Personal Projects / 2026

Get a Life

Designed and built a 3D life-simulation game where everyday choices become a race toward five goals: wealth, career, education, happiness and health.

Play game Read the case study

Get a Life

Play game ↗

The game at a glance

Each shift is its own game: 62 jobs
Townsfolk and costume characters: 48 looks
Solo against a rival bot, or shared-screen: 1–4 players
A balanced life to build: 5 goals

01 / Overview

A small town with meaningful choices

Get a Life is a 3D life-simulation game I designed and built around one question: how will you build your good life?

Players move through Brightside, take jobs, study, manage money and look after themselves, racing a rival bot or up to three friends to reach five life goals.

My work covers the game systems, interaction design, 3D world, interface, implementation, saves, sound direction and launch film. Since the first playable build it has grown to 62 jobs that each play as their own game, 48 character looks, a furnished room behind every door, and web, Android, iOS and desktop builds from one codebase.

Game Design
3D World
Design Engineering
Independent Project

Challenge

Making a complex simulation approachable

A life simulation can quickly become a collection of disconnected meters and menus.

I wanted each decision to feel concrete: taking a shift earns money but uses time; studying opens better jobs but costs tuition; resting helps you recover but competes with everything else you could do that week.

The first design challenge was to keep those relationships understandable without flattening the game into a spreadsheet. As the game grew, a second one appeared: a match had to stay interesting after the rules were learned, and be worth playing again once it was won.

Approach

Designing through a playable loop

I built the experience around a repeating loop: plan a week, move through town, choose an activity, see its consequences and compare progress.

The overhead map is for planning, street-level movement makes Brightside a place, and each building opens into its own room where the character walks up to the counter.

I build with AI coding agents, moving between design and implementation and checking each change in the running game. The deterministic simulation stays separate from rendering, so the same rules drive the 3D scenes, rival turns, saved matches and seeded replays. Unit tests cover the rules, and Playwright plays full matches in a browser.

04 / Solution

One connected life simulation

Each of the 62 jobs is its own shift game. You serve a ring of customers from a swivel stool, steer a hospital gurney round corners, work a night callout by torchlight or pilot a nanobot through three waves and a boss. Play a shift well and the report shows a tip, a personal best and progress toward the next of five job levels; three Great shifts in a row make you Employee of the week.

College classes are taught on a tablet and end in a final exam and graduation. The police career has its own academy, a rooftop chase, a driving pursuit and a first-person beat patrol. Good Form Gym turns workouts into games, the Common Court hosts three-on-three basketball, and the ballpark runs a home run derby.

A match has a shape beyond the five goals. Dice decide who goes first, optional twists change the rules, weekly challenges and life events give a turn a small decision, and the Brightside Cup moves to a new venue every week. The Brightside Bulletin reports prices, jobs and crime as a front page. When the match ends, the victory screen awards stars and a life title, the life album keeps the records, and finished matches unlock outfit colours, ride paints and home keepsakes for next time.

01 / 05

Welcome to Brightside

The title screen sits on the live 3D town, with the five goals under Start Game.

02 / 05

Plan the week

The town map shows hours left, cash and goal progress, plus this week’s Brightside Cup, weekly challenge and life event.

Overhead town map with the player’s status bar, a life event with two answers and a card announcing pickup basketball as this week’s Brightside Cup.

03 / 05

Walk in through the door

At street level the character walks up to a building and goes inside.

A blocky character walks toward the striped awning of Brightside Café on a street corner.

04 / 05

Every shift is its own game

Drift Gurney: steer a patient to the right ward, where drifting the corners scores double.

A hospital porter pushes a patient on a gurney through a ward course, with a destination sign, timer and score.

05 / 05

A report card for every shift

A Great shift pays a tip on top of wages and records a new personal best.

Shift report card reading Great shift, $348 earned from $302 wages and a $45 tip, with a new personal best.

29 more screens

Explore the game

Character picker titled Choose a look for Theo, showing a grid of costume characters under the heading Stars. — 48 looks

Townsfolk and costume characters, all with the same starting abilities.

Rival picker showing Dash, the athlete, with a quote and a portrait beside a bus stop. — Pick a rival bot

Four rivals with their own personalities and ways of playing.

A dialog titled Roll for it with a large rolling die on the centre player’s card. — Roll for it

With two or more players, a dice roll-off decides who goes first.

Life goals setup with five twist cards; Boom town and Fast track are selected. — Twist the rules

Optional twists such as Boom town, Crime wave and Fast track change a match, and a town code lets friends replay the same one.

A yellow convertible drives along a road beside a pine wood, seen from behind. — Drive what you can afford

Walk, cycle, scoot or drive. Faster rides save hours and cost money.

Cutaway view of the bank interior with teller desks, a waiting area and a round vault door. — Nest Egg Bank

Each building opens into its own furnished room. The bank has a queue lane, a market ticker and an open vault.

