How the 1 in 8 billion life simulation game works
Eight Billion Lives is a free life simulation game for your browser. You are 1 in 8 billion: one person, born by the world’s real odds, living one life from the first year to the last. Here is what happens, from birth to the epitaph.
1. You are born by the odds
The game picks your country by its share of the world’s births, so you are more likely to be born where more people are born. Your sex, family, setting (a village, a city, a river delta) and year of birth follow the same real statistics. You can leave it to the odds, or choose a country, a city, or a year. Years after the latest data are projections, and the game says so.
2. You live it year by year
One year takes about a minute at normal speed, and you can speed it up or jump to the next decision. Four meters follow your life: health, happiness, knowledge and relationships. Savings, schooling and the place you live change as the years pass. A whole life takes about an hour.
3. A few choices bend the odds
- At certain ages the game stops on a decision: a parent’s fever, school fees, a move to the city, caring for a parent. Each option changes your meters and your money.
- You can set a decision aside and keep going. If you leave it too long, it gets decided for you, and the record says so.
- Auto mode makes the decisions for you after a short pause.
- Reflection pauses at a few ages let you write a note about the life. They do not change the odds, and the notes stay on your device.
4. The people around you
Parents, siblings, a partner, children, a best friend and a teacher appear as the life goes on. They have names from the country’s naming data, they age, and they die by the same rules you do. Four other people were born in the same second as you, anywhere in the world, and you can follow how their lives go.
5. The world around you
Real events appear when your life reaches their year, such as wars, pandemics and disasters in the place you live. The place has its own seasons, harvests, prices and local events that shape the scene.
6. It ends, and you get a record
Your age and cause of death come from death rates for people born in your place and year, adjusted by how your life went. Then you get an epitaph and a record of the life: your moments, your choices, the others born with you, and how long you lived compared with everyone born in your year and place.
Same seed, same life
Every life is built from a seed. The same seed and the same choices always give the same life, the same text and the same scenes, so you can share a life and someone else can live it too. No AI model is used while you play: the story text is written from templates, and the game shows a counter of model calls that stays at zero.
Is it real?
The odds come from real data and the people are made up. Every number in the game is labeled as sourced or extrapolated. Read how accurate the game is.