How to play Agege Life

Careers

14

Places on the map

24

Shift length

60 min

Game clock

Lagos time

What the game is

You start with almost nothing: a name, a look, two traits, one big dream and whatever the birth lottery gives you. From there it is your life. You eat, wash, sleep and go out; you get a job and climb its ladder; you take small paid gigs; you buy furniture, move to a better area and, later, own businesses that pay you every evening.

Other real players share the town with you. You meet them in the same buka, market or club, greet them, chat and visit each other's homes. There are no levels to the game as a whole and no end screen. Your dream is the long goal; the small goal cards and wishes keep you busy day to day.

Your room

After character creation you land in your first home, drawn in 3D from above. Everything in it is something you can use. Tap or click an object and a card opens with what it does, how long it takes and which needs it fills. A new room comes with a thin foam pad to sleep on, a cooler box and a kerosene stove for food, a pail and scoop for washing, a toilet, a radio, a plastic chair and a side table. Your kitchen starts with a few groceries.

Pick an action and your person walks over and does it. Most actions take seconds, not minutes: the longest one in the game lasts 120 seconds. While one runs, a card at the top left shows it; tap that card to stop early.

The room changes with the time of day in Lagos, from dawn light through to night. To change your room, use Buy (see below). To move to a bigger room, use the Houses app on the phone. The homes and furniture guide covers both.

The HUD: what is on screen

The same few pieces sit over the 3D scene wherever you are.

The character panel

Tap your portrait to open it. It has four tabs: Needs (exact values, your current feelings and your traits), Goals (your dream, your start, your three live wishes and your perks), Skills (all nine skills with progress) and Career (job title, performance and what the next promotion needs). Wishes and perks have their own guide.

The phone and every app

Tap Phone in the bottom bar. It opens on a lock screen that lists new messages and your current goal; tap it to unlock and you see the apps. The back arrow returns to the app grid.

Buying furniture

Buy (in the bottom bar) opens the furniture catalogue for your own room. Pick an item, then tap a free spot in the room. The price is paid when you place it. You can turn items, move ones you already own for free, and try paint and floors on before you pay. Buy only works at home, and not during a shift.

The city map

Map shows Agege from above with every place labelled. Tap a place and its card opens: what you can do there, who is there now, opening hours and five ways to get there. Walking is free and takes 12–20 seconds; rides cost a little and are quicker. Every trip in the game takes between 2 and 20 seconds. The game remembers the ride you used last.

“Workplace” marks the places where one of the 14 careers works. Times are Lagos time.

Venues: inside a place

Arrive somewhere and you are inside it in 3D. The place is split into zones (the buka has its serving pots, the market its lanes). Tap a zone to see what you can do there: eat, relax, train, or take a paid gig. Gigs pay straight into your spendable money, each one waits 20 minutes before you can repeat it, and you can do up to 10 gigs a day in total.

The People list shows who is there: named regulars and real players (real players have a blue @name). Tap someone to open their card and choose 👋🏾 Greet, 💬 Yarn, 😂 Joke Around or 😒 Side-Eye. Do it often enough and a stranger becomes a friend, then a best friend. The places guide lists what every venue offers.

Controls on phone and desktop

The camera looks down at an angle and does not spin; you pan and zoom. On phones, cards slide up from the bottom; on tablets and computers they open as a panel on the right. Keyboard shortcuts are ignored while you are typing in a chat box.

Time: the clock is real Lagos time

There is no sped-up game day. The clock in the status bar is the real time in Lagos (West Africa Time, UTC+1, no daylight saving), and the sky in your room follows it. If it is 9 PM in Lagos, it is night in Agege. Everything is measured against that clock:

What keeps running while you are away

Closing the tab does not pause your life. While you are gone:

• Needs keep falling, but passive decay stops at 20. From full, the fastest need reaches that floor in about 8 hours.
• Being away does not make you sick. The floor of 20 sits above the sickness line of 15. Only work and gigs can push hunger, energy or hygiene that low; left there for 6 hours, you get mildly sick, and 24 hours later it turns serious. Eat and wash after a hard shift, before you log off.
• Bills arrive on Saturday at 9 AM and are paid from your wallet if the money is there.
• Businesses pay at 6 PM, but a business pauses after 7 days without you.
• A shift you started finishes and pays once, even if you closed the game.
• An action you started finishes on time and its effects count.

The needs and health guide has the full decay rates and the sickness rules.

What a normal day looks like

1. Morning routine. Use the toilet, wash at the pail, eat from the cooler box or stove. Check the needs dock: anything under 20 makes you worse at work.
2. Shift. If today is a workday for your job, press Start shift from home. Pick a work mode, answer the 4 tasks as they come and stay the full hour for full pay.
3. Gigs and venues. Open the Map and head out. Take a few gigs for extra cash, eat at the buka, train at the gym, greet people, hunt the day's gem.
4. Home. Restock the kitchen on ChopNow, cook a proper meal, buy something for the room and sleep to refill energy.
5. Check the Bank before the weekend so rent is covered on Saturday at 9 AM.

Short visits work too. Ten minutes is enough to eat, wash, take a couple of gigs and start a shift that finishes on its own.

Saving and continuing

There is no save button. Every action is saved on our server as it happens. When you come back, a welcome card shows your person, the date and your money, with two buttons: Continue carries on, and Fresh start begins a new life (it asks first, and the old one cannot be brought back).

Guest or saved account

You start as a guest: no email or password needed. A guest life lives on that one browser. To keep it safe and play it elsewhere:

1. Open Phone → Settings and tap 💾 Keep this life on any device (or “Keep this life” on the welcome card).
2. Enter your email and the six-digit code we send you.
3. On another device, tap Log in on the welcome card or creation screen, or 🔑 Log in to a saved life in Settings. Log in with an email code, or with a password if you set one in Settings.

Settings also lets a saved account change its email, set or change a password, log out other devices and delete the account (you type your @name to confirm).

18+ and the basics

• Agege Life is for adults. The first creation step has an “I'm an adult (18+)” switch, asked once per account.
• One person, one account.
• Naira in the game is play money only. It cannot be bought, sold or cashed out.
• Chats are filtered for scams, links and abuse, and you can block or report anyone.
• The game is in Public Beta: things keep changing, and your progress is saved.

Where to go next

• Your first session: creation, the starter goals and week one.
• The birth lottery: the two starts and how to play each.
• Traits and dreams: what to pick at creation.
• Jobs and skills and money and budget.
• The gem hunt and troubleshooting.
• Ready? Open the game.