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1 in 8 Billion.
Begin a life

ONE WORLD. A DIFFERENT BEGINNING.

1 in 8 BillionA life simulator. A world of possible lives.

Where would your story begin if you were born again? Enter a life simulator that draws your birthplace from real birth statistics. Meet your family, grow up, make difficult choices and discover the ordinary moments that make this life yours.

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THE THREAD OF A LIFE
01A beginning02Room to grow03Lives intertwined04A story to keep

One beginning. A life all your own.

Following real statistics, illness, poverty and early death happen here. Made for ages 15 and up.

Where you are born
Drawn from every baby born now, by country (UN WPP 2024).
How long it takes
About 10, 30, 60 or 90 minutes for a whole life: choose after birth.
Compared with
Your own country, guessed from your time zone; change it after birth.
A WINDOW INTO ANOTHER LIFE

A glimpse of lives you might live.

These are simulated lives, each drawn and lived through the same game engine. A card catches one moment; the full story includes the years before it and the consequences that follow.

THE EVERYDAY & THE EXTRAORDINARY

The years between the big decisions.

A life simulator is more than a list of milestones. School days, family routines, work, illness and small acts of kindness become the setting for the choices you can make. Some years change everything. Others matter because they were ordinary.

01 / A BEGINNING

You inherit a world before you choose a direction.

Your life simulator starts with a birth, weighted by each place’s share of births in 2023. A country with more births appears more often. Your character receives a name, sex, family, household circumstances and a place within that country. You cannot select an easier starting point, and the number in the birth card describes that particular draw rather than your value as a person.

Read the registration card before you begin. It introduces your parents, household income position, urban or rural surroundings and national context. Compare the birthplace with your own country, then change the comparison country if the suggested one is wrong. The life simulator keeps these starting conditions connected to the years ahead.

02 / GROWING UP

An education has a life beyond the classroom.

In this life simulator, school follows childhood into adolescence. Family resources, national education indicators and earlier choices help shape the opportunities available to your character. Studying can improve the path through school, while leaving education changes the jobs that become possible. A graduation is a transition in an ongoing story, with work and family still ahead.

In this life simulator, knowledge sits alongside health, happiness and relationships. Watching one number rise does not tell the whole story. A choice may strengthen one part of life while putting pressure on another. Read the situation and the outcome together: the game records what happened, and later years continue from the resulting state.

03 / PEOPLE

A family changes while you are busy living.

Parents in the life simulator have ages, occupations and lives of their own. As you grow, the household can change through work, illness, loss and new responsibilities. Relationships can bring companionship, marriage, separation and children. Your children grow older too, so a family event continues to have meaning after its first entry in the journal.

The life simulator carries family state forward. Choices around relationships and children affect the conditions used in later years. They do not guarantee a particular partner or a perfect ending. A life can be meaningful with different family structures, and the story can include both closeness and grief without turning either into a score to beat.

04 / MAKING A LIVING

Work pays the bills. The bills change the choices.

Explore work and money as part of the same life simulator. Education, country conditions, occupation and household circumstances influence income. A career can include a first job, unemployment, changing work and retirement. The money panel helps you see earnings, spending, accumulated resources and the practical costs of supporting a household.

The life simulator’s currency and home-country comparisons make unfamiliar amounts easier to read. These displays help explain the game’s economic model; they are not a budget planner or a promise about real salaries. A difficult financial year can narrow your character’s options. An improvement can give a family more room, while health and relationships still need attention.

05 / CHOICES

The next chapter remembers this one.

When a decision appears, read both the situation and the available responses. Some choices change current health, happiness, knowledge or relationships. Others influence school, work, family plans or the conditions for future events. The life simulator applies those consequences to the same character, so the next chapter begins from the life you have already lived.

You can also choose a focus when the life simulator offers it. A focus guides ongoing behaviour, while particular events still bring their own decisions. There is no single sequence that guarantees a good life. Different options may help in different circumstances, and chance remains part of the simulation. The interest lies in following a coherent story, not collecting every possible event.

06 / YOUR PACE

Stay for a moment. Stay for a lifetime.

