1 in 8 Billion Glossary: Every Term the Game Uses

The game’s interface uses ordinary words in specific ways. “Draw” is not a lottery, “focus” is not a skill tree, and “life expectancy” is not a death date. This glossary is the short version; each entry links to the page that goes deeper.

A–C

Auto mode — A control that makes decisions for you so you can watch the life. It is a viewing mode, not a strategy mode. Controls

Babies born now — The default country draw. Each country’s weight is its share of annual births in the game’s 172-country table. Birth odds

Birth card — The registration card shown after you press Be born and before the life starts. It records the country, family, income quintile, parents, siblings, life expectancy and under-5 risk.

Class code — A four-digit code a teacher generates in classroom mode. Pupils who enter the same code are born as the same baby for that day. Classroom mode

Classroom mode — A separate entry screen for lessons. It holds back a list of heavier themes, disables posting and payments, restricts lives to today’s world, and adds a teacher lab, lesson guide and worksheet. Classroom mode

D–F

Death record — The retrospective shown when the character dies: life map, survival curve, country statistics, life record, family and same-second peers. Endings

Draw — The weighted random pick of a country. It is not a uniform 1-in-172 lottery, and it is not a draw from eight billion individual people. Birth odds

Focus — The one yearly priority you choose from school age onward: study, friends and play, work, family, health, rest and others. Each focus raises some stats and lowers others. Life stages

Future world — A birth setting that starts now and runs into UN and other projections. It is speculative, not a forecast.

G–L

Gentle mode / Leave out frightening scenes — A presentation setting on the birth screen that changes what the game shows. It is not the same as classroom mode. Settings

Keepsake pass — An optional one-time $3 purchase that makes films, albums and record books from a finished life and opens memorials. It does not change the simulation, has a 30-day refund, and is not offered in South Korea. Endings

Life expectancy — The average number of years a person is expected to live at birth in a given country and sex. In the game it is context, not a death date.

Life map — A grid in the death record with one square per year, colored by the character’s happiness that year.

Life record — The running log of events, decisions and milestones in a life. It is the evidence behind the status bars.

Life table — A table of age-specific mortality used to estimate survival to each age. The game draws the age at death year by year from the country’s life table by sex.

M–P

Memorial — A public shelf for a finished life that someone chose to keep. Visitors can light a candle and leave one of a set of words. Creating memorials is part of the optional keepsake pass.

Move my lives — A code-based way to carry lives from one browser or device to another. The game has no account, so this is the transfer method. Endings

Pace — The real-time target for reaching the country’s life expectancy: about 30 minutes, 1 hour (default) or 1.5 hours. It is not the age at death. Settings

Past lives — The archive of the ten most recent finished lives in the browser. You can reopen the death record, see the share card again or delete a life. A deleted life cannot be restored.

Population mode / The 8 billion alive now — The alternative draw. Each country’s weight is its share of the living population, not its share of annual births. China is much larger in this mode; Nigeria is much smaller.

PPP (purchasing-power parity) — A way of comparing incomes that adjusts for what money buys in each country. The game shows money in US terms with PPP context.

Q–S

Same-second peers — Four other babies born in the same second as the character. They follow the same statistics, not the same choices. One can die at 0 while the character reaches 80.

Share card — A summary image of a finished life that can be saved or shared through the device’s share sheet.

Status bars — The four 0–100 stats: health, happiness, knowledge and relationships. Higher values raise odds; they do not guarantee outcomes. The stats

Survival curve — A chart in the death record showing the share of people born the same year who are still alive at each age.

T–Z

Today world — The default birth setting. The life starts now and current statistics hold to the end. Settings

Under-5 mortality — The share of children who die before age five, expressed as a percentage or per 1,000 births. The game shows it on the birth card and in the country table.

Weighted draw — A random pick where each option has a different chance. The opposite of a uniform draw.

World — The era setting: Today, The past (1950–2025), The future, or Any world. It changes the statistics the life runs on, not the rules of the simulation.

Data sources, in plain English

UN World Population Prospects 2024 — The UN’s population estimates and projections. The game uses it for births, population, life expectancy and fertility.

UN IGME — The UN Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation. The game uses it for child mortality.

WHO Global Health Estimates — The World Health Organization’s estimates of causes of death by region and age. The game uses the patterns, not a specific person’s medical record.

World Bank WDI — The World Bank’s World Development Indicators. The game uses income, inequality, health spending and internet use.

World Happiness Report — A survey-based measure of life satisfaction. The game uses it as one of the country context numbers.