Free Interactive Life Simulators

What Would You Do
If You Were Them?

25 historical figures. 8 decisions each. Real choices, real consequences, and what they actually did — revealed after you decide. No login. No paywall. Works on mobile.

25
Figures
8
Decisions each
200+
Historical reveals
0
Login required
Scientists & Inventors
⚛️
NEWScience
Albert Einstein
1879 – 1955
"What would you have done with the letter to Roosevelt?"
Failed exam, patent office, the Theory of Relativity. Then the Nazis burned his books and America asked him to help build the bomb. 8 decisions from the most famous mind of the 20th century.
Play Einstein →
🍎
NEWScience
Isaac Newton
1643 – 1727
"Invented calculus at 22. Sat on it for 20 years. Then hunted counterfeiters."
During a plague year alone in the countryside, he described gravity, invented calculus, and decoded white light. Then he spent 30 years trying to turn lead into gold. 8 decisions.
Play Newton →
🐢
NEWScience
Charles Darwin
1809 – 1882
"He knew the theory would change everything. He waited 20 years anyway."
He had the theory of natural selection in 1838. He didn't publish for 20 years. His wife was devout. Then a stranger's letter arrived with the same idea. He had 90 days to decide. 8 decisions.
Play Darwin →
⚡
Science
Nikola Tesla
1856 – 1943
"Edison broke his $50,000 promise. He changed the world anyway."
AC vs DC. Edison's broken promise. Westinghouse's royalties. The Wardenclyffe Tower. The Nobel Prize Tesla refused to share. And the hotel room where he died alone. 8 decisions.
Play Tesla →
💡
NEWScience
Thomas Edison
1847 – 1931
"1,093 patents. He electrocuted animals to destroy a competitor."
The phonograph, the light bulb, the first power station, the film industry. He also waged a savage PR campaign against Tesla and AC power that he ultimately lost. 8 decisions.
Play Edison →
⚗️
Science
Marie Curie
1867 – 1934
"Two Nobel Prizes. Her lab notebooks are still too radioactive to touch."
First woman to win a Nobel Prize. Then she won a second one. A love affair destroyed her reputation. Radiation poisoning killed her. Her notebooks are stored in lead-lined boxes. 8 decisions.
Play Marie Curie →
Artists & Creators
🎨
NEWArt
Vincent van Gogh
1853 – 1890
"900 paintings. Sold one in his lifetime. Decision 8 switches POV to his sister-in-law."
Career change at 27. Invited Gauguin to live with him. Cut off his ear. Checked himself into an asylum. And it is his sister-in-law Johanna who saved his work after he died. 8 decisions.
Play Van Gogh →
🎵
NEWMusic
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
1756 – 1791
"Child prodigy who broke free — and wrote a Requiem for himself."
Left Salzburg, broke from his Archbishop-patron, married against his father's wishes, joined the Freemasons, and died at 35 writing a Requiem commissioned by a masked stranger. 8 decisions.
Play Mozart →
🎻
NEWMusic
Ludwig van Beethoven
1770 – 1827
"He went deaf. Then he wrote the 9th Symphony anyway."
Hid his deafness for years. Wrote the Heiligenstadt Testament — a suicide note he didn't send. Scratched Napoleon's name from the Eroica dedication. Conducted the 9th deaf. 8 decisions.
Play Beethoven →
🖼️
NEWArt
Leonardo da Vinci
1452 – 1519
"7,000 notebook pages. Fewer than 20 finished paintings."
Never specializing, left things unfinished, worked as a military engineer, kept the Mona Lisa for 16 years, and died asking whether he had achieved anything. 8 decisions.
Play Da Vinci →
📚
Art
J.K. Rowling
1965 –
"Rejected by 12 publishers. On welfare. Harry Potter almost never existed."
Divorced, single mother, on welfare, battling depression. She had the idea for Harry Potter on a delayed train. Then 12 publishers said no. 8 decisions from one of the most unlikely literary careers ever.
Play Rowling →
Business & Entrepreneurship
🍎
Business
Steve Jobs
1955 – 2011
"Fired from Apple. Built Pixar and NeXT. Came back to save it."
Dropped out of Reed College, co-founded Apple in a garage, got fired by the board he hired, built two other companies, and returned to launch the iMac, iPod, iPhone, and iPad. 8 decisions.
Play Steve Jobs →
🚀
Business
Elon Musk
1971 –
"His last $30 million. Both companies near bankruptcy. One day to decide."
PayPal sold to eBay. Tesla almost bankrupt. SpaceX's third rocket failure. The last $30 million had to go somewhere. 8 decisions from the most polarizing entrepreneur of this century.
Play Elon Musk →
💰
Business
Warren Buffett
1930 –
"He reads 500 pages a day. He says no to 99% of everything."
The $100 bill at age 6. The $6 partnership at 25. The decision to never follow the crowd. The pledge to give it all away. 8 decisions from the greatest investor in history.
Play Warren Buffett →
🎙️
Business
Oprah Winfrey
1954 –
"Fired as a TV news anchor. 'Not fit for television.' Built a $3B empire anyway."
Born in poverty, fired from her first TV job, told she was too emotional, too fat, too Black. Became the most powerful woman in American media. 8 decisions.
Play Oprah →
🏰
Business
Walt Disney
1901 – 1966
"Bankrupt, stolen character, told his dream park was a bad idea."
Lost Oswald the Lucky Rabbit to Universal. Created Mickey Mouse on a train ride. Went bankrupt during Snow White. Built Disneyland when everyone said a theme park would fail. 8 decisions.
Play Walt Disney →
🏍️
Business
Soichiro Honda
1906 – 1991
"Toyota rejected his part designs. His factory was bombed twice."
Part designs rejected by Toyota, factory destroyed by American bombs and then an earthquake, then the Isle of Man TT race against the best motorcycle manufacturers in the world. 8 decisions.
Play Soichiro Honda →
Psychology & Literature
🛋️
NEWPsychology
Sigmund Freud
1856 – 1939
"He advocated cocaine, abandoned his most controversial theory, fled Vienna at 82."
Cocaine advocate in his 30s, abandoned the seduction theory under pressure, watched The Interpretation of Dreams fail commercially, broke with Jung, developed jaw cancer from cigars, and finally fled the Gestapo at 82. 8 decisions.
Play Freud →
🔨
NEWPhilosophy
Friedrich Nietzsche
1844 – 1900
"He wrote for a future that didn't exist yet. Then he collapsed in Turin and never wrote again."
Resigned his professorship at 34, broke with Wagner publicly, self-published books that sold fewer than 100 copies, and collapsed in Turin at 44 in a mental breakdown from which he never recovered. His sister then used his notes to build a different philosophy entirely. 8 decisions.
Play Nietzsche →
🪲
NEWLiterature
Franz Kafka
1883 – 1924
"He gave his best friend instructions to burn everything. His best friend didn't."
Insurance office by day, writing at night. Three broken engagements. Tuberculosis as a gift of grace. Burning manuscripts in a Berlin stove. And the instruction to destroy The Trial and The Castle — given to the one man who had already told him he wouldn't obey. 8 decisions.
Play Kafka →
♟️
NEWLiterature
Fyodor Dostoevsky
1821 – 1881
"He stood before a firing squad at 28. The pardon came at the last second."
Mock execution, four years in a Siberian labor camp, epilepsy, gambling addiction, crushing debt — and Crime and Punishment dictated in 26 days to meet a contract deadline. The contrast between the life and the work is the Dostoevsky question. 8 decisions.
Play Dostoevsky →
🌺
NEWArt
Frida Kahlo
1907 – 1954
"35 surgeries. 55 self-portraits. She never painted dreams — she painted her own reality."
Bus accident at 18 shattered her spine. She started painting in a body cast with a mirror above the bed. Three miscarriages, 35 surgeries, two marriages to Diego Rivera. She painted all of it — not as therapy, as documentation. 8 decisions.
Play Frida Kahlo →
History & Underdogs
✊
History
Nelson Mandela
1918 – 2013
"27 years in prison. Refused conditional release. Then forgave his jailers."
Imprisoned at 44. Offered conditional release twice and refused both times. Walked out at 71, won the presidency, and refused to become what he had fought against. 8 decisions.
Play Mandela →
🌌
Science
Stephen Hawking
1942 – 2018
"Diagnosed at 21, given 2 years. Lived 55 more years and changed cosmology."
Diagnosed with motor neuron disease at 21. Given 2 years to live. Wrote his PhD thesis, A Brief History of Time, and transformed our understanding of black holes. 8 decisions.
Play Hawking →
🏍️
Underdog
Zhang Xue
1988 –
"Nobody heard this name before. He beat Ducati at the World Superbike Championship."
Broke motorcycle repairman. No money, no team, no sponsor. Went to the World Superbike Championship and beat Ducati on a Chinese-made bike. The underdog story nobody talks about. 7 decisions.
Play Zhang Xue →

