LUCK OF LIFE: NATIVES OF ILLINOIS MARKET BOARD GAME

CAPE GIRARDEAU -- Greg and Erin Taylor were eking out a living in Chicago in 1977. They knew they didn't want to continue living from paycheck to paycheck.

The couple, originally from Ullin, Ill., put their dreams of a better life to work and designed a board game called "Luck of Life." The game is now in print and may be available nationwide by this summer.

"We decided the time was right to put the game out," said Erin Taylor in a telephone interview from North Richmond Hills, Texas, where the couple now resides. "It's a family game, something that can bring children closer to their parents."

The game, manufactured by Yapco Toys, Inc., of Euless, Texas, gives players a chance to move from being a young person, struggling to make ends meet, to one enjoying the fortunes of success.

Players move from a low-income to high-income brackets, trying not to go bankrupt along the way. The winner is the first one to acquire $1 million on cash and assets.

In many ways, it mimics the Taylor family's life the past 14 years, Mrs. Taylor said.

"I was 18 and my husband was 21 when we were in Chicago. My husband worked at a McDonald's restaurant and every day on his way home from work, he would pass by a rich man ... sitting in his limousine.

"He always said that this guy was probably making more in a day than he would make in his lifetime. He'd get down about it but I'd tell him that there's got to be something we could do to make the most of the situation."

Mrs. Taylor said they imagined what the man must have gone through to make himself a success and what obstacles he may have had to overcome. Inadvertently, the idea of a board game was born.

After leaving Chicago, the couple came back to Southern Illinois. The two worked for Procter & Gamble for several years before deciding to move to Texas.

In late 1990, they decided it was time to really push for their dream of marketing the board game. That's when they discovered a small toy company named Yapco.

"We knew they were a small company just starting out, kind of like us," she said. "We talked to them and they told us they wanted to hear more. They helped us obtain a patent and print 1,000 copies of the game."

Representatives of Yapco were in New York recently promoting the game to major distributors at a toy trade show. The game will sell for $24.95.

Mrs. Taylor said Wal-Mart and K Mart store chains have expressed interest in carrying the game to sell during the coming Christmas season.

Greg Taylor holds down a full-time job at McDuffy Electronics, a division of the Tandy Company, in addition to running the couple's board game business.

The two started a corporation named Tentacles, Inc. last year to handle the game business. Mrs. Taylor said a second game, similar to the first but with its focus on teaching memorization skills to young children, is on its way to the patent office.

Mrs. Taylor said games the couple devise will always be family-oriented and based on real life.

"The game is built on the concept that everyone is given the same chance in life," she said. "A lot of people use excuses to keep from succeeding and that's a cop-out. You just have to do the best with what you're given."

Mrs. Taylor, now 31, graduated from Century High School near Ullin, and attended Shawnee Community College for a short time. Greg Taylor, 35, is a graduate of Meridian High School near Mounds, Ill.