RealLives is a gamified simulation that brings home the challenge of life in its many splendors and complexities.
In the simulation, you will test your mettle against the many unpredictable life conditions that occur in the course of a lifetime – from birth to death.
And in RealLives, you can play billions of such lives, in different cultures and nations on earth - without ever repeating any lifetime!
Jump into the game, and create your own heuristics about how to play
Create your own intent | Find your own meaning | Blaze your own path
Because life does not come with an instruction manual
“When i played RealLives for the first time back in 2011, i honestly thought it was different from the other simulators i played. The depth of the experience, the problems that happen around your character or with your character, his family and their problems, it was all very real and touching, especially after playing with characters from different economical and political situations, while one has the possibility of going to college and becoming a CEO, the other is fighting hard to make it past his 30s. It was something that hit me hard, in the sense that my life wasn’t as bad as i previously thought it was. I don’t think many people think about this, that’s why RealLives really left an impression on me”
“What i like about RealLives is how it ‘throws’ you into a country and makes you face all the issues, like either health problems or tensions from government, poverty and so on, and it’s like “deal with it”
I just played my first character to the end, and the experience is incredible. I was in tears at the end…
Register through social media or
fill registration form
Your dashboard will be created which you can access
From dashboard you can click ‘Buy License’ link and buy your license.
When you enter the simulation, you can choose your character attributes (such as country of birth, gender, etc) by clicking on the 'Design a New Life', or you can allow the simulation to randomly allocate the attributes (by directly clicking on 'Live a Life').
Explore the interface to learn the various attributes of your new life. You will see Personal characteristics (like Happiness, Intelligence, Strength, wisdom, etc), as well as information about your family, and the resources possessed by your family.
When you click on the circular ‘Age a Year’ button, you will advance in age and be updated with the latest life events that happen to you or your family. You will also need to take decisions in some life problems. (These events and life problems are calculated on the basis of statistically accurate data of the country that you are born in).
All such events are automatically added to your Life Journal, which is a summary of your life experience.
You are encouraged to write your responses to these various events, and this will be added to your Life-Journal.
As you advance in age, you will be able to handle the 6 aspects of your life; Education, Career, Finance, Relationships, Residence, and Leisure - to create a satisfactory life experience for yourself.
Thus, the scenarios of your life are directly elicited from the data of the country that your are born in, and you are able to make life-decisions based on how you wish to live your life, based on your interpretation of the data-based life-events. You can also use various tools to learn about the culture, socio-economic conditions and other metrics of the country of your birth in the game. Our database now also allows the comparison of such metrics of your birth country in RealLives with those of your actual country, like ranking the achievements in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) framework, etc.
This provides a realistic narrative of various cultures, political and economic systems, disparities, and so on.
At the end of your life in the game, you can take stock of your entire life. At this point RealLives provides several tools for reflecting on your experience.
The game play also attempts to provide a glimpse into how our lives are influenced by factors that are so often out of our hands, even if we have freedom to make choices.
Finally, it is the recognition of our common humanness and of our universal constraints which creates empathy with other humans across the world.
The RealLives may thus be used for various purposes – to learn socio-economic conditions of the world, to have fun, to learn about disparity and to experience a sense of empathy with fellow humans across the world.
don't really have a conclusion. I feel like I did poorly, I didn't amass riches, conquer a profession
RealLives is an educational simulation that has been around for years...
Overall, “RealLives 2010” is a fun diversion if you’re into simulation games at all. It may seem boring to those who can only get their kicks...
Behind this simulation is a robust data engine that uses statistics from over 100
Released March, 2004
Released June, 2007
Released July, 2009
Released July, 2018
This cloud-based version of RealLives v4.03, with updated database, was released in Oct 2017. It is designed to work on all latest browsers on all PCs and laptops regardless of OS.
Approximately 150+ people from about 20 countries have contributed in various ways to create this version. We also thank all the gamers and users for their heartfelt encouragement and feedback.
With the launch of this cloud version, we hope to be able to make changes and improvements in the game in a faster and real-time manner.
