The life simulation “Growing Up” is currently on sale on Steam for €8.87. MeinMMO author Schuhmann spent six hours with the game yesterday, June 20, 2024, and says: If life were really as hard as it is in the damn game, we would all be total failures.
This is Growing Up:
In Growing Up you control the story of a newborn until his graduation – Trailer
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Cool life simulation with exciting gameplay loop
What fascinates me so much about the game? I’m a fan of life simulations, but there are few options other than the all-powerful The Sims. I always like to remember Kudos, where you start out as a young adult with your own apartment and where a visit to the dentist is the worst thing that can happen to you.
Growing Up is essentially a kind of thinking game that follows a fixed sequence:
On a “brain map”, you have to look at the order in which you press icons in order to collect the maximum number of skill points. This then unlocks skills in different areas that match the skills:
This brain map gets more and more complex from round to round, with numerous bonus icons that you’ll definitely want to take with you. There are ways to get bonus moves and even advance to the “next round”, so the better you get at this brain map game, the more skill points you collect and the more successful you become in life. It’s like a puzzle to solve.
There are also other systems that allow you to acquire skills, shop in the city, work, or pursue leisure activities.
It’s a great feeling of constant, controlled progress. It’s a bit like “The Sims” in how you progress so clearly in life. First you learn to spell, then to write, and finally to get into literature. Or you buy a skateboard with your first money, which you then use to spend your free time and get a bit fitter. You then want to collect enough points to get better at football.
That’s the catch: “Growing Up” is really brutally hard. Because there are two parameters: your own mental health and your parents’ reputation.
If you only work and don’t play enough, you become “overworked” and nothing works anymore.
But parents absolutely hate it when you do anything that looks even remotely like fun. Every time you watch TV or even ride a bike, your parents’ esteem sinks.
Then they make some absurd demands, like I should do a completely stupid skill once or ten times that doesn’t do me any good at all – purely arbitrarily because I supposedly “had to spend more time with my parents.”
When I disappointed my parents twice, they simply kicked me out and sent me to military school, even though I was so close to becoming a celebrated sports star.
After the game, you can really understand why teenagers freak out like that during puberty. It’s clearly the parents’ fault.
Reviews on Steam are 88% positive, raving about the game
What do the Steam reviews say? The reviews are 88% positive. Growing Up is seen as a refreshing life simulation that has a lot of character and is fun. Many reviews emphasize that they simply like the game and feel good when they play it. Many also praise the music and the satisfying feeling of understanding the game.
The role-playing scenes have been criticized – they are too repetitive and the dialogues are long.
How does the game run on Steam? Growing Up was released in October 2021 and hardly anyone was interested in it for 3 years after its launch. Only now in June 2024 do more players seem to be discovering the game. The game is currently experiencing a small renaissance (via Steam). This may be due to the sale that runs until June 27th. During this time, Growing Up is 40% cheaper and will hopefully find many more players. The game deserves it, even if the parents are really cruel tyrants.
Speaking of cruel tyrants and life simulation. In my favorite game on Steam, I am the tyrant and murder my parents when they cause trouble: Steam: I started as a lonely Viking – 400 years later, I have half of Europe, 12,300 descendants and a problem