You’re born.
You choose.
You live.

You’re born wherever you want

Before you start, you pick your country, how long your life lasts, and not much else. Leave the rest to chance if you like: your name, your family, your neighborhood.

Live a standard life or an extended one. There’s also a family mode, with no early deaths or adult content, for playing with kids.

You’re born with a story of your own

Before your first decision, a screen introduces you to the world: a medallion with your family’s icon, the “You’ve just been born” ribbon, your name, a line that sums up your people, and the traits you arrive with.

And if you forget how this works, you can always tap “How to play.”

You choose, and choices have consequences

Every year or two, a situation pops up with a few ways out. What you decide moves your bars: you watch them rise or fall, leaving a trail behind, green if you gain and red if you lose. It also reshuffles your friendships and what comes next.

Who you are matters too: sometimes an option shows up that you only get if you’re brave, curious, or a bit of a troublemaker.

Your character has a face, too: a portrait that changes as you do (child, teen, adult, senior), with your six bars beside it. Tap it to switch back to the classic bars. Every new stage of life gets its own golden banner, in case the gray hairs weren’t hint enough.

And between decisions, time passes

After every choice, you see what it set off. Below, a golden ball rolls along to your new age, and life sends the bill: a little Happiness, a few Love & friends points and, as the years go by, Health and Money.

Karma is different: time doesn’t take any of it away. It only moves with how you behave.

You slowly become someone

Your profile fills itself in: the people who shape you, your pets, your jobs, the cities you live in, plus your traits and moods.

You unlock challenges you never knew existed

There are 140 challenges spread across a whole life. We won’t tell you which ones they are or how to earn them, because the fun is finding them as you play, life after life.

Your challenges become collectible cards

Every challenge you earn becomes a card in your collection. Find them on the “Challenges” screen, one tap from the home screen. Each card shows the name of the person who lived it and how old they were when they earned it. The ones you haven’t found yet show up gray, with a padlock and no hints, giving nothing away.

• Purple gems (“States” section): how you’re doing at a given moment in your life. For example, “Radiant” or “Wealthy.”
• Coins (“Achievements” section): what you earn by the way you live. For example, “Living Off Your Investments.”
• Stars with rays (“Special lives” section): the ones that change everything get a card of their own.

Every life you finish can earn a spot on your shelf

When a life ends, you can give it its own book in your Life album: its name and flag on the cover, and the face it ended up with. Inside you’ll find the moments that shaped it, the people who passed through and the places you lived, with a photo from each stage. No two books look alike, and the more lives you keep, the fuller the shelf gets (the plants politely make room).

It holds 20 lives. To keep a 21st, you’ll have to remove a book, and that one doesn’t come back.

And some objects aren’t in the manual

Artifacts are hidden out there: odd objects that, once in your collection, unlock new features for the lives that follow. What they do, where they hide and what it takes to get them… that part is on you.

Official hint: none. Unofficial hint: none either, but we give it to you with great affection. And no, we won’t tell you how many there are; even mystery needs a little room.

Until then, be suspicious of everything.

In the end, your life fits in a headline

When the last chapter arrives, the game sums up your life: who you were, who you loved, what you did for a living, and what the local paper said about you.