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Frequently Asked Questions

What are these life simulators?
Each simulator presents 8 real decisions from a historical figure's life. You choose what you would do, then see what they actually did — with historical context explaining why and what resulted. It's a way to understand history through choices rather than just facts.
Are these historically accurate?
The decisions, reveals, and biographical details are based on documented historical sources: letters, biographies, contemporaneous accounts. Where historians disagree on interpretation, the simulators present the mainstream scholarly view while noting disputes where relevant.
Is there a "right" answer?
Each decision has one "historically correct" answer — what the person actually did. But the simulators are designed to show that many of these decisions were genuinely difficult, and reasonable people would have chosen differently. The score is a measure of how well you predict the actual choice, not a judgment about which choice was morally or strategically better.
Do I need to sign up or pay anything?
No. All 25 simulators are completely free, no login required, no paywall, and they run entirely in your browser with no data sent to any server.
How long does each simulator take?
Most people finish in 5–10 minutes. Each simulator has 8 decisions, each with a brief narrative section, three options, and a historical reveal. You can stop and resume at any time since nothing is stored server-side.
Which simulator should I start with?
The most popular starting points: Einstein (most dramatic decisions), Darwin (the 20-year delay is genuinely surprising), Van Gogh (the perspective switch in decision 8), and Tesla vs Edison (the same story from opposite sides). For the psychology & literature series: Kafka (the burn-everything instruction) or Dostoevsky (the firing squad as clarity). If you want the most unexpected one: Newton — most people don't know he spent 30 years on alchemy.
Will there be more simulators?
Yes. New figures are added regularly. If you have a suggestion for who should be next, the contact form at ordinarymantrying.com reaches the builder directly.