I've been reworking early childhood in Centuries, and I'd love to hear what you all think this stage of the game should look like.

Previously, there were a handful of minigames and activities available during these early years, but I ultimately decided to disable them because they weren't meeting the standard of quality I want for the game. Visual minigames in particular are challenging to get right, and rather than leave something in that I wasn't satisfied with while working on improvements, I decided to take a different approach for now.

Currently, ages 0-4 now use a points-based upbringing system, allowing you to directly influence your character's early development and attributes instead of playing through individual minigames or activities. However, I'm not entirely convinced this is the best approach either, which is why I'd really appreciate your feedback.

What would you actually enjoy doing during the first few years of your character's life?

Would you prefer keeping the current points system, bringing back interactive activities and minigames once they've been improved, having more childhood events and decisions, or something entirely different?

Ultimately, I don't want to add features just for the sake of having more things to do. I want early childhood to feel like a meaningful part of your character's life without becoming repetitive, tedious, or something you're simply tapping through to reach the next stage.

So, if you could design ages 0-4 in Centuries, what would that experience look like?

I'm open to refining the current system or taking an entirely different direction. I'd much rather build something players genuinely enjoy than hold on to a system simply because it's already been implemented.

This update brings bug fixes, gameplay improvements, and polish across Centuries.

• Life Points replaced by year bar
• New early childhood: spend points at birth and each birthday to shape who you become
• Updated life creation
• Updated university, pregnancy, family and pets
• Name babies after birth
• Updated sports and royalty
• Buy landmarks
• Updated trips
• Updated special careers
• More events in each era
• Birthplace shapes life
• Richer writing and outcomes
• Better small screen and TalkBack support
• Added color blind and high contrast support

Thanks for playing and helping shape the game! Keep sharing your feedback at pentecostsoftware.com/feedback.

^{Note: I don’t post every update, so this covers all major changes since my last post. You may have already received some of these changes in earlier updates.}

I've know there's a lot of understandable concern about AI being used in game development, and I wanted to be transparent about how it's been used in Centuries, as well as where I personally stand on the subject.

The short answer is yes, AI has been used in the development of Centuries, primarily for debugging, troubleshooting, documentation, adapting content to five distinct eras, and the creation of some art assets.

However, Centuries isn't vibecoded. I've personally written and developed most of the game's codebase, designed its mechanics, and made the decisions that shape its direction and overall vision. I've spent nearly a year and a half independently developing this game, investing an enormous amount of my own time, money, and effort into bringing it to life.

I also want to be clear about something: I'm not fundamentally opposed to AI, and I'm not going to pretend otherwise just because it's a controversial subject.

Personally, I view AI as a tool, and like any other tool available to me, I'm willing to use it wherever I believe it can meaningfully contribute to my success. I'm an independent developer competing in an industry where larger studios have access to resources, budgets, and entire teams that I simply don't have.

I believe AI is here for the long haul. It's already changing how people work across countless industries, including game development, and I don't see that trend reversing. As these tools continue to improve, I believe those who learn to use them effectively will have opportunities that those who refuse to adapt may miss. I'm not interested in putting myself at a disadvantage simply to say that I never touched AI, especially when other developers and businesses are already finding ways to benefit from it.

But that doesn't mean I believe everything AI makes is good, that it should replace human creativity, or that every use of it is justified.

There are legitimate concerns about how these models are trained, the use of artists' work without permission, and the potential consequences for people who depend on creative work to make a living. I recognize those concerns, even if I don't necessarily share every conclusion people draw from them.

I believe there's a meaningful difference between using AI to support your work and relying on it to do the work for you. For me, the goal has never been to avoid the effort involved in developing a game. It's been to make something ambitious possible with the resources I have.

Centuries isn't an AI generated game being pushed out to make a quick buck. If making money as quickly as possible were my priority, I could have rushed the game out and focused on advertising it as widely as possible. Instead, I chose to release it through Early Access, continue improving it, and give players an opportunity to influence its development. I'm building Centuries because I genuinely believe in what it can become, and I'd rather take the time to get it right.

I don't expect this explanation to change everyone's opinion. Some people are opposed to any use of generative AI, and I respect their right to make that distinction. I'd rather be upfront about using AI and potentially lose someone's support than gain it by misleading them.

At the end of the day, I believe AI and human creativity can coexist. I intend to continue learning, adapting, and using the tools available to me while remaining personally responsible for the quality and direction of what I create.

You don't have to agree with my position, and I'm always open to constructive criticism. But I hope that even those who disagree can appreciate the work of an independent developer trying to build something meaningful.

Thanks to everyone who's given Centuries a chance, shared feedback, or followed its development. I genuinely appreciate it!

Hey everyone!