So please keep writing in, and help make this world a better place…
Bob grew up in the area that was to become the “Silicon Valley” of California. As a young adult, he traveled to Mexico and Europe and played soccer with international teams, all of which kindled his passion for understanding different cultures. Bob taught at the high school level and after a few years, he joined the Peace Corp and taught math and computer science at the Polytechnic School in the Seychelles Islands. He also worked on advancing his own computer programming skills. After returning to the United States, Bob met Kathy and continued teaching until 1989 when he changed careers to become a computer programmer. In 1996, Bob felt inspired to write software that fostered empathy by simulating life anywhere in the world based on real-world statistics. Bob went into business for himself founding Educational Simulations Inc. to develop and sell “RealLives” and launched the first version in 2001.
Out of faith in this calling and a desire to support Bob’s ability to focus more on developing RealLives, Bob and Kathy simplified their lifestyle, which included Kathy and their three sons giving up homeschooling. In 2003, Kathy began to work for the Woolman Semester, a school that focused on peace, social justice and sustainability. This work was well-aligned with the mission of RealLives and also provided a steady income for the Runyan family.
Bob met Dr. Parag Mankeeker through the Ashoka Foundation and invited Parag to serve on the board of Educational Simulations as Kathy and Bob they were deeply impressed with his vision and passion for RealLives.
Is a social technology entrepreneur who started his journey as a medical and public health professional, as well as a trained anthropologist.
He has tackled health and other social challenges such as disaster management during his involvement in developing multi-disciplinary hospitals and social enterprises. He has also worked in understanding terrorism both in India and Afghanistan. He is a Ashoka Fellow and a Salzburg Seminar Fellow – indications of his global efforts to be a positive force for change in the world.
Parag is now leading the global scaling of RealLives – a widely acclaimed life simulator which enhances empathy and other socio-emotional skills for achieving the dream of an empathetic world.
We thank the many valuable professionals from the Neeti team who have earlier contributed significantly towards bringing this project to life
We thank the many valuable professionals who lent their expertise towards creating the 2010 version of RealLives
Over 200 Interns from various walks of life have contributed towards creating this work of passion over the last 3 years.
We thank the following organizations for kindly supporting us by providing good interns to work on RealLives
We thank Ashoka for their committment towards creating a culture of empathy and change-making, as well as for supporting Neeti Solutions by recognizing its founder, Dr. Parag Mankeekar, as an Ashoka Fellow
We thank Ashoka for their committment towards creating a culture of empathy and change-making, as well as for supporting Neeti Solutions by recognizing its founder, Dr. Parag Mankeekar, as an Ashoka Fellow
We thank BMGI Global, which provides management consulting services to companies based out of India and the Asia Pacific area.
Nobel Laureate (2001), Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
Director | Learning Futures | Curtin Learning and Teaching, Australia. UNESCO Chair of Data Science in Higher Education
Practiced corporate law on Wall Street. She is a system-level social entrepreneur and innovative educator & CEO of a “B Certified Company”.
Ashoka Globalizer’s Co -Director. A program she co -founded in 2009 to help social entrepreneurs scale their impact.
Seasoned marketing & digital executive, experience of building brands MBA, Harvard Business School
Speaks six languages – English, French, Spanish, Russian, Bulgarian and conversant in Serbian
Advisor for start-ups, technology companies, social organizations, Entrepreneur & Ex-MD/CEO of Thermax
Advisory Board Member & Chief Entrepreneur for People, Ashoka, USA
MD and Founder, BMGI India Business Coach Innovation and Organic Growth with Consulting Experience in Diverse Industries
28+ years of IT experience with diverse executive experience from corporate to the public sector.
Visiting scholar at Carnegie Mellon University, He is currently Director of Advanced Analytics at COSTCO Wholesale, Seattle, USA
Advisor, Trackball Consultancy Services Private Limited
Director, Primove Infrastructure Development Consultants Pvt. Ltd. and Vice President, LEAD India
RealLives is supported by volunteers across the world, who help us make the game more global by contributing various types of digital skills. If you think that you could help RealLives become better, or to create a better understanding among human beings, then we would love to hear from you! Schools, Universities and Communities around you.
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