TinyYears Official Announcement: Launching This Month
TLDR: It's been a very long 14 months and we've felt like quitting so many times. We see lots of AI simulators popping up in this subreddit that have taken someone a week to vibe code - this simply isn't that. This is one hell of a polished game, made by a real team that really do care about the genre.
This game won't be for everyone - I've played BitLife and InstLife for over a decade now, and our game definitely plays differently. If you don't think it's for you, please keep scrolling 😃
Introduction to TinyYears:
We're halfway through a really successful beta with over 50 players from the BitLife community helping us steer development, but now is the time we're wanting to officially promote the game.
We've been in development for over 14 months now and are a team of four:
Myself - UI Design
Leo - Development
Alex - Marketing & Community Management
Yasmin - Artist
Why are we making this game?
Well, to meet four really clear objectives.
- To iterate on the mobile life simulator genre (we don't feel it's developed enough, we are being sold what seems like the same DLC time after time, with nothing exciting)
- To make mobile life simulators visual - if you buy a new house, you see it. If you have a kid, you see it. Your character has aged? You see it! (Thank you to Yasmin, our very talented artist).
- To make decisions matter - each choice in the game impacts stats, money, relationships, karma, aura, or your very life itself. Tread carefully!
- To make monetisation fairer - put delicately, we don't think mobile life simulator players are being respected.
Is this another crappy, unfinished life sim?
Far from it. Quite frankly, we've found it SO difficult to be taken seriously in a sea of games BitLife clones that have been vibe coded in one week by someone in their bedroom. This game is very polished, we held onto it for probably a bit too long before unveiling it, but it has given us the opportunity to give it some real polish. It's not perfect, but it's very, very close to release, and we hope you will be impressed.
What is our favourite part about the game?
Honestly the stand out has to be our dating app. We literally built a dating app inside the game, where you create a profile, match with other characters, send them messages, and go on dates. I haven't seen anything like this before in any game genre, I genuinely love it!
What's similar to BitLife?
Obviously the basic premise. You are born, you age up in years, you make decisions, you build a legacy.
What's different to BifLife?
Besides the obvious visual benefits that come with our game, the general community feedback has been that it's just 'easy to play and navigate'. From simpler bulk actions for managing houses and cars through to faster in-game navigation with no scrolling, it's just a really seamless experience.
The other thing is simple, it's just not BitLife! We're not looking to recreate BitLife, we're just looking to help usher in the next generation of these games.
Can I play it now?
Yes. Ask us for the Discord below and we'll ping you an invite to play on either iOS or Android.
---
Thank you to the mods of this subreddit for allowing us to post this and for letting us know about the upcoming self-promotion rule changes. This will be the only 'announcement' post from us here 😊