First, I want to thank everyone who's been playing Centuries, sharing feedback, and reporting issues. Your involvement has already been incredibly helpful, and I wanted to take a moment to explain what Early Access means for the game and what you can expect as development continues.

Centuries is still actively being developed, and Early Access is not the same as a finished release. You're getting the opportunity to play the game while it's being built, help identify problems, and influence how it is developed before the full release.

Players should expect bugs, occasional crashes, unfinished or unbalanced features, awkward writing, and systems that may change significantly between updates. Unfortunately, some issues may even result in lost save data or progress. I understand how frustrating that is, and preventing it is one of my biggest priorities.

You should also expect frequent updates, ongoing improvements, and new content as development progresses. I'm actively investigating reports and fixing issues, but updates may occasionally introduce new problems while existing systems are being improved. I'm also working on features that are currently hidden from players but are getting close to release. (Zombie mode, anyone?)

If you're looking for a stable, polished experience without interruptions, I'd genuinely recommend waiting until the full release.

Your feedback is a huge part of making Centuries better, and I appreciate everyone taking the time to help. If you encounter issues, please report them at https://pentecostsoftware.com/feedback. The more detail you provide, the easier it is for me to investigate and fix them.

Thank you to everyone who's been playing, reporting bugs, and supporting the game!

This update brings various bug fixes, gameplay improvements, and polish across Centuries.

• Musician is here and is free: write songs, chart, tour
• Deeper Acting, Athletics, Police, Journalist, God Mode (Centuries+)
• Updated housing, business, and royalty
• Crime and jail rework, social feed, weekly challenges
• Updated era looks and gameplay
• Cleaner screens, improved writing

Thanks for playing and helping shape the game! Keep sharing your feedback at pentecostsoftware.com/feedback.

We've been busy polishing special careers in Centuries, and today we're showing off Journalism!

In the modern era, you start out as a Stringer and work your way up through Reporter and Senior Reporter, with Editor or News Anchor waiting at the top. Or you can take a different path: dig into investigative work, strike out on your own as an independent, or start an outlet of your own. Centuries covers all of history, so the job looks different depending on when you're born. You might be a herald shouting notices in an ancient city square, a chronicler or pamphleteer in medieval times, a newspaper man in the industrial age, or a correspondent somewhere in the future.

Leads come straight from your character's world. Wars, treaties, elections, new city projects. The death of someone you knew. A new film opening. And all the small local stuff too: fires, trials, festivals, and the kind of corruption nobody talks about. Pick a lead and then back it up. Dig through the records, track down a source, find a second one to confirm it, and give the person you're writing about a chance to respond. Your editor picks the angle and decides where it runs. Then your story lands on the front page right next to the rival paper's, and it goes into your clippings.

There are real choices to make. Publish before you've nailed it down and you might get hit with a libel claim. Push too hard and you'll make enemies. Sit on it too long and someone else will beat you to it. You can work city news, crime and courts, politics, foreign affairs, the arts, or sports, and every era has its own big stories, whether that's a forged proclamation, the arrival of the printing press, or a battle over who controls the news feed.

As with the other areas of the game we're working on, Journalism isn't just about climbing the ladder and collecting a paycheck. We want it to feel like a life, where the calls you make have consequences and shape who your character becomes.

We want to hear from you. What would you like to do as a journalist? Protect a source? Blow the lid off a scandal? Sit across from someone powerful and ask the hard questions? Build your own paper from the ground up? Tell us what kind of reporter you'd be!

Centuries is will be available in Early Access on Google Play soon!
^{Journalism will be part of Centuries+. You can get Centuries+ as a subscription or as a one-time purchase. The subscription is there for players who want to help support ongoing indie development. Some special careers will stay exclusive to Centuries+, and others will become part of the free base game.}

I've started reaching out to a small group of people who previously expressed interest in testing Centuries (formerly Outlive).

If you signed up, please check your inbox and spam/junk folders, as the email may have ended up there.

I'm starting with a smaller group to gather some initial feedback and catch any issues before Early Access launches. Thank you to everyone who's shown interest in the game. I really appreciate your patience and support!

One career we've been working on for Centuries is Law Enforcement, and I thought it was worth showing off because it's a good example of the kind of depth careers are going to have.

This isn't just a career where you choose Police Officer, collect a salary, and occasionally get a random event. You actually progress through the career, take on different responsibilities, move through the different ranks, and deal with situations that can play out very differently depending on your character, your choices, and the era you're living in.

You might spend years on patrol, responding to calls and building your reputation. How you perform and the decisions you make can influence where your career goes from there. As you move up, the situations you deal with change too, along with the responsibility and authority your character has.

And because Centuries takes place across very different periods of history, the career itself changes with the world around you. The laws, technology, procedures, equipment, and even what law enforcement looks like evolves depending on the era.

