HOW TO PLAY / FIELD NOTES
LETTERS OF A LIFE: build a route from the circumstances you inherit
Education, work, loans, relationships and a home now form one continuing life. Learn what a decision changes and how to make the next move.
- Devices
- Desktop · Tablet · Phone
- Players
- Single player
- Language & sound
- English / 中文 · Starts muted
Is this your kind of game?
For players who want a life simulation with consequential choices: different qualifications lead to different jobs, household commitments change the budget, and crises can redirect a plan.
Controls at a glance
Click or tap replies, or use 1/2/3. Space advances one year; Next decision runs the years until a choice appears and stops before answering. P toggles flow, M sound. Phones favour portrait, with normal reading scroll.
Your beginning changes the opportunities
The starting country and urban/rural setting use a static public snapshot. A fictional household has a buffer and a working background. Economic, education and health-spending indicators influence the model’s opportunities and costs, while household circumstances still differ within a country.
These are not personal predictions: GDP is not a household wage, gross enrolment is not a person’s admission chance, and the model’s health costs are not a real medical bill. Missing observations use flagged estimates. Read Data & method for series, years and transformations.
Qualifications open doors; they do not appear automatically
School, supported places, a pause to help the household and a later return create different routes. Academic, practical and creative learning build different strengths. An exam can fail even when you worked hard; later learning remains possible.
College requires preparation and qualification, then several years of study and fees. Savings and an education loan create different budgets. Completing the course opens professional offers; an unfinished course does not silently grant a degree. Adult courses and later college applications provide another way forward.
Follow money through the years
The yearly budget includes work income, living costs, study, childcare, care and repayments. Extra work can help an immediate bill while increasing strain. Career levels, a weak market, outdated skills, illness and reduced hours change future earnings too.
Renting, sharing, buying outright and buying with a mortgage have different continuing costs. A move settles an owned home and its mortgage rather than forgiving the loan. Business income varies with the market; reducing the scale changes both profit and exposure. The amounts are fictional life units.
Take initiative instead of waiting
Once old enough, you can initiate one decision each year: find or change work, study again, arrange care, consider housing or travel. These open a genuine choice with its own qualification, cost and outcome. A paid choice needs the money shown; free alternatives remain available in debt.
Three spare-time tokens repeat your yearly routine. Learning supports qualifications, company maintains particular relationships, rest protects recovery, extra work increases strain, and creative time builds works that can lead to commissions or another career. Change the routine when circumstances change.
People remain specific people
A partner is an actual person whose bond changes over time. Shared living, raising a child, school choices, the child’s adult beginning and separation depend on what has really happened. Long neglect can lead to a relationship crisis.
Parents age and can need care or die; deceased people do not send new messages. A friend’s later introduction requires a real remembered helping event. Three side-by-side lives provide a simplified local contrast, not online rivals or a claim that their model matches every detail of yours.
Advance to the next decision without skipping its consequences
Next decision settles years in sequence and stops when a reply is needed. It does not choose for you. Important turns display their immediate result, while qualifications, loans, care and employment keep affecting later years. Normal flow and manual yearly play are still available.
Automatic replies require explicitly enabling Follow mode and starting flow. Settings, reading dialogs and switching away pause play. There is no offline ageing. The finished life retains its actual path, memories and one alternate ten-year window; completing that window does not mean the person died at its end.
Progress & backups
Existing v1 lives continue under their original rules. Use the clearly labelled new-version button to keep the current unfinished life and start again; the letter box can restore it, keeping the current life too. IndexedDB resume, single-writer tabs and encrypted JSON backup remain. Import validates and previews before confirmation. Back up before changing browsers or clearing storage; there is no cloud save, account or gameplay API.
Language follows this portal. To change it, choose EN / 中文 here and open the game again. Each visit starts with sound off; enable it in the game if you want audio.
Ready for a run?
You might also explore: STREETWEAVE · All guides
Found an outdated instruction or a control issue? Send the game name, device and steps to reproduce it to brucexiamh@gmail.com.