Games like BitLife, but with a real story

BitLife is a simple idea done very well. You get a life, you tap, and every tap is a choice: school, a job, a crush, a crime, a prison sentence, a funeral. Then you start again with a new life. Millions of people play it, and it is easy to see why.

But a lot of players reach the same point. After the tenth life, the people in it start to feel like names on a list. Your mother is a happiness bar. Your best friend is a button. If that is where you are, you may not want a different life simulator. You may want a life sim with a story: people who talk back, places you can walk around, and choices that the same characters remember the next day.

Here are our picks. They are not a ranking, just games we think a BitLife player could enjoy, with the facts checked.

First, what BitLife is

BitLife is made by Candywriter, LLC. It is free to download on the App Store and Google Play, with adverts and optional in-app purchases. Its own store listing describes it as a text-based life simulator where every tap is a choice, and it has careers, education, relationships and a life of crime among its options. The App Store rates it 18+.

Our picks

AJ Cities: start broke, build a life

Full disclosure: this is our game. AJ Cities is a free open-world game that runs in your web browser, on a phone or a computer, with nothing to download. It is 18+.

Where BitLife gives you a random baby, AJ Cities gives you one specific man in one specific mess. AJ was born in Lagos and taken to London as a boy. He grew up in south London, never got his papers straight, and was deported. Days after landing, he was swept up by police and held in a cell. Two weeks after London, he is sitting on the veranda bench of Iloro House, a face-me-I-face-you rooming house on June 12 Street, with Room 3, an empty wallet and one old friend.

That friend is Chuks, who cooks for the whole street and feeds AJ before asking a single question. From there it plays a bit like a BitLife life slowed right down, so you can walk around inside it:

• Money. AJ earns ₦1,000 a break as a ball boy at the street football in the bush, and he can bet on the match. This is story money inside the game, not real money.
• A debt. The police at the north gate want ₦2,500,000 before they will open it. They take it a little at a time.
• Health. Food, snacks and medicine restore your health: Chuks’s pot, the restaurant at No. 1 and Sarge’s window at the gate. The clinic at No. 5 treats you free.
• People with lives of their own. The sky follows the real Lagos sun, and people keep their routines. Funke, the medical student at No. 5, leaves for the hospital on weekday mornings.
• A man with an offer. At the end of the street is Prizm, owned by the Warden, a retired prison warder who takes ten percent of every deal at his table. He has heard about a young man with a London accent.

AJ’s back story is told in conversation, not cutscenes. You walk up to people, talk, and pick your answer. If you like BitLife for the “what happens if I do this?” feeling, that is the same itch, with faces on it. You can also read AJ’s story in six short chapters before you play.

Reigns

Reigns, by Nerial and published by Devolver Digital in 2016, is the closest thing to BitLife’s rhythm on this list. You are a medieval monarch. Advisers bring you requests on cards, and you swipe left or right. Each answer moves one of four parts of your kingdom, and if one goes too far, your reign ends and the next ruler takes over. It came out on Android, iOS, Windows, Mac and Linux, and later Switch. It is a paid game.

Choices: Stories You Play

Pixelberry Studios released Choices in 2016. It is a free app on iOS and Android with a library of interactive stories in a visual-novel style. You read a chapter, make decisions, and the story bends. Keys open new chapters and Diamonds pay for special choices; both can be bought in the app. If you play BitLife for the drama more than the numbers, try it.

The Sims 4

The big one. EA made The Sims 4 base game free to download in October 2022, on PC and Mac through the EA app and Steam, and on PlayStation and Xbox. Expansion packs and other packs are still sold. It has none of BitLife’s speed, but it has the thing BitLife players sometimes miss: you can actually see the house, the street and the neighbours.

Torn

Torn is a text-based online RPG set in Torn City, a dark crime world. Its own site invites you to build a new life and rise to the top, and says the game is free and has no advertising. It runs in a browser, and it is multiplayer: you can join factions, take jobs, invest and travel alongside other real players. It is the most BitLife-like of these in feel, all menus and numbers, but with a city full of people behind them.

Which one should you try?

• Want BitLife’s quick, swipeable choices? Reigns.
• Want a story to read on the bus? Choices.
• Want to build a house and a family slowly? The Sims 4.
• Want a crime life with other players, all in text? Torn.
• Want one life, in one place, with a story and a street you can walk down? AJ Cities, free in your browser.

If you want more ideas, see our list of life simulator games you can play online, or our guide to playing BitLife online.

Is there a game like BitLife with a story?

Yes. Story games such as Choices and Reigns keep the choices and add characters. AJ Cities follows one man, AJ, starting broke in Lagos, and runs free in a browser.

Who makes BitLife?

Candywriter, LLC. It is free to download on the App Store and Google Play, with adverts and optional in-app purchases.

Is AJ Cities free?

Yes. It plays free in your browser on a phone or a computer, with nothing to download. It is for adults, 18+.

Does AJ Cities use real money for betting?

No. The football betting in AJ’s story uses story money inside the game. Real money buys only optional tickets and shop items.