Life Simulator
Play Life Simulator Online for Free
Each life is up to 16 cards with two choices on each. The country you start in, and whether it is a city or a village, decide which cards can come up.
How to play
A birth card shows where your life starts: a country, a year, and a city or a village. Press Start your life.
- Read the card and pick one of its two choices. Each one moves some of your four meters: Health, Happiness, Knowledge and Friends & family. Press Next for the following card.
- At 15, pick one of 3 dreams, such as Be a teacher or See the ocean. Some later cards offer a step toward it.
- Keep choosing through Childhood, Teens, Young adult, Adult and Later life.
Your story closes at an age set by your country’s life expectancy and your Health, even in the middle of a chapter. You reach your dream if it shows 100% and the meters it needs are high enough at the end. Each choice gives up something the other one gets, and a choice can’t be taken back.
Under your life story, Play again starts a new life and Today’s life starts the one everyone is born into that day; a new one starts at midnight UTC.
Controls
| Action | Touch | Mouse | Keyboard |
|---|---|---|---|
| Start your life | Tap Start your life | Click Start your life | Enter or Space |
| Take the first choice | Swipe the card left, or tap the choice | Click the choice | ← or 1 |
| Take the second choice | Swipe the card right, or tap the choice | Click the choice | → or 2 |
| Go to the next card | Tap Next | Click Next | Enter or Space |
| Pick a dream at 15 | Tap it | Click it | 1, 2 or 3 |
| Pause | Pause button | Pause button | Esc |
| Resume | Resume button | Resume button | Esc or Enter |
A screen reader reads out what each choice changed, and each meter shows its number beside its bar.
Tips and strategy
Take the bigger step toward your dream
A card that moves your dream gives +20 to +35 on one choice and +5 to +15 on the other. Taking the bigger step every time reached the dream in 4 lives out of 5; random choices, about 2 in 5. Once the dream shows 100%, take the smaller step: it never costs a meter, and the bigger one usually does.
Keep up the meters your dream needs
When a dream at 100% is still missed, Health is almost always what fell short. Run a farm needs Health 55 at the end; Be a doctor or nurse, Knowledge 60 and Health 40.
One life in a Saudi city chose the farm and had it at 100% by age 28. Late nights in the group chat and evening classes then left Health at 46, and the dream was missed. With the healthier choice on every card that didn’t move the dream, the same life ended at Health 70 with the farm.
Pick the dream you want
Every dream comes true about 9 times in 10 when you follow the two tips above, so pick the one you want.
About Life Simulator
Births are worked out from the UN’s birth rates (World Population Prospects, CC BY 3.0 IGO) and the World Bank’s population counts; the other figures come from the World Bank’s World Development Indicators (CC BY 4.0), mostly for 2024 and 2025. Taiwan is not in the World Bank’s data, so its figures come from its Ministry of the Interior and Ministry of Digital Affairs (Open Government Data License 1.0).
Frequently asked questions
- Can I choose which country I am born in?
- No. The country is drawn by its share of the world's births, so about 1 life in 6 starts in India. City or village is drawn from the share of people there who live in cities.
- Is this life simulator based on real data?
- Partly. Where you are born, how many children there reach the last year of primary school, how many people use the internet, and the life expectancy your closing age starts from come from real figures for that country. The cards and dreams were written for the game.
- Why did my life end at that age?
- The age comes from your country's life expectancy: Health 100 adds 10 years, 0 takes 10 away, and chance moves it up to 3 either way. Where life expectancy is under 65, about 2 stories in 3 close before Later life; keeping Health high makes that about half.
- Is it OK for children?
- Yes. There is no violence, no money and no death scene. Hard moments stay gentle: a flood closes the school for a month, or a fever keeps you home for 2 weeks.
