Growing Up

Release Date: October 14, 2021

Adventure, 2D, visual novel, Polish, life sim, indie games, 90s, singleplayer

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Polish game with elements of life simulation and visual novel. In Growing Up we take control over the character, whom we accompany in all important periods of his life, deciding on his skills, career and relationships with other people.

Videos and Screens

[2:21] Growing Up trailer #1

Growing Up is a visual novel life simulator. The game was developed by polish studio Vile Monarch, known among others from the projects Oh...Sir! and Weedcraft Inc.

Plot

Growing Up takes us on a journey to the 90s of XX century. During the game we play the role of a character, which we accompany in all important periods of his life - from early childhood, through adolescence, to adulthood and parenthood.

Mechanics

The gameplay in Growing Up starts with choosing the sex of our character and giving a name. Then there is nothing left for us but to throw ourselves into the vortex of events on the way to adulthood of the protagonist.

During the game, we explore the city and discover interesting places, acquire new skills, make friends and enter into close relationships with selected people, as well as climb the successive levels of education (attending schools, participating in additional classes or taking various exams) and career. We can also try to have a child to start the cycle all over again. The choices we make shape both the personality of our character and the opportunities available to him. This means that each person we play can have a completely different life, and thus face different challenges and encounter different characters. All this is presented mainly in the form of static boards showing the places and situations in which our character finds himself at the moment. They are complemented by an interactive map of the city, from which we choose the places we'd like to visit, the need to make plans for the next days and various mini-games that accompany the selected activities.

The game features over 1000 lines of dialogue for each of the 19 characters whose lives run parallel to our own. It depends only on us how well we get to know them and how close our relations with them will be. There are over 200 skills and 42 unique professions to gain. We can choose a career as an astronaut, rock star or leader of a development studio or even choose politics and try to compete for the office of president of the United States. In the city we spend time in 30 different locations. In addition to all this we have a wide range of cosmetic items and clothes and hairstyles, thanks to which we can customize the appearance of our characters.

Technical aspects

Growing Up has colorful, cartoonish graphics kept in a pleasant to the eye style bringing to mind Weedcraft Inc., an earlier project of Vile Monarch studio.