$14.99Growing Up Grow Up, Your Way
Guide a kid through 1990s America, choosing friends, crushes and studies that shape a whole life.
Is Growing Up worth it?
Growing Up is worth it if…
- you want a relaxing life sim where small choices quietly build into a whole life
- you grew up in the 90s, or wish you had
- you like visual novels where relationships and endings depend on what you decide
- you enjoy replaying to see how a different childhood turns into a different career
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A whole childhood, one choice at a time
You start as a toddler and play all the way to adulthood. Along the way you decide what to learn, which activities to join, how to spend your evenings and who deserves your time. Schedule your days, survive school, explore the city, and try to keep your parents happy without losing yourself. Reach adulthood and your career and partner are revealed, shaped by everything you did. Then you have a child of your own, and the whole journey starts again as them, with new adventures waiting. It is a calm, low-pressure game: nobody dies if you flunk a test, but the small decisions add up into a life.
The 1990s, lovingly rebuilt
The city is a hand-drawn trip through a specific decade: over 30 locations, from cinemas to street shops, all rendered in a colorful, crafted style that feels like a storybook of the era. You can buy popcorn and watch "Dino Park" at the movies, or toss a few coins for a tape by "Boys Next Door" at a street stall. There is no rush. Between the nostalgic backdrop and Jim Guthrie's soundtrack, it plays like a warm memory of a time you may or may not have lived through.
200 skills, 42 careers
What you study decides who you become. More than 200 skills feed into a brain-shaped mini-game that builds your mind and aptitude, and tough exams can ace you into the best schools. Extracurriculars shape your character too. At the end of it all wait 42 unique careers, some easy to reach and some famously not: astronaut, CEO of a gaming company, famous actress, or President of the United States. Your choices also unlock new locations, characters and features for your future child, so the skills you chase ripple well past your own report card.
Friends, crushes and stories that branch
At its heart this is a story you steer, told through dialogue and illustrated scenes. Nineteen characters grow up alongside you, each with over a thousand lines of dialogue, and your relationships with them can turn romantic or stay purely platonic. Every decision echoes through the whole journey, with multiple endings for you and for your friends depending on how you treated them. Some romance scenes are genuinely well written, cute and a little thrilling, the way teenage love should be. Because each life faces different people and different challenges, a second playthrough rarely plays out the same way.
