Growing Up
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the Game
Your life is in your hands! Sculpt your childhood as well as parenthood with endless choices. Take control of what you learn, who you befriend, and find that special someone in this coming-of-age game.
Experience the entire journey from toddler to adulthood as you learn new skills, participate in various activities, develop your mind, manage your daily schedule, explore the city, forge friendships, and survive through school. Upon reaching adulthood, your future career, as well as your romantic partner will be revealed to you as you continue the legacy of your family by having a child of your own! And then… experience the life of your child, as the cycle begins anew, and brand new adventures await you!
- Chilling in 1990s
Lose yourself in the lavishly handcrafted sceneries straight from the 90s. In an era of rapid social change as well as the soaring rise of pop culture, your journey through life will be accompanied by both endearing friends and nostalgic city, with more than 30 locations to explore. Visit the cinema, grab popcorn to watch “Dino Park”, toss a few coins to get a tape recorded by “Boys Next Door” from a street shop. Take your time, the city is not going anywhere.
- Unique Playthroughs
Each life is different, and each and every character you create will face different challenges and meet different people. The choices you make will result in wildly different outcomes!
- Branching Narrative
Your choices dictate the development of the narrative. With more than 1000 lines of dialogues for each character, as well as multiple endings for you and your friends, depending on your choices, every decision you make will echo through the entire journey of your character.
- Friends For Life
Playing, fighting, falling in love, few things in your journey to adulthood can be done without a friend. Growing Up features 19 characters whose stories unfold alongside yours. Forge your relationship with them in any way your heart desires, romantic or purely platonic – the choice is yours.
- Dynamic Game Experience
Growing Up features a variety of systems. Build your mind and aptitude with our handcrafted mini-game; Master the art of scheduling your daily activities; Ace your way into the best school in challenging exams; Build your character by participating in a plethora of extracurricular activities.
- In-Depth Skill System
With more than 200 skills to acquire and master, you will have the ultimate freedom to shape the future of your character and end up with one of 42 unique careers! Some are easy, some are hard to get, but how about becoming an Astronaut, a CEO of a gaming company, a famous actress… or maybe even the President of the United States of America?
- Shopping & Customization
Customize your character with a wide range of items, including clothing and hairstyles. Your character’s room appearance will also differ depending the skills you learn! Different choices uniquely enhance your gameplay experience including unlocking new locations, characters and certain features of a future offspring.
- All-star Team
Growing Up is a game with rich storytelling and unique art style, from an all-star team of creators – including creative director Daniel Sadowski (director and lead writer on Gardens Inc. & Dr. Cares series), art director Gracjana Zielińska (lead artist on Cinders & Solstice), Kacper Kwiatkowski (designer and writer on This War of Mine), Christian Divine (Captain Spirit), Matthew Ritter (writer on Tales from the Borderlands & Twin Mirror), Emma Vieceli (comic book writer on Doctor Who, Back to the Future), and the music composer Jim Guthrie (Planet Coaster & Reigns: Her Majesty).
Steam User 72
Just two points about this game:
1. It only goes until the end of high school. Its okay, because there is a lot of replayability in relationships and aspirations, but if this game went through all stages of life until elderly and death, it would be an absolutely epic game. There is so much room to cover, and the devs laid a pretty good groundwork for a long lasting playthrough. The way it is, it feels unnecesarily open-ended, but I understand a playthrough that always ends in death could feel somewhat less chill :)
2. The game kind of implies that learning is always bad for your mental health (a stat in-game). Thats not the best message. At the very least, learning a skill accompanied with your highest stat should be in fact good.
Thats how hobbies and passions work..
But despite some strange balancing issues, the game can be recommended for what it is. A nice afternoon spent with a nice. chill game that can at times be a little touching.
I'd love more!
Steam User 46
This game is very addictive. I enjoyed it so much, but I do have some issues. It does get a bit boring when you keep playing it and you get the same characters every time. At this point, I just skip the social interactions with characters because it's the same material every time. I do know they couldn't add so many characters but it's a bit troublesome. Otherwise, in the beginning stages of playing the game, the characters are fun. This game is pure and shows the ups and downs of growing up. I love this game.
Steam User 64
A fun life sim with lovable side characters, the mini-games, the storyline, everything is designed very well. However, the game only plays through life from a baby to high school graduation, was a bit surprised because I was looking forward to playing through the character's life until they eventually die. That being said, it's still an enjoyable experience, and I'd recommend it to fans of the genre.
