Writing Lessons & Advice: Story Star Life Simulator

I’m a fan of simulation games. The sandbox, open-world, world-building, customizable, role-playing, and/or choice-driven elements this genre can offer make them a wonderland to writers or creatives. We’re lovers of a blank slate, expressing ourselves, exploring, living our own lives, a dream life, or one of a particular character’s. So you can imagine my excitement to stumble upon Story Star Life Simulator: a game in which the player leads life as an aspirational writer!

Story Star Life Simulator was released in January 2024 by Chimpanzee LLC for iPhone and iPad devices as of this writing. The overall premise is to become a literary sensation with a ton of fans, awards, best sellers, and maybe even a publishing company! At the start, a player chooses an author/pen name and must balance energy and income between a job, health, skill and fanbase building, writing courses, and projects. Between each in-game week, regular “extra tasks” come up, like library visits, ghostwriting, annual checkups, open mic nights, charity offerings, or book signings, that work like boosts or bonuses to your experience, money, energy, or popularity. The game also covers all the bases of the modern writing profession with opportunities to blog, vlog, enter contests, self-publish, or publish traditionally. The player can even input their own titles, summaries, and choose the genre for the projects they create.

The overall gameplay is simple with a lot of point-and-click but the fact that nearly every point-and-click builds your character's success makes it engaging and addicting! (Luckily, I was either sick in bed with a cold on a weekend or recovering from gallbladder removal surgery and wasn’t neglecting anything important during the hours I ended up spending on this app!) It’s also been well-rated overall so far for its unique concept and how easy it is to get into. The company even seems responsive to most complaints/suggestions. A couple more plusses are that it is ad-free and free to download as of this writing! In-game purchases are offered but only for increased energy and/or currency at this time; they do not get in the way of the overall progress/experience.

I’ve seen or played a handful of general life simulation games, tycoon games, and maybe a few work-related ones, but I never could’ve imagined one that simulates the life of a wannabe writer! I hope other fellow writers or creatives check out this new approach to our lifestyle/calling/profession/passion and show other gamers that what we do has a lot more than meets the eye!

Check out the game now! https://apps.apple.com/us/app/story-star-life-simulator-game/id6475015577

Gameplay tips

Creativity and flow are the most significant talents to in-game projects. Typing and editing are a close second. Virality shouldn't be totally ignored as it influences the popularity of your work.
Take every boost/bonus you can between weeks!
The editing stage can add to your word count. If aiming for a short story contest, finish the work with a word count under 6,000 so there's room for flexibility. (The maximum for the contests is 7,500.)
Don't forget to keep up with your jobs to maintain your income early in the game! You need to change them every few weeks.
Use the course tracker to remember which ones you've completed and which ones you still need. Completing all of them gets you a bonus. $1,100 covers the cheapest ones.
Be very careful when tapping the top right corner of the screen when you have content open! I've accidentally deleted a few of my works-in-progress! Maybe the developers will make a safeguard for that.