Where the data ends and your story begins
One Life Journal combines population statistics with fictional game rules. The statistics set the beginning and baseline survival; your choices shape the life that happens in between.
Updated
An independent game
One Life Journal is an independent life simulation at 1in8b-life.org. It is not the official 1 in 8 Billion game at 1in8b.life, and is not affiliated with that work or with the United Nations. Its schools, jobs, relationships and narrative rules are its own fictional game systems.
How the birthplace is drawn
The current game uses the 1950 historical births slice of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division's World Population Prospects 2024. It covers 237 countries and territories. A place's chance of being drawn is proportional to its number of births in that slice, rather than every place having the same chance. Sex at birth uses the local birth ratio. This is a fixed dataset, not a live count of births today.
How a life can end
For each year lived, the engine uses the corresponding age and sex from the place's period life table. Its death probability applies to a person who has already survived to that age. The game samples that risk year by year; it does not simply end a life at the average life expectancy. A life can end in infancy or much later.
A period model is not a personal prediction
Each birthday uses the period table for the year just lived, starting in 1950. A survivor reaches the historical endpoint in 2023 at age 73. In this version, education, work, energy and mood do not alter the baseline survival draw. The game does not diagnose health, predict a real person's lifespan, or model causes of death.
What is fictional?
Names, appearances, family circumstances, schools, qualifications, careers, housing, budgets and pensions are fictional. Credits are game units, not a country's currency or a claim about actual wages. Education and employment rules are not models of each country's institutions. Population data does not validate these fictional systems.
How decisions create different lives
Shared rules check age, relationships, skills, qualifications, resources and recent activities to offer suitable opportunities. Learning can open work options later; moving can change expenses; relationships can lead to new household choices. For work projects, the displayed success chance depends on the game state and governs the outcome. Learning goals also reflect recent choices and friendship. A lighter working pace trades some income for energy over three years. Losing someone close affects mood and opens space to remember them. There is no runtime AI model writing a new plot for every turn.
Why a saved life can be replayed
A generated starting value and your choice history reproduce the life under the same rule version. Reloading a save does not roll every outcome again, and changing language only changes the presentation. Different choices can lead to different personal histories while the same starting value keeps the same birth and baseline survival draws.
Sources and attribution
Source: United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division (2024), World Population Prospects 2024, Online Edition, including the downloaded interim update. The game selects a year, converts birth totals into sampling weights and uses sex-specific life table probabilities. The village or town in a new historical life is a fictional setting. Commute costs and bursaries are fictional rules. Population data is attributed under CC BY 3.0 IGO. Naming the source does not imply endorsement. Character labels use given names from a pinned Faker dataset and curated fictional casts, selected through explicit country/language profiles. They retain their spelling when you change the interface language. Profiles represent some local naming traditions and are not ethnicity or popularity estimates. Faker source and license. Choose a region on the map or leave the birthplace random. The era panel links to yearly World Bank statistics and UN population estimates. In the game, inflation of 10% or more adds one credit to annual adult expenses, a recession increases the risk of a job loss, and internet access can support learning. Health, costs and personal outcomes are fictional game rules. China, Japan and Britain have illustrated household scenes and local story chapters. In China the 1977 examination route, preparation costs and admission draw are fictional. Experienced candidates could receive an age exception; see the education ministry account. The Japanese and British chapters draw on the Japanese economic history and the 1974 UK parliamentary debate. Household decisions and their consequences are simulated. New lives use life-9.winter1950. Existing life-2, life-3, life-4, life-5, life-6, life-7 and life-8 saves keep their original rules and outcomes; their interface and journal presentation are updated.