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Hey O-Lifers,
It's around that time of the month where you come to hear me ramble about the OurLife upgrade and I'm never one to disappoint. Whether it's because I like the sound of my head voice — it's that, I've already owned up to it — or because this is something every developer has to do, here we go again!
With each update, we're adding even more polish and features, and that's because our community has been rallying around the Discord and Steam discussions pages with brilliant suggestions. That being said, a recent poll has actually resulted in — instead of following the roadmap and rolling out the new careers one by one or in sets as I'd originally planned — all of the content being unlocked in this update.
As the testers (and those of you in the Discord) know, the systems were finished and have been in testing for a while now. The original idea was to take a few months to myself knowing content had been prepared up until September but rather than force everyone to wait for the new content; we collectively agreed I can concentrate future updates around any bug fixes, QoL improvements, or building out existing content (as well as taking a nice long break)!
The aim moving forward won't be new content — that doesn't mean the community is in planning mode, they are ALWAYS in planning mode — but rather fine-tuning existing gameplay loops and ensuring the game feels more alive and cohesive.
Anyway, ramble over! Here's what's new in OurLife V1.3!
The game's long-awaited visuals are finally here — a huge thank you to our character artist, Ryjo! — and this means you finally have the ability to properly customise your characters. It also opens up a few new opportunities for immersive gameplay and, as such, lines up very well with the brand new careers being released. Now you can-
The modelling career takes your character from open casting calls all the way to global supermodel status across four tiers. Starting out, you'll be allocating your weekly hustle energy between open castings, TFP shoots, social media, and part-time work to build your portfolio and catch an agency's eye.
From there you can sign with an agency, choose between a stable catalogue track or a riskier jet-setting direct booking path, and eventually work your way up to Fashion Week runways across New York, London, Milan, and Paris while completing four active minigames (Digitals, Human Mannequin, Perfect Strut and Paparazzi Gauntlet)
And once your modelling career reaches Tier 3, you can open your own modelling agency for $50,000 and join the cut-throat industry everyone aspires to be a part of. You'll scout and sign models, approach clients one by one to build your book, assign bookings, manage Fashion Week slots for your roster, and watch your commission roll in (so long as you don't run THAT Jeans campaign)
All modelling agencies grow through three tiers (boutique, established, powerhouse), and, when popularity gets high enough, can eventually receive an acquisition offer.
The fashion career puts you on the other side of the runway as the designer where you'll be able to build a label from the ground up, including everything from choosing your name and brand DNA to deciding on ad campaigns and designing collections.
With a few new minigames (The Edit, Fitting Room, and Buying Closers) to accompany the careers, you can officially launch seasonal collections by picking themes from a curated list and deciding on your hero piece. A new collection opens up a variety of label options, from commissioning campaigns and applying for Fashion Week slots to holding press junkets and courting clients.
And, if you're running both a fashion label and working as a model or operating a modelling agency (get that bread), you can even walk in your own shows or book your own roster for campaigns; all at a discount you so clearly deserve.
Continuing in the theme of fashion and beauty, OurLife now offers even more customisation opportunities based on your character's age. With everything from tanning subscriptions to coloured lenses and hair dye, you can now invest in your beauty and actually see its effects. So if you're not happy with what the universe (or those pesky genes) gave you, plastic surgery isn't your only option!
In the first of three different Science oriented careers, players will be able to specialise in one of three different branches (Biology, Chemistry, and Physics) to contribute something more intellectual to society. With the ability to research projects and make discoveries legitimately, or, for those of you who prefer to fake it till you make it, plagiarise and steal credit at every turn. However you want to pursue your science career, there's plenty of features, minigames, and in-depth systems for you to explore!
Because if the typical Science career isn't quite cutting it, players can dive into the even darker world of underground bunkers, designer babies, and cybernetic enhancements with the Research & Biotech career. Build a client list, reinforce your structures, and decide whether you're hiding out from the world or whether the world should be hiding from you.
Gardens, flower shops, and nurseries. All connected by the in-panel season system which allows you to tend to a variety of crops, from herbs and flowers, to fruits and vegetables. And whether you're gardening for peace and tranquillity or to outpace rival gardeners, every decision you make now not only affects you but your plants too.
Real estate has been slightly restructured to introduce some new features, including proper tenant management, multi-tenant apartment complexes, landlord-based events, districts and neighbourhoods, and much better property management features. Now you be the landlord of your dreams or an absolute nightmare, that's the joy of deciding!
No-one likes a happy-go-lucky life and certainly not most of you... that's why this update also introduces a variety of different life events capable of severely injuring (and even killing) you, your family members, your friends, and anyone else you may hold near and dear to you. Because life is unpredictable but your virtual lives are chaotic. With car accidents to random assaults and homicides, OurLife is a little less safer than it used to be.
