It’s no secret that time seems to start speeding up as we get older, like in videogames where life experiences get converted into just minutes or seconds. In The Sims or any other similar life simulator, we can live an entire life in just a few hours. If we take this brevity to the extreme, we’d have something resembling Life is a Game, a little videogame for Android where you can choose your own destiny and reveal the results of your decisions throughout your life in a simple minigame. In less than five minutes, and controlling your character as if it were a carefree endless runner, you’ll make your way from the cradle to the grave after living rushed life which, to make matters worse, can end prematurely without any warning. Just like real life.
Throughout your journey, you’ll come across a series of key moments that will define what’s to come. Were you a naughty child? Did you love painting? Did you smoke? Every few seconds, your character will change physically while he passes through important moments of his life. From elementary school to college, and then on to a job. You’ll buy a car, get married, have children, continue working, retire, read a little to keep you busy in the end, and then straight to the grave.
The chilling part of all this isn’t the fact that it uses huge brushstrokes to define a process as complex as the change from infancy to adulthood and old age, but that watching how insignificant and trivial these stereotypical life moments appear. Riding full-speed down this this winding path to nowhere will make you dizzy. The more absurd it makes life appear, the easier it is to digest how unfair the whole thing is, especially if we spend half our lives running forward trying to jump over our problems without looking past what’s directly under our noses. If this silly game for smartphones has managed to knock me off balance by giving me a glimpse over the edge, then it’s already done much more than any over-produced game that tries to do so deliberately.
Life is a Game for Android on Uptodown [APK] | Download
[…] Each round lasts no more than five minutes, going from your birth to your deathbed in a dizzying life race plagued with possibilities. Will you have a happy childhood or will sadness plague you the rest of your life? Will you make a living with small jobs or be a bohemian artist? All major decisions that are decided by jumping around the setting and that will make sure you embrace a strong message that’s worth remembering: life goes by in the blink of an eye. [Our review] […]