy O’ America and No Cashvia) and a rather large amount of cash (that can rather quickly disappear). As players land on squares, they lose or earn money according to what the squares say, all of which are related to the real world and explore current issues. They can also take cards that work a bit like chance cards and must follow instructions on those. At some point, players will often lose all of their money and start collecting debt money (printed in red ink), which is the goal. Play continues until all the players have reached the end. The object is to end the game with the most debt. The player with the most debt gets the bailout.

The kids got a big kick out of using such enormous denominations of money (such as $500 million) and also enjoyed having to try to get into debt instead of trying to earn money. Along the way, we ended up talking about the real bailout. We talked about issues like why Americans were angry about it, why people felt it was necessary and what would happen if the banks collapsed.

When I first heard about the game, I wondered if it was overly political in one direction or the other. Shari assured me that it was tested on people with all different political affiliations and that they "started creating the game when Bush was in office and finished after Obama was already in office for 4 months." She also said that it was important to them that the game not offend anybody and that they got positive responses all around.

The chance cards, which are comprised of "sales and acquisitions" cards and "Frantic May and Frivolous Mac" cards have quotes by famous Americans on every card. These quotes can also start discussions. The turns involve things like using green energy, consolidating debt and maturing T-bills. While the game is a rather simple board game, there are teaching and talking opportunities in virtually every move made.

I enjoyed the game. I liked the fact that it was largely luck so the younger players were on a pretty level playing field with the older ones and adults, but that there was still some strategy involved. I also liked the amount of time it took to play. Monopoly can drag on for hours and other games are over so quickly it's a letdown. This was just about right to have a sit-down family game that didn't take up half the day or evening. Best of all, I liked the fact that it taught us something, got us talking, and was fun.

My husband Daryl smiled and called it, "A fun, if depressing, way to experience the realities of the modern banking world." As for the kids, Jack declared it "fun," Anna said it was "very interesting" and Victoria said "fun and educational, maybe a bit more for older players."

All in all, I think Bailout! will be a game that we'll get out often for family game time.

Bailout! is available online at bailoutthegame.com. The site also sells a Bailout! card game.