Minor tweaks and updates have been made to Occults, including but not limited to access to a new Magical Artifacts system, Occult-specific avatar animations, improved gameplay loops, and a few other little improvements.
No, not insects. Just bug busting at scale. A huge, huge, huge thank you to all of you incredible players who have been lovely as to not only play the game but report any issues you're facing for me to address. This update, like the many before it, addresses plenty of bugs, QoL upgrades, and fine-tuning as well as introduced cloud saves.
For some reason, UI customisation — specifically the glow feature — was a top priority for some players; despite already being able to customise almost everything else lol... but it's cool, it's been added. I've also added a few more UI upgrades (special thanks to Godot 4.7) like UI animations, better on-screen effects, and responsive buttons, as well as the ability to disable all of these features within the settings.
And that's it for version 1.3 of OurLife… Thank you again to everyone who tested this version and also to all of you for finding enjoyment in OurLife. And another huge thank you to Ryjokrc who helped visualise the game and really bring it to life!
Warm regards,
WaveyGaming Productions
Hey O-Lifers and anyone else who might be reading this,
I'm back with another OurLife update and I'll get to what's new in a second, but first, I'd like to thank everyone who shared their thoughts. I've heard your feedback and hopefully this update will elevate your experience to new levels.
As a result of the input received upon launch, I used to last few weeks to focus solely on deepening core gameplay mechanics, fixing outstanding issues and bugs, and introducing a few new smaller (high-impact) features. That being said, the speed at which updates are released will probably slow in the coming weeks. One part because I'll be transitioning back into the corporate world — this was always the plan, what was unplanned was the release of this game — and, two part, because I'll have a lot less downtime on my hands.
This has been in the works since the last update and, fortunately, someone just so happened to suggest it around the same till I dropped the poll which worked out great for me because it got more traction. That being said, I had only actually been working on a few of these paths and it quickly dawned on me that there would be an expectance of equal depth. This meant I had to get creative with how each of these pathways operated, which minigames and content would be available, and how it impacts other systems. But I did it (with some help from you incredible souls and your suggestions).
Anyway, enough of that, and back to the update logs!
Teaching is now available as an active career, where players can pick one of the following paths: nursery, primary, secondary, and university. Each track not only has its own minigames and systems, but there are also sub-tracks and promotions you can achieve, as well as different types of schools to teach at.
Features include everything from setting seating plans and marking worksheets to developing real bonds with your students — or alternatively, rivalries that could turn dark— and meeting parental demands and needs as well.
Whether you're a freelancer, screenplay writer, novelist or fanfic enthusiast, there are four separate career paths that writers can now embark on. Decide whether you want to publish independently and build your own audience or pursue any of the three other traditional tracks, or, if you're up for it, why not do it all at the risk of burning out?
Featuring space agencies across continents, you can now train as an astronaut, embark on missions, and embrace everything that comes with it. With a variety of new space-themed minigames and simulations, each astronaut's career will be shaped by the actions they take, or, in some cases, the actions they don't. Do you believe there's life out there? And if you do, will you commit to finding it? What if costs you familial bonds? Will you continue?
In an attempt to make NPCs feel a little more realistic, I’ve introduced two new tabs that will allow you to see not only those who have died but also any other people you have come in contact with over the years.
This means you’ll be able to actually interact with your carers, guardians, teachers, classmates, and colleagues as if they were any other NPC, and it’ll be properly reflected across systems.
NPCs now also benefit from the Avatar frameworks, as it — currently displays their initial in a skin-coloured circle but — will eventually display a rendering of the character for better immersion.
All NPCs within your life now have their own personalities and traits, meaning they not only evolve as the years go on but if there's a lack of compatibility between you; social interactions are more likely to result in negative reactions. So if you're friends, it's probably that friend you can only see once a year without burning out! Or, you're that friend.
In addition to having worked on implementing new events and reinforcing conditions and gating, I also shared the beta version of a community mod tool that will allow you to create your own event sets and submit them for inclusion.
This actually means some of the content you'll see in-game include some submissions from our very on playerbase! And finally on the events front, pop-ups are now a little more visually cohesive, ensuring it matches the rest of the game.
A few people were complaining that it was too easy to build up skills whereas others wanted it to be easier. Because I want to ensure everyone can play how they want to play, I have introduced a few gameplay settings that will allow you to adjust a few different things: from relationship decay and stat gain to the speed at which skills level.
In addition to the countries shipped at launch, I've also added Sudan, Kenya, Pakistan, Ukraine, New Zealand, Portugal, Finland, Philippines, Norway, Poland, Belgium, Thailand, Malaysia, Kazakhstan, Estonia, Hungary, Singapore, Indonesia, Iraq, and Syria.