Cutaway view of the pawn shop with glass display cases and items hung on the back wall. — Second Chance Pawn

Glass cases, a curiosity wall and a counter to walk up to.

A cashier on a swivel stool surrounded by registers and waiting customers, seen from above. — Spin Stool

Swivel between registers to serve a ring of customers before the clock runs out.

Cutaway of a clothes shop with staff, customers and marked floor positions under a countdown. — Thread & Co.

Staff the right spots on the shop floor as customers arrive.

First-person view of a dark kitchen lit by a torch beam, with the words Scared off above a startled ghost. — Fix Sweep

A night callout with the lights out, a torch and something in the kitchen.

A neon arcade scene glowing red, with microbes circling a bright core and four weapon slots. — Microbe Mission

Pilot a nanobot through three waves and a boss fight with four weapons.

Award card showing a character in a cook’s apron lifting a gold cup, titled Employee of the week. — Employee of the week

Three Great shifts in a row earn a bonus and an award card in your work uniform.

First-person view of a tablet in a classroom showing a matching exercise pairing users with what they need. — Classes on a tablet

College courses are short lessons played in the classroom. This one is Design for real people.

Diploma dialog reading You graduated, Health Care, Brightside College. — Graduation

Pass the final exam and the diploma lists the jobs it opens.

First-person view of a revolver aimed down a training range with cut-out figures and safety signs. — Police academy

Cadets train on a range where civilians share the street with the targets.

First-person rooftop run passing through a large gold ring, with the city skyline ahead. — Rooftop Pursuit

Chase a runner across the rooftops at dawn.

Street crossing at dusk seen over a revolver, with pedestrians and a banner reading Dusk, they move faster. — Beat Patrol

A first-person patrol through day, dusk and night.

A detective’s desk with a magnifying glass over a floor plan, four suspects and a pair of handcuffs. — The Midnight Case

Detective work with a lens, a suspect line-up and a brief.

A prowler reaches the player on a woodland path as a red minus $360 appears. — Mind your wallet

A prowler in the woods can take the cash you carry.

An ambulance drives through a town junction, seen from above. — Remember to eat

Skip a week of meals and the next turn starts with an ambulance ride.

A character skips rope in the gym under the heading Station 2 of 4, Jump rope. — Good Form Gym

Workouts are timing games: kettlebell swings, jump rope, box jumps and a plank.

A boxing ring seen from behind the player, with the word Guarded over the opponent and a watching crowd. — Sparring

Pick an opponent, read the gloves, guard and counter.

A player rises to the hoop on an outdoor court with five others below and a game clock above. — Three-on-three

Pickup basketball at the Common Court. First to eleven.

A batter at home plate under falling confetti as the scoreboard reads Home run, 451 feet. — Home run derby

Ten pitches at Brightside Ballpark.

View across a rooftop hot tub with floating bubbles toward the houses and streets of Brightside. — A soak with a view

The rooftop hot tub at Skyline Terraces looks out over the real town.

A newspaper front page headed The Brightside Bulletin with a headline, price chart and small columns. — The Brightside Bulletin

A front page each week: prices, the market, the police blotter and help wanted.

Victory screen reading Theo wins, with three characters celebrating outside a shop and final standings on the right. — A proper finish

The victory screen adds a match score, stars and a life title beside the final standings.

Life album dialog listing lifetime records for four players and a past match. — The life album

Lifetime records and past matches for everyone who has played, with export and import.

Unlocks dialog showing outfit colours on 3D character previews and car paints, three of ten unlocked. — Something new to wear

Finished matches unlock outfit colours and ride paints, previewed in 3D on your own character.

05 / Impact

What the game delivers

The result is a full game: a town with a room behind every door, 62 playable jobs, sports, a weekly newspaper, solo and shared-screen matches, and progress that carries from one match to the next.

Versioned saves, recovery checkpoints and export/import keep matches safe between sessions, and the game plays offline with a keyboard, touch or a controller.

It runs on the web, with Android, iOS and desktop builds from the same code. The narrated launch film and the gallery on this page use real gameplay captures.

06 / Key learnings

What building it taught me

The most useful design work happened where systems met feedback: showing the cost before an action, making travel and setbacks visible, and giving every goal a clear place in the interface.

A charming world helps invite people in; understandable rules and reliable saves help them stay oriented.

Replay value came from small, legible rewards more than from new systems: a medal on a shift, a line from a rival who remembers the last match, a new colour to wear. Each one had to stay cosmetic or seeded, so matches remain fair and repeatable.

Recutting the launch film for each release stayed a useful clarity check. If a mechanic could not be explained with one short caption and a recognizable moment of gameplay, its presentation needed more thought.

Next project

Lena's Kitchen

Personal Projects / 2025-2026

Designed and built a private family recipe box in memory of my grandmother, made for cooking from in real time and together: live sessions any device can join, hands-free voice, family bake days and cook logs, and AI help with finding and adding recipes.

Read the case study

PreviousEmail & Landing Page Editor View all projects