Press kit — Life Legacies

Fact sheet

Title: Life Legacies
Developer: SeriousPlay Games
Parent company: SeriousPixel, LLC
Genre: Life simulation, built on real history and real science
Status: In development. No release date announced.
Platforms: Web browser, Windows, macOS, Linux, iPhone, iPad, Android (planned)
Setting: Base game: about 1820 to 1900. You begin at about seven in the 1820s, either arriving with your family by ship at an Atlantic or Gulf port or growing up on a family farm in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley or East Tennessee, and follow the family where its choices lead: the East, the backcountry South, Missouri and the trails west. Expansions carry the same family to today, or back to its roots.
Point of view: First person at your character's real eye height, or an overhead view for home, farm and journeys; switch any time
Language: English at launch; characters speak the real languages of their time and place, with a built-in translator
Target rating: Teen, with family-friendly defaults and a built-in Classroom mode
Website: www.lifelegaciesgame.com

Descriptions

Short (under 300 characters)

Live an ordinary life in a real time and place. Begin as a child in 1820s America, off a ship or on a Virginia or Tennessee farm, on a real Earth with real weather. Grow up, raise a family and pass on your legacy, then carry your family through every era to today.

Long

Life Legacies is a life simulation that teaches history by letting you live it. Begin as a seven-year-old in 1820s America, stepping off a ship or growing up on a family farm in Virginia or Tennessee, on a planet built from real satellite data, where the weather is the weather that actually happened. Follow your family by canal, river and road, make friends, find love, choose a trade, raise children and grow old, while wagon trains, railroads, epidemics and world events reshape the world around you.

When your life ends, your story doesn't. Continue as your son or daughter, or go back and relive the same years as your spouse, your sister or even the family dog, and see what changes. Every choice builds a family tree, and every life leaves a legacy.

Built on real history and real science, from genealogy and psychology to biology and the earth sciences, with sources you can check for every historical detail.

Where it sits

The everyday-life depth of the best life simulations, the warmth of a close-knit farming community, and the sweep of generations of a grand strategy game, applied to one family's story instead of an empire's.

Key messages

Live history, don't just read it. You are an ordinary person in a real time and place, and history happens to your family.
A real Earth. Real terrain from satellite data, real recorded weather, real rivers and coastlines, and the sky as it actually was.
Every life leaves a legacy. What you build, teach and get wrong passes to your children and grandchildren.
See the same story through other eyes. When a life ends, continue as a child, or go back and relive the same years as a spouse, sibling or friend.
History you can check. Every historical detail links to its source, and the game shows how certain we are about what happened.

Signature features

A real, living Earth: satellite terrain and seafloor, weather replayed from scientific records since 1836, real rivers, tides and currents, and the true sky for any date and place.
Two ways to begin: off the ship with your name on the passenger list, or born on a Virginia or Tennessee farm whose family came down the Great Wagon Road generations ago.
Many roads: go west on the Oregon Trail, or arrive at New York, Baltimore, Charleston, Savannah, New Orleans or Galveston and move on by ship, rail, river and road, with passenger lists and the other records family historians use. Earlier routes such as the Great Wagon Road belong to A New Nation.
Two ways to see: first person at your character's real eye height, which rises as you grow, or an overhead view for the household, farm and journeys.
Lives that carry forward: birth to death with real milestones; your save is your family tree; continue as a child, retell as someone else, or branch the timeline.
People you can really talk to: natural conversations with anyone, in their own language, powered by AI on your device on supported hardware. Characters remember what you taught them for life.
Real bodies, real weather: characters feel the simulated heat and cold; Realistic, Relaxed and Story settings decide how much day-to-day care is asked of you.
History you can trust: "Where this comes from" on any event, object or place; lives marked Documented, Reconstructed or Traditional; Classroom mode.
Every language, understood: a two-way translator, a Learning mode, and an option to see only what your character understands.

Product line

One continuous family story, from the earliest eras to today. Every expansion continues the same save and the same family tree. Era expansion titles are working titles; Origins is final.

Life Legacies: Origins, earliest eras to about 1600. Before every family tree, there were roots.
A New Nation, about 1600 to 1820: the colonies, the founding and the first roads inland.
Life Legacies (base game), about 1820 to 1900. Every life leaves a legacy.
The Machine Age, 1900 to 1945. The world plugs in, and then goes to war.
The Boom Years, 1945 to 1970. New homes, new hopes, new fears.
Changing Times, 1970 to 2000. Families redefined, the world rewired.
Connected, 2000 to today. Your family's story reaches the present.
Homelands region packs: Find where your family came from. First packs follow the migration story into North America: Ireland & Britain, German lands & Central Europe, Scandinavia, West Africa & the Caribbean, China & the Pacific crossing, Mexico & the Southwest.
Life Legacies: Wild (planned standalone): animals living their lives in natural habitats on the same Earth.