Steam User 33
---{ Graphics }---
☐ You forget what reality is
☐ Beautiful
☑ Good
☐ Decent
☐ Bad
☐ Don‘t look too long at it
☐ MS-DOS
---{ Gameplay }---
☐ Very good
☑ Good
☐ It's just gameplay
☐ Mehh
☐ Watch paint dry instead
☐ Just don't
---{ Audio }---
☐ Eargasm
☐ Very good
☐ Good
☑ Not too bad
☐ Bad
☐ I'm now deaf
---{ Audience }---
☐ Kids
☑ Teens
☑ Adults
☐ Grandma
---{ PC Requirements }---
☐ Check if you can run paint
☐ Potato
☑ Decent
☐ Fast
☐ Rich boi
☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer
---{ Difficulty }---
☐ Just press 'W'
☑ Easy
☐ Easy to learn / Hard to master
☐ Significant brain usage
☐ Difficult
☐ Dark Souls
---{ Grind }---
☐ Nothing to grind
☐ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks
☐ Isn't necessary to progress
☑ Average grind level
☐ Too much grind
☐ You'll need a second life for grinding
---{ Story }---
☐ No Story
☐ Some lore
☐ Average
☑ Good
☐ Lovely
☐ It'll replace your life
---{ Game Time }---
☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee
☐ Short
☐ Average
☑ Long
☐ To infinity and beyond
---{ Price }---
☐ It's free!
☐ Worth the price
☑ If it's on sale
☐ If u have some spare money left
☐ Not recommended
☐ You could also just burn your money
---{ Bugs }---
☐ Never heard of
☑ Minor bugs
☐ Can get annoying
☐ ARK: Survival Evolved
☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs
---{ ? / 10 }---
☐ 1
☐ 2
☐ 3
☐ 4
☐ 5
☐ 6
☑ 7
☐ 8
☐ 9
☐ 10
Overall fun and relaxing but I recommend it more on sale unless you REALLY love this style of game and REALLY want it.
Steam User 28
Growing Up is a life-sim in the same vein as Chinese Parents. I'd say I enjoyed Growing Up more partly due to just enjoying the game better in terms of mechanics, stories & dialogue, and the art & atmosphere, and that it is more relatable and enjoyable for people who have no ties or cultural connections with what Chinese Parents is based around.
I think it is a little disappointing that not much content has been added to the game in either updates nor DLC. If more story-lines, side-quests and other tangents that you're allowed to follow that takes you away from the main objective of starting as a baby and progressing till you're 18 was added, think of what you're able to do in Sims 4 where you can essentially pause/leave the main game and go on an adventure or vacation, I think it would be a lot more enjoyable and I'd probably feel motivated to do another play-through.
I really wish it was possible to keep playing your character after reaching adulthood with an option to end the run whenever you'd like. This would allow you to complete certain story-lines you never got to, complete subjects, hobbies & interests you never got the time to do, etc.
Yes you can start a new character over and over and do new play-throughs over and over, I'm not interested in that and I'd prefer to be allowed to stick to a character after 18 to do the things I missed instead of doing new play-throughs.
Generally I dislike how any form of learning is put forward as a negative for you and a positive for your parents, and any form of entertainment whether it be playing video games or learning jump-rope is a positive for you and a negative for your parents.
Chinese Parents was just extreme at this, thankfully Growing Up was a little bit more forgiving and not as punishing, it was manageable without destroying all the fun.
If this type of genre is up your street then I definitely recommend this game but I wouldn't expect to get tens and tens of hours of content out of it. 1 play-through was enough for me and that took about 3 hours.
Doing another play-through as a different gender or to go down different storyline paths could be interesting but I do feel that it lacks a bit in content. I recommend you get it on sale if you're interested, put it on your wishlist and maybe one rainy day you're in the mood for it, just make sure your expectations aren't sky-high.
I felt more like writing some of the negatives that I dislike, it's very important to bring that out in a review I feel.
Over-all I obviously enjoyed the game, that's why I'm giving it a Thumbs Up, I just wish certain things were a bit different and the fact that no content has been added over time is disappointing but understandable if the developers don't want to linger and instead want to complete new projects.
Curator page
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Steam User 16
- Decent but a bit repetitive gameplay.
- The arts and overall vibe are perfect for the game's setting.
- Nice and bittersweet character stories with a sizeable range of cast.
- The soundtrack is really great.
Steam User 12
Cute game! I enjoyed it. They shift out NPCs, so you're not seeing the same characters over and over. There's a lot of learning paths to explore. Very re-playable.
My only critique is that I wish they got a little more creative with the futures you can obtain. Maybe I missed out, but the futures I got were limited to whatever highest education tier I reached. I was kind of hoping that if my character was strong in two knowledge paths that they might fuse into a unique career path. I didn't see that happening. I'll still recommend it, though.