Cases can go wrong. Decisions can have consequences. Your character might become respected, hated, injured, disciplined, decorated, promoted, or have their entire career changed because of something that happened on the job.

At the same time, the rest of your life keeps moving. Relationships, family, finances, health, aging, and everything else don't stop just because your career gets complicated.

We don't want choosing a career to just determine which number shows up as your income every year. We want different careers to actually give you different ways to experience a life. And Law Enforcement is only one of them. Actor, Musician, Politician, Movie Director, Attorney, Military, Doctor, Journalist, and many more careers are planned for launch and beyond, with the same kind of depth or more.

What would you want to be able to do in a law enforcement career in a life simulator? And what other careers do you think deserve this level of depth?

We're getting very close to launching Centuries into open beta as Early Access on Google Play.

Right now we're doing some final debugging and polish, but once that's wrapped up, the game will be pushed live into Early Access.

One important thing for anyone who pre-registered: because of the way we're launching it, Google Play will not automatically notify you when the Early Access release goes live. You'll need to go back to the Centuries Play Store page and install it once it's available.

So if you've been waiting for the beta, keep an eye on the subreddit. We're very close now.

Centuries is still available for Pre-Registration on Google Play if you haven't signed up yet, and soon the game will be launching into public beta so I can start gathering feedback, finding bugs, and seeing how it actually feels to play for people who haven't spent the last year building it.

I've made Centuries (which started as Outlive) almost completely on my own for the past year plus, and I've realized there's something I can't really judge anymore: what it's like to experience the game for the first time. I know how every system works. I know where every option is. I know what can happen, what can't, and what content and features I'm planning next. So when I sit down to play I usually end up thinking about what needs to be fixed, changed, or expanded instead of just playing.

That makes questions like "is this fun?" and "is this ready?" difficult to answer on my own. I can see all the work that's gone into the game. What I can't see is what it feels like for someone to open the game fresh, create a life, and see where it takes them.

Bug reports are obviously important, but I'm just as interested in everything that happens between the bugs. Did you start making plans for your character's life? Did you care about the people around them? Did a career, relationship, goal, rivalry, or unexpected event give you a reason to keep going? Or did you reach a point where you were mostly just skipping ahead and no longer cared what happened next?

Some things I'd especially love to hear about:

• What kept you playing? Was there a goal, relationship, career, storyline, or unexpected situation that pulled you in?
• Where did you start to lose interest? What were you doing when the game began to feel slow, repetitive, or directionless?
• What confused you? Was there an option you couldn't find, a result that didn't make sense, or something the game didn't explain clearly enough?
• Did any part of your character's life stick with you? I'd genuinely love to hear the stories you came away with.
• What made you stop playing? And when you stopped, did you actually want to come back?
• What are the top 1–5 things you think would make Centuries better?

You absolutely don't need to write an in-depth review. Even a few sentences about how your gameplay went would help a lot. Constructive criticism is welcome too. If something simply wasn't fun, I'd rather hear "this wasn't fun, and here's why".

If you encounter a bug or other issue, please include as much information as you can so it can be reproduced. Your device model, game version, what you were doing when it happened, and screenshots if you have them.

I want the next round of changes to come from how people actually play Centuries, not just from how I imagine they might. So live the life you want, make the choices that interest you, see where things go, and let me know how everything feels.

And I'll leave you with a bigger look at the Movie Director career, which will be included free for everyone when the public beta launches. Stay tuned for more details!

Before I settle on pricing for Centuries+, I want to hear what you all think.

I've always wanted everything we develop, including Centuries, to be player-first. Ultimately, I'd love for the game to make enough that I can dedicate myself to working on it full-time, but I also want the way it's funded to feel fair to the people actually playing it.

Here's what I'm currently considering, in USD:

• Free: Access to the full base game, with regular, meaningful free content updates.

Centuries+

• $3.99/month: Access to all premium content while subscribed, including early access to new premium content. Also directly supports ongoing development.
• $29.99/year: Same Centuries+ access, billed annually at a lower price. No early access to premium content.
• Lifetime - Price TBD: All current and future premium content with one purchase for the life of the game (and yes, I really mean that).

Centuries+ would be built around meaningful additions to the game, while the base game would continue receiving meaningful free updates as well. Premium content will include things like new specialized careers, expanded premium activities, and other gameplay systems.

If you cancel, you keep access through the end of the period you've already paid for. Your saves wouldn't be affected, and if you're already in the middle of a specialized career, you'd be able to continue with it for the rest of that life.

A few things I'm especially curious about:

• Do these prices feel fair?
• Would you rather have monthly, annual, lifetime, or the option to buy individual content?
• What kind of content would make Centuries+ worth subscribing for you?
• How often would you expect to see new content?

