My DUNYA (BETA)

My Dunya (دنياي, "My life")

You have just finished secondary school in the UAE. You are 18. Live your life from graduation to retirement at 50, then look back on your story and see what you are worth: everything you own minus everything you owe.

New in 0.1.6

• Play on your phone: tap to begin, with on-screen buttons beside the game. Xbox and other controllers work too.
• A shorter, livelier life: the road moves two years at a time, and small everyday money (Eidiya, Salik tolls, a cracked phone screen, cashback) comes and goes as you walk.
• Jobs that build your dream: jobs that lead to your dream show in yellow on the job board and give you a head start on its big moments.
• Retirement day: your whole life on one chart, your story decade by decade, a lifetime bank statement, then a thank-you screen with your earnings and 12 achievements.
• World leaderboard on our MediaScape site for members (here on itch.io the board keeps your best lives on this device).
• New scenery: the road repainted, townsfolk walking by, and a sky that turns from morning to midnight as each year passes. Money pages are now printed bank statements.

How it plays

• Choose Emirati or expat, your family's means and a dream: footballer, doctor, founder, pilot, creator or space engineer. Your dream does not hand you a job. Your choices do.
• Study, work, rent or buy, save, invest, marry and raise a family. The months roll by on the road; press SPACE to pause and manage your money.
• Real UAE money: dirhams, VAT, end-of-service gratuity, GPSSA pension, Nafis, credit scores, rent cheques, National Bonds, and Islamic and conventional banking side by side.
• Exams, interviews and your year-end work review are timing games: your skills set the size of the target.
• Life events turn out good, neutral or bad. Wise choices that go well spin the boon wheel for bonuses that last years; risky ones can leave setbacks.
• Your free time each year is a mini-game: a money quiz, the gym, the majlis, falconry or a delivery run. Haggle in the gold souk and at the car showroom.
• Watch yourself grow older, your family walk beside you and your children grow up and move out.
• "Trying life" mode: start with almost nothing and much worse luck, for a score multiplied by five.

Controls

Keyboard: number keys pick from menus, arrows move, ENTER is OK, ESC goes back, SPACE BAR continues, stops the timing bars and pauses the walk. Mouse works too.

Phone: tap anywhere to begin, then use the buttons beside the game (up, down, BACK, OK, SPACE).

Controller: D-pad or stick to move, A is OK, B goes back, X or START pauses.

Arabic and accessibility

Play in Arabic (العربية) from the title screen or the menus. Options: simple language, large text, colour-blind meters, and slower or automatic timing games.

Beta

This is a beta made for the Zoud GameLab game jam ("Make FinLit Fun"). Tell us in the comments what is confusing, what feels too easy, and any money detail that looks wrong for the UAE.

Basement Vibes Studios. Pixel art made with PixelLab and our own PIXLE tool; music and some sounds made with ElevenLabs; sound effects from Kenney and Freesound (CC0) and the Sonniss library.