Have You Played… Real Lives?

In Real Lives, you play an everyday person. Maybe you’ll be a Bangladeshi stone mason. Maybe you’ll live as a Brazilian student. Maybe you’ll work in a Chinese factory. But whoever you are, you’ll get a whole simulated life, from baby teeth to dentures. That is, if you live long enough.

But that also means all the problems of existence scattered in between. Sick parents, corrupt bosses, natural disasters. But there’s also the occasional breakthrough. A second child, a better job, a new life in another country.

As simulations go, it’s a thinker, even if it does have its own flaws. At RPS, we once each played a life and recorded what happened to us. Hint: a lot of bad things happened. It seems a bit heavy-handed at times, but makes sense. It’s designed as an educational game. You’re supposed to play this and realise that there are folks in the world, maybe just one country east of you, one country south, who don’t live as easily and comfortably as you do.

It’s a ‘reminder’ game, a ‘keep some perspective’ game. Everyone should play it at least once in their own lives.