Building OpenLifeSim in the open
OpenLifeSim is a free life simulator that runs entirely in your browser — no download, no install. You get dropped into a randomly generated life: a family you didn't choose, talents you didn't pick, and about eighty years to make something of it. School, careers, property, love, kids, and eventually a gravestone with your numbers on it.
The game is nearly ready. While we finish it, this devlog is where we build in the open.
What's already in the game
- A full life loop — school grades, universities, job ladders, and special careers (footballer, musician, actor) that play by their own rules.
- Real 3D — low-poly characters, buildings with procedurally furnished multi-floor interiors, and a garage of cars, all rendered in the browser.
- An economy that pushes back — salaries, rent, loans, upkeep, bankruptcy. Kids cost money. Weddings cost more the richer you are, and a divorce court takes 30–70% of everything you own unless you asked for the prenup.
- Relationships with consequences — friends drift if you ignore them, partners say no, children grow up and ask you to pay their tuition.
What this devlog will cover
The interesting problems behind a browser life sim, roughly one post at a time:
- how our 3D asset pipeline broke every model's colors (and the one-line reason why),
- serializing a cyclic object graph so a whole life survives a page reload,
- why the waitlist page you probably arrived from is the game's start screen,
- and the game-design math behind weddings, divorces, and honeymoon babies.
Play it before everyone else
The game launches soon. Join the waitlist and you'll get exactly one email when it does — nothing else, ever.