How to play

Life Path Architect is a way to explore possible futures, not to find the right one. You tell it where you are today, and it works out how your money, time and home could unfold from here.

Every future is 1,000 simulated lives. Each life meets its own luck: markets go up and down, jobs come and go, costs turn up out of nowhere. So instead of one line, you see where most of those lives land, year by year.

What that means for you

• There is no score and no winning. No board is the right answer.
• You see ranges, not predictions. A future shows what could happen across many lives, not what happens to you.
• Trying changes is free. Keeping a future is what uses an included future or an action token.
• Your choices and chance are kept apart, so you can see what one choice changes under the same luck.

Start a plan from Your plans: Just me, or Us (a couple). Then tell us where you are today in four short steps and an optional fifth:

1. About you: your age, what you do, and your pay if you want to give it. For a couple, the same for your partner.
2. Where you live: a U.S. ZIP code, used only to find your area and never kept, or your area from a list; and whether you rent or own.
3. Your money: savings, retirement accounts, other investments, debts, and about how much of your take-home pay you save.
4. Your household: children living with you now, and the chance events the simulated lives can meet (serious illness; on a couple's plan, losing a partner and separation, which stays off unless you turn it on).
5. What matters most (optional): how much things like money, security, time, family and career matter to you. It only shows how each future fits them; it never picks a future for you.

Life Path Architect then works out your ready-made futures for free: As you are today, plus up to two alternatives whose Future Midpoint of net worth moves furthest from As you are today, up or down. When everyone on the plan is 50 or older, one of them is a choice about when to retire, if any such choice makes enough of a difference.

Typical values

Leave out anything you'd rather not share. Life Path Architect uses a typical value instead: typical pay for your occupation, typical rent for your area and household, the U.S. average commute, and a retirement income estimated from your pay. The form says which value it will use, and the Buy a home card uses a typical price for your area unless a future sets one.

Changing your answers

Choose Update where you are, on your plan's page or in the board's More menu. Saving your answers makes a new starting point, and your ready-made futures are worked out again from it. Futures made from your earlier answers, including ones you kept, are no longer listed on your plan once you save new answers.

Life Path Architect is for adults: you need to be 18 or older. It covers the United States for now, and its figures come from U.S. data.

The board is the years ahead, one space for each year. On a phone and on a tablet held upright, time runs down the screen. On a tablet on its side or a computer it runs across, and on a tablet or computer you can switch it under More › Time runs.

Years and ages

Year 1 is the coming year. Each year shows everyone's age at the end of that year. A future's title counts years the same way, so a year means the same thing on the board, in the Keep panel and on the future's own page.

The money axis

The other way across the board is net worth: savings, investments and home equity, minus every debt. The scale is squeezed toward large amounts so that both the early years and the far years fit, so read values from the gridline labels, a year's reading or the table rather than by distance. The scale only ever grows while you play, so when a range looks bigger, it really moved.

The band: where 8 in 10 lives land

The shaded band leaves out the lowest 1 in 10 lives and the highest 1 in 10, so it holds the middle 8 in 10 of the 1,000 lives. The darker core inside it holds the middle half of the lives.

The line through the band is the Future Midpoint: in each year, half of the lives are above it and half below. It's a summary of the range, not a path any one life has to follow.

Solid, dashed and grey

• Solid indigo: a future on your plan. That's the future you started from, or a board you kept.
• Dashed and hatched indigo: a quick look at the change you're trying. It isn't saved anywhere.
• Grey: once you try a change, the future you started from turns grey so you can see both. It's worked out again beside your try, on today's model and the same lives, so they compare like for like.
• Dotted: right after a play, the board as it was stays for a moment as a dotted outline, then fades.

Pegs, flags and tokens

• Pegs are the cards in play, each on its year. Save and Pay debt faster sit on Year 1, because they run from the coming year; Hours sits on the year it starts.
• Flags mark the checkpoints at Years 5, 10, 20 and 30. Each flag says how many in 100 lives have six months of costs in reach that year. Tap one to read the meters there.
• The home token sits on the year you plan to buy, its ring split by how many lives buy on time, later or not at all (see Reading the results).
• The Debt-free marker shows the first year the midpoint of your debts other than a mortgage reaches zero, when there was such debt to begin with (full version).

The chance lane

The amber dashed strip along the edge is the chance lane. Today it's a reminder that every line on the board uses your plan's own luck: the same 1,000 lives for everything you see. Playing luck and surprises there is planned but not here yet (see Chance).

Reading a year

Tap the board, or use the arrow keys while it has focus, to read a year: where most lives land, the Future Midpoint and, once you've tried a change, the midpoint of the future you started from. The Table view (T, or More › Table view) lists every year with the same numbers.

Your hand holds nine choice cards. Each one is a decision the model already knows how to run. Playing a card works out all 1,000 lives again with that choice, for free.

Every dial also stops at the value your starting future already uses, so you can always go back to it.

Placing a card on a year

1. Tap Buy a home or A child. The card lifts and the track opens: Years