About Lifer

Lifer is a free, text-based office and life simulator played in the browser. It tells the dark comedy of corporate life and state bureaucracy in a fictional republic.

The idea

Lifer began as a satirical answer to “How does a career really get made?” Promotions are shaped not only by performance but by who you sit next to at lunch; careers not only by decisions but by whose memory those decisions stay in. The game tries to make you live that, month by month, memo by memo.

A career lasts from about half an hour to a few hours. Every one is different: events, colleagues, the national agenda and the echoes of your choices are shuffled anew each time.

Tone and limits

Lifer is dark corporate and state satire: bribery, blackmail, succession wars, betrayal and prison. But the game never puts anyone down for who they are. Sexual orientation and identity are handled supportively; brands, companies and people are entirely fictional. The game is designed for players aged 16 and over.

What's inside

• Two career paths, eighteen departments and ministries, nine ranks on each path.
• More than four hundred handwritten events and hundreds of generated scenes with recurring colleagues.
• Story chains that return months later, a succession war, office factions and schemes.
• Private life: home, car, relationships, marriage, children, health, hobbies, pets, investments.
• University, job-hunt and playable prison chapters; generations that continue with your child.
• Life goals, more than thirty-five achievements and a shareable career card.

Languages and accessibility

The game can be played in Turkish, English and French; every text, generated scenes included, is written in all three. It is fully playable with a keyboard, works with screen readers, supports light and dark themes, and runs on phones as well as desktops. Text size follows your browser settings.

How it's made

Lifer is developed independently and tested on the live site by groups of friends. The game is free and needs no account; your saves stay in your browser, and a save code lets you move them to another device. To keep the site running, ads may in future appear on the end-of-career screen and, on wide screens, in a side rail. Ads never appear next to choices. See the privacy policy for details.

Last updated: 2026-11-09