As someone who always mutes — I know it’s bad but I get sensory overload so please don’t come after me lol — any game I play, I find it quite difficult to know which sound effects to include. That being said, I’ve added a few basic SFX that will hopefully make the game feel a little less flat.
If you hate them, please let me know, and equally, if you have any suggestions on types of sound effects you want to see, please also let me know!
There was a lot done to optimise and improve OurLife, but for the life of me, I actually can't remember all of them. So this section is just going to say 'I fixxa de bugs,' and I'll promise, or rather try — because coding is a hyperfixation that's quickly crushed by unenjoyable admin to keep a more detailed dev-log from now on.
And I know what you're thinking: "Wavey, isn't this admin?" No, it's not and that's because apparently I love the way words sound in my head when I'm typing. Does it not make anyone else feel like they're in one of those 00's movies?
(for the next update with placeholder frameworks complete!)
No, not the airbending type and not the blue ones either. I've actually been working very closely with an artist I commissioned to create character visualisations for OurLife. I'm excited for you to play around with the customisations and hopefully this small addition makes your characters a bit less abstract — which, along with all of the other changes, I feel it will — but also a lot more personable.
Anyway, ramble over. Enjoy the update and let me know if y'all broke anything because it definitely wasn't me (and if it was, as it most likely is, I'm sorry, I promise I'll fix it)!
Thank you again my fellow O-Lifers and I'll see you at the next update (or hotfix if it's needed),
WaveyGaming Productions
Hey everyone and thank you so much for your patience,
I know the most recent update generalised most of the dynamic values in-game, so hopefully this hotfix is a welcome one. In addition to the hotfix, I've also made a few improvements to the overall quality of the game.
So, "what's in hotfix?" I hear no-one ask, but I'm going to tell you anyway.
Starting off strong, I've been informed that players are having a few different issues based on the type of device they're using AND whether or not they have a control plugged in. You'll all be happy to know that, even if you have a controller plugged in, your controller should hopefully no longer keep stealing focus and therefore rendering both your mouse and keyboard input negligible.
In addition to an extra 200% UI scaling option —I'd recommend only using this if it's absolute essential, because that's huge — introduced with this patch, I've also (again, hopefully) improved how window size is captured on Macs - hopefully improving Mac users' OurLife experience.
And finally, those pesky dynamic values I broke with that (rushed and anxiety-driven) localisation update should now be fixed.
While I've absolutely not had the time to upskill my art or nor hire an artist, I have introduced a mix of text-based visuals and more granular character visualisation so players no longer feel like they're playing "ghosts." I want to thank Dasutin for this suggestion because it was such a minor addition that, at least to me, makes a world of difference.
These features, of course, work using the Mendelian inheritance system and so should hopefully correctly populate across all family members and NPCs too. I'm not too sure how well this will work for characters created prior to this update — there is a lazy fallback implemented to TRY — so, maybe give it a shot and let me know?
This also means I've been able to introduce a 'View Profile' button which, while a little bare in its current state, gives us a perfect foundation for fleshing NPCs out a little more.
I have heard all of your feedback and this hotfix moves us away from vague statements, and closer to more realised lives. Instead of life-logs only tracking your reactions to life events, the entire event will be captured in the life-log so that it makes more sense moving forward.
All social interactions also now have (an albeit limited) pool of outcomes — including a mix of negative, neutral, and positive ones — and the surfacing of player-visible appearances has allowed us to add more customisation options during character-creation, but also in-game as well.
The long distance flag introduced for illegal emigration is now properly introduced for regular emigration too, meaning not all family members will choose to come with you, but also lock specific interactions when you're not in the same country as the NPC.
Anything that was mentioned above, but also:
minor updates and tweaks to succession and royalty.
minor court and nation improvements.
fixes for all remaining TV and Film bugs.
expansion of politics to missing countries.
access to ALL political roles, including Head of State.
restrictions to how epithets were awarded to royals.
removed duplicate or redundant life logs.
a few other minor quality improvements.
Again, all I can say is thank you for your patience, and I hope these QoL features and fixes elevate your OurLife experience! <3
Warm regards, WaveyGaming Productions
Hey everyone, please let me start by saying a huge thank you to everyone who has wishlisted the game, tried it out, or even reviewed it.
I appreciate every single one of you — including those of you who left negative reviews or refund notes, your feedback has helped me better fine-tune the game and provide a better experience for remaining players — and hope this first update addresses a few concerns!
So what can you expect from version 1.1 of OurLife?
This was one of the most widely requested features and (with a lot of tinkering and trial and error) I am happy to announce that beta global localisation is one of the defining features of this update.
Providing beta access to ~20 languages in settings, players will be able to experiment with localised gameplay. This, however, is subject to improvement as I plan to eventually open up translations to the community so players like yourselves can make culturally relevant changes and fixes.
