Developed by independent developer OHMAIGAWD (aka Tilen Pogacnik and Maja Vavpotic), Life: The Game is a 2D simulation video game, available for the Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux operating systems. The object of this video game is to go through the various stages of life from birth all the way up to death. To live a "happy" life it is important to successfully navigate life's greatest struggles, such as learning how to speak, getting married, and taking the correct medication. How will you handle life's greatest obstacles?
Life: The Game Features
In order to get through life, players will be tasked with completing 13 mini-games using your mouse or touchscreen. Each minigame represents the various stages of life: birth, infancy, childhood, adolescence, teenage years, college years, young adulthood, marriage, parenthood, midlife crisis, becoming a grandparent, senior years, and finally death. No two minigames are the same, and — such as life — each goes by quicker than you may expect or want.
Unlike life, however, there are do-overs. Every mistake you make or fail to complete a challenge prompts an alert along with a tongue-in-cheek look at what your life would look like as the result of your mistake. Maybe you fell in love with the wrong person or made some questionable purchases during your midlife crisis. Whatever the case you are always able to get your life back on track with unlimited continues. There is no penalty for how many times you mess up in life, so curious players may be encouraged to make those terrible decisions in order to see what life would be like if you never learned how to speak, flunked out of school, or failed at babysitting your grandchildren in spectacular fashion. Some games may even present multiple ways of going wrong, creating a variety of different paths.
Alternatively, completing each minigame successfully will result in a very brief experience, ending in a surprisingly fitting quote by Terry Pratchett. Though a perfect play-through of the game clocks in at just under five minutes, curious players may be inclined to play its sequel, Afterlife the Game, for more.
In Conclusion
An independent simulation video game by OHMAIGAWD, Life the Game promises a quick, simple, pick-up-and-play journey through the various stages of life. It provides a simulation of life's many obstacles through its 13 unique minigames that only require a mouse to play. While it does encourage successful gameplay, it doesn't quite punish you for failure. In fact, it's comedic tone and multiple endings encourage you to go back and see how certain mistakes can affect one's whole life.
This video game can be found on a variety of websites and is available on all flash-compatible web browsers.
