Recent reviews by Laika

TLDR: simple but effective gameplay, limited replay ability, simple customisation, predictable characters and story.

Growing up is a fun casual life simulation game in which you grow from a child to an adult, using your time wisely to learn skills and shape your future.

In Growing up you will meet a variety of characters at different points in your life with different lifestyles and stories as well as endings based off the players interactions - similar to a visual novel. The characters change at random each time you play so getting the same character twice within the first few reruns is unlikely

The game plays very similar to a mobile game but it works well, the simplicity of the game followed by the management of your parents expectations and your own happiness makes for a good few hours of gameplay.

You progress your characters skills by managing their happiness and parental expectations, the game requires you to click “neuron’s” on a grid to achieve specific skill levels on differing stats, these stats go towards the subjects you learn and shape the career you end the game with. You will also need to manage your parent’s expectations which usually entails you learning different skills or working various odd jobs for money. Parents approval will open up more opportunities and can benefit you in many ways.

Gameplay segments are split up by character interactions which plays much like a visual novel, choices shaping how your friends lives continue after high school.

After the game is complete, you are able to continue as your characters child and the cycle continues.




I would recommend this game to people who are looking for a casual less intense game to just waste a bit of time on or those who enjoy visual novels.


Honestly, the game gets stale quite fast and unless you have an interest in the characters and their stories, you may only see yourself playing one or two lives.

I found myself playing a couple of lives but meeting the same few characters but this may just be down to my luck.


To be honest, I wish there was more diversity in dialogue, especially from the parents as I found myself skipping through the various bonding talks. I’m an enjoyer of roleplay, I like to play my characters life and watch as their life unfolds and if you too enjoy similar concepts, this isn’t the game for you as a lot of the story is samey and all really depends on who you meet.

The characters are hit or miss and all aim to fit a stereotype and if this is what the developers were after, great! But you can usually guess everything that’s about to happen so I recommend not going into the game expecting an unpredictable story.


The customisation is basic and optional, not much to say about it. You can change your hairstyles and clothing through parental approval then later through your own allowance/earnings. Body customisation isn’t possible, including size, facial features and skin colour and doesn’t tend to naturally differ much either but honestly, this isn’t what you play the game for.


Overall, this game was a fun grind for the first life, the story and characters aren’t great but the gameplay is simple and enough to keep you clicking

If this game was to have a sequel with more customisation and randomness I’d buy it in a heartbeat but until then, this game is good for what it is.

I'm welsh

It doesn't matter how good or terrible this DLC is, nobody plays it so you'll struggle to see if its even worth your money.

I like this game as I often turn to art outside of Steam games and have done for the past few years. If you are a creative person, you may find some fun out of this game.

However, the fun won't last, the game is quite repetitive. You paint, you place for sale, someone buys or people dislike it and it never gets sold. You progress, yes but it doesn't feel rewarding as nothing really changes, you just repeat the game in a different setting.

The pricing isn't really worth it, you will probably touch this once and leave it and maybe touch it again in a year or so.

Wait until a sale to get your moneys worth.

for gods sake don't try to kill the goOSE.

This is a game you will get an hour of fun out of at most and probably never touch it again.
You need friends that have it also, which can be difficult. I don't think there is a online play mode either.

Would I recommend this game? Not really, maybe if its on offer and you know you'll enjoy it?

There's not much to this game as you can imagine.