Choose an approximate play length of 10, 30, 60 or 90 minutes after the birth card. The life simulator offers pause, faster speeds up to 16× and an Auto mode that makes choices for you. The length describes the pace of the clock, so an early death, time spent reading and pauses can change the actual duration.

Switch the life simulator between linework, soft wash, ink and print scenes while keeping the same life. Background music is off; sound effects can be muted. The current life is stored in this browser so you can refresh and continue. Keep using the same browser profile and origin: private browsing, clearing site data or moving to another device will not carry that local save across.

07 / AN ENDING

Every life deserves a last page.

The life simulator follows age and country-specific mortality data, so a life does not always reach old age. Illness, accidents and loss can interrupt plans. When the story ends, the closing record brings together the years, the people, the work and the choices that made this particular life different from the next.

Read the life simulator end card, explore the available free record and share a birth link if you want someone else to begin from the same starting draw. Their decisions can lead elsewhere. Accounts, paid keepsakes and a public life wall require separate online services; those services are clearly marked as unavailable in this edition. The core life simulator runs without signing in.

08 / A WIDER VIEW

Statistics give context. Stories give it a human scale.

The life simulator combines UN population and mortality data with country indicators for education, work, health and inequality. Its people and events are fictional. The model is a way to explore how starting conditions and choices can interact, with substantial uncertainty inside every individual story. It cannot predict your lifespan or describe everyone who lives in a country.

Try another birth when you are ready. Look at what changed before your first decision, then notice how the years unfolded. This life simulator invites curiosity about lives beyond your own, including their routines and relationships. Use the methodology page to understand the source data and its limitations, and use the story as a starting point for questions rather than a verdict about a place.

Your next life starts here.

01

Draw your beginning

Begin the life simulator and let the birth draw choose a place. Read the family card, compare countries and select a comfortable pace.

02

Live the years

Follow your character through school, work and relationships. Make choices when they appear, open the money panel, or let Auto continue the life simulator.

03

Look back

Reach the ending and read the story as a whole. Share the starting birth, or return to the life simulator for another perspective.

Before you begin.

What is the 1 in 8 Billion life simulator?

This life simulator is a browser game about living a fictional life from a statistically weighted birth to its ending. Country data shapes the starting conditions and opportunities, while events, choices and ongoing family relationships shape the story. You can play in English or Japanese.

Is this life simulator free?

The core life simulator is free and runs without an account. Birth, yearly events, choices, scenes, money information and the ending are available locally. Account storage, payments and the public life wall are separate online services and are unavailable in this edition.

Can I choose my country or guarantee a long life?

Birthplaces are drawn using their share of births, rather than offered as a difficulty selector. Health, choices and chance affect the story, but no response guarantees a long life. The life simulator can end in childhood as well as in old age.

How long does a life simulator session take?

The life simulator pace settings are approximately 10, 30, 60 and 90 minutes at normal speed. You can pause, accelerate up to 16× or use Auto. Your character’s lifespan and the time you spend reading decisions affect the actual session length.

Do my choices affect later years?

Yes. The life simulator keeps the resulting character and family state between years. School, work, relationships, family planning and ongoing focus can affect later opportunities or probabilities. Choices influence the model without guaranteeing that any one event will occur.

Can I continue after closing the page?

The life simulator saves your current life and preferences in this browser. Return to the same site and choose Continue. English and Japanese share that local save. Site data deletion or another device will not preserve it; you can also download a local backup from the footer.

What does 1 in 8 billion mean?

One out of eight billion is 0.0000000125%. The name evokes one person among billions. It is different from the birthplace probability shown by the life simulator, which is calculated from the births in the dataset, and it does not claim that a complete life has a measurable one-in-eight-billion probability.

Is the life simulator suitable for everyone?

The life simulator is intended for ages 15 and over. Stories can include poverty, serious illness, accidents, bereavement and early death. Fictional outcomes should not be treated as personal predictions. You can pause or stop whenever you want.

Somewhere, a new story begins.

Take a breath. Meet the people. See where this life takes you.

Online services are not connected

This edition includes the complete browser game. Account sign-in, cloud saves, payments, paid keepsakes and the public life wall need our own backend. Nothing has been purchased, published or saved to an online account.