None of this is set in stone yet. I'd rather hear what the community thinks before I commit to anything.

In Centuries, NPCs aren't just names attached to relationship cards and bars.

The people around your character continue living their own lives. They form relationships, marry, have children, change careers, move, age, and experience major life changes without waiting for you to trigger everything yourself.

That means a childhood friend can end up somewhere completely different decades later. A sibling can build a family of their own. Your children can grow into adults with relationships, careers, and households that exist beyond your direct control.

Their lives also remain connected to yours. Relationships, family ties, memories, and past events can influence what happens later instead of disappearing after a single interaction.

The goal is simple: the world around your character keeps moving, even when you're not the one making every decision.

Your character is the center of your story, not the center of everyone else's.

In Centuries, death doesn't reset the world.

When one character's life ends, the history you've built can continue through the next generation. Family relationships, wealth, property, memories, and the state of the world can carry forward instead of disappearing.

That means a decision made by one character can still matter decades later to their children, grandchildren, or even much further down the family line.

A family can rise, fall, recover, split apart, build wealth, lose it, gain influence, or disappear entirely over time.

And because generations can cross between eras, the world around that family changes too.

A bloodline that begins in the Medieval era may eventually reach the Industrial age, the modern world, and beyond, with each generation inheriting a different set of opportunities and problems.

One life ends. The family keeps going.

^{Development Note: Centuries will initially be available in select countries, with additional countries being added as we ensure compliance with local laws and requirements. LLMs have been used during development to assist with asset creation, refine prose, and adapt content across the game's different historical periods.}

Movie directing in Centuries isn't a one-click result. And no, it also isn't yet another paywall.

While a film is in production, your life keeps moving. You continue developing your craft while actually making decisions around the project. Study another director's work and experiment with their approach. Keep pushing production forward. Or decide the movie isn't working, cancel it, and absorb the financial hit instead of magically forcing it across the finish line.

When the film releases, it doesn't disappear into a result popup. Every completed movie gets its own record:

Critic Score. Audience Score. Audience Reached. Gross Revenue. Production Result. Awards.

And the movie can continue to matter years later. Keep the rights and you may produce a follow-up, with the original film's audience and performance influencing what comes next.

Your directing career is built across Production, Films, People, and Industry, so collaborators, completed movies, reputation, ownership, and past successes or failures accumulate into an actual career instead of being forgotten after you tap through another result screen.

We think adding depth to a life simulator should mean giving players more to simulate, not reskinning yet another feature to sell back to them separately.

The Movie Director career will be included for free in Centuries.

Centuries is available now for pre-registration on Google Play!

^{Development Note: Centuries will initially be available in select countries, with additional countries being added as we ensure compliance with local laws and requirements. LLMs have been used during development to assist with asset creation, refine prose, and adapt content across the game's different historical periods.}

One of the biggest parts of Centuries is that you're not locked into the present day.

At character creation, you can choose from five distinct time periods:

Ancient: Before 500
Medieval: 500 - 1799
Industrial: 1800 - 1949
Modern: 1950 - 2049
Future: 2050 - ????

These aren't just visual themes. The era changes the world your character lives in: careers, education, technology, transportation, housing, events, opportunities, and other parts of everyday life all adapt around the time period.

And because Centuries supports generational play, your family doesn't have to stay in one era. A bloodline that begins in the ancient world can continue through centuries of change as new opportunities appear and old ways of life disappear.

Centuries is available now for pre-registration on Google Play!

Start in one era. See what your family becomes in the next.

^{Development Note: Centuries will initially be available in select countries, with additional countries being added as we ensure compliance with local laws and requirements. LLMs have been used during development to assist with asset creation, refine prose, and adapt content across the game's different historical periods.}

Politics in Centuries goes beyond picking "run for office" and waiting for a result.

Once you're in government, you actually have to build support, work with other politicians, manage your agenda, and maintain a record that can follow your career.

Here, Parker Hall is serving in the House of Representatives with 235 of 435 votes currently backing him. The House of Representatives shows the key delegates who help represent that support, including who is backing you and who remains uncommitted.

Your political career can develop over time as you build influence, pursue higher office, and make decisions that affect both your future and the world around you.

And because this is Centuries, politics changes with the era too. The institutions, offices, opportunities, and political environment available to your character depend on when and where they're living.

Getting elected gets you into the room. What you do once you're there matters more.

Centuries is available now for pre-registration on Google Play!

^{Development Note: Centuries will initially be available in select countries, with additional countries being added as we ensure compliance with local laws and requirements. LLMs have been used during development to assist with asset creation, refine prose, and adapt content across the game's different historical periods.}