Building a life sim around one idea, that money buys your time back. A 3D city, 78 jobs, ten homes, a stock market and a newspaper that writes up your week.
You wake up in the park with twenty dollars and a bench. That's the whole setup of Rags to Riches, and the question is simple: how fast can you get rich?
One idea: time is money
Every week you get 100 time units. Working a shift costs time. Going to class costs time. Shopping costs time. And getting around the city costs time too, which is where the game really lives.
The free bus pass costs 3 time units per block, so a few errands can eat your whole week. A $50,000 limousine costs half a unit per block. Money buys your time back, and once that clicks, every decision in the game is about the trade between the two.
The ladder
There are 78 jobs, from a $25-a-week fry cook at O'King to a $1,500-a-week CEO at ACME Factory. Better jobs need education, so there's a university with 60 courses and a full prerequisite chain. Housing runs from a $10 shelter to a $1,000 mansion, rent is paid in four-week cycles, and if you fall six weeks behind you're evicted back to the bench.
There's a bank with loans and stocks, a grocery store (food spoils, and you get hungry), clothes that unlock better jobs, and a nine-vehicle ladder that changes the avatar you drive around in.
The Daily Rags
At the end of every week, The Daily Rags writes up what happened: 25 kinds of events, each with their own headlines, plus sales, price surges, weather and city news that actually change prices and travel times the next week. Lately it even fills its empty gaps with little classified ads and pull quotes.
Multiplayer
In July the game got shared multiplayer worlds. Everyone lives in the same city, on the same streets, chasing the same mansion.
Winning
You've made it when everything is true at once: the CEO job, the mansion, the limousine, every item in the shops, and wealth, education, happiness and health all maxed out. It takes a while. That's the point.
Play Rags to Riches free in your browser, and let us know your best time to Riches.
