An ad for a game popped-up recently on my feed, and the mood struck me as, 'sure, why not?' So I put the game on my phone and started playing. The game is BitLife, and its concept is that you basically live out someone's life, from birth to death. You can receive a random life, or choose from several. It tells you who your parents are, their age, whether or not you were a planned pregnancy, and if you have any siblings or family pets. Your location in the world is also known to you.
It should be said that I am not trying to sell you on this game. I have no affiliation with it. Mostly, I was taken aback at how it impacted me. BitLife is a fun, and somewhat bittersweet experience. It allows you to live out a life you never had, and make different choices than perhaps you made during your own existence. The game also provided me with a glimpse into how I might respond to things during old age, and that was perhaps the most emotional aspect of all.
Throughout your 'life,' there are people you know, be they family, friends, partners or lovers, and status bars accompany each person. If the bar is too far to the left, it means your relationship with that person is poor. The closer it is to the right means your relationship is healthy. You have various things you can do with people, ranging from the positive (have a conversation, give them gifts, compliment them, go with them to the movies) to the negative (insult them, stalk them, break-up with or divorce them). You can take your significant other, or spouse, on a vacation, or go alone. The health of your connections depends a lot on what you do -- or don't do -- with them.
One aspect that differs from my own life is my BitLife person went to university, then business school, then graduate school. In reality, I never finished college. The education background allowed my BitLife persona to have a nice, lucrative career. There's an option where you can "work harder" at school and on the job, and I hit that button a lot. This was rewarded with promotions, and the ability to purchase cars outright, and to pay-off my home loan relatively quickly.
There are different paths to love via BitLife. You might find someone to date in high school or college. Or maybe you'll go on a date, or use a dating app. The game tells you about your potential mate -- looks, smarts, popularity, job, craziness (that was interesting) -- and you can decide whether or not they're you're type. You can become engaged, married, divorced, have kids, get pets, buy a home, pretty much all of the usual life stuff.
Where the game got rather poignant was later on, as my person began to age. Parents would get old and die. Often times, so would siblings. You have the ability to reach-out to exes and, one time on a whim I decided to, only to find they'd passed away a few years earlier. What really got me was once I was in my seventies and eighties (and older), retired, and no longer had any family aside from my spouse. I found myself becoming quite clingy, worried that any moment could be our last. You progress the game at your own pace by clicking an "age" button that advances you by a year. Once you reach a certain point, clicking that age button could mean the demise of someone you love, or even yourself.
I've had several lives so far on BitLife. As I mentioned, you set the pace for the speed of the game. You can run through a life in minutes, or hours (or days). One game saw me die of old age at 120, while another was cut short by cancer at 19. Some lives had been happy ones, with solid relationships, money and overall happiness, while others I never seemed to get right, my person unable to form lasting bonds with anyone, and always in debt. Again, a lot like life.
It seems odd that a game on my phone would give me pause to think my own life -- the choices I've made, the good fortune I've had, and the opportunities I've missed -- but perhaps that's part of its purpose? And, maybe seeing fake family members dying in the game reminded me of the real family and friends I've lost over the years, and likely will lose in the future. And, finally, there is the finality of life. During one of the games, I died rather suddenly, and my spouse was still living, as was our adopted daughter. It was in a brief, wistful moment I realized I'd never know the end of their story.
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