Because this is early-stage localisation, it does mean a few words might be missed by the translator here and there and that some translations may be incorrect. Because the game also uses dynamic values and pieces strings together to create a final output, some sentence structure may also not localise as intended.
Please be patient with me on this as I trust, together, we’ll be able to improve its quality as the game evolves. Despite how often machine learning translation is used for game translations, it isn’t always reliable (nor is it cheap lol), so I really do apologise for any delays in addressing this.
Despite the rigorous testing conducted during both alpha and beta versions of the game, it appears A LOT of newer players were having issues with how the game was rendering, and, as such, I’ve introduced some key fixes.
These include improved viewport scaling, text and character anti-aliasing fixes, and a few more fonts players can use to customise their experience. I have also improved how UI scaling reacts to different screen sizes, as well as fine-tuned how full-screen settings work.
I’m so sorry for releasing the game with such a resource-intensive font, this has obviously now been corrected. The font I had initially selected — NotoMoji Colourful — was 28mb large and had a very large first content paint.
While players could have immediately circumvented this by using the other available options like emojis OR the NotoMoji BW (Plain) alternative, I have completely replaced this font as it’s really inefficient long-term.
Colourful mode now uses the open-source and hand-drawn OpenMoji font created by some incredible souls. If you’d like to support them and show them some love, please do! (OpenMoji graphics are licensed under the Creative Commons Share Alike License 4.0 (CC BY-SA 4.0))
Separate to the bug fixes and the localisation, whilst I was marketing the game, I was also working on designing and implementing in-game Lifetime Collectibles that could tie into Steam Achievements.
That’s when I came up with the idea of in-game trading cards that can be purchased using a brand new currency known as LP (Life Points), earned exclusively by completing ribbon-rich lives. With life points, players will be able to “purchase” Lifetime Collectible packs and unlock a range of satirical, parody-based OurLife trading cards to complete sets.
Each set you complete will correspond to a different Steam Achievement, and any duplicate cards can be converted into LP at a higher exchange rate to allow you to draw more. The game now has up to x6 achievements you can unlock, and, therefore, x6 trading card sets (29 cards total) ready to be collected.
Below is a list of all of the other smaller-scale changes made to gameplay, including any bug and quality of life fixes.
Fixed a bug where the Campaign tab would infinitely loop your current office level. US Senators (and equivalent levels) can now correctly see and run for the President/Head of State option.
All 7 cancer types in the game have been changed to provide more realistic base and stage-by-stage cure chances when seeking specialist treatment.
Added a universal "Stop Therapy" button to the lifestyle panel.
Citizens in countries with universal healthcare will no longer be charged the annual therapy fee.
Children can no longer go to bars with their friends and the "hit the bar" activity now requires a minimum age of 18.
When playing as a Head of State or under a regency, emergency response, asset protection, and medical outreach costs are now deducted directly from the Nation's Treasury instead of your personal bank account.
Old Money, Old Money Heir, and New Money are now all selectable traits during character creation.
Old Money and Old Money Heir now properly conflict with the new New Money trait.
Fixed a bug where playing with your pet accidentally filled their hunger bar.
Fixed the pet stat bars so the "Fed" bar actually stays high when your pet is full, rather than showing full when they are starving.
Fixed the bulk "Feed" action, which was accidentally making pets more hungry.
Fixed an unintended disparity where married/engaged couples had a 0% passive annual conception rate while affairs generated multiple attempts.
Long-term committed partners now have a stable 55% passive annual chance.
Fixed a bug where choice outcomes would print the literal raw code string instead of the relevant value.
Sibling availability flags now accurately update based on living relatives.
Fixed a glitch where dead kidnapping victims were re-added as live enemies and continued to trigger escape events from beyond the grave.
Again, all I can say is the hugest thank you to each and every single one of you who has engaged with the game in any way shape or form. It means a lot and I really do hope these fixes will improve your gameplay experience.
I’ve read a lot of the reviews and refund request notes, and I hear the feedback loud and clear. My aim is to, of course, deepen the gameplay with every update and — for those of you who have requested it — start moving away from the passive storytelling voice.
I had initially attempted to keep events quite passive and generic so as to not tell your characters’ stories for you. But I realise that, sometimes, too much passive autonomy can be boring and games like this should lean more into the specificity (and absurdity) of events instead of shying away from them.
Should you have any outstanding problems I haven’t addressed, please don’t hesitate to get in touch via email or by sharing your suggestions and thoughts in our community sub!
Warm regards,
WaveyGaming Productions
About
This page aggregates Steam news feeds, patch notes, and developer announcements for OurLife, sourced from official Steam community posts.
Major updates, balance changes, and seasonal events often correlate with player-count spikes — cross-reference announcements here with the live charts on the main OurLife statistics page.
Articles link back to Steam for full changelogs. SteamScope refreshes news entries as new posts are published to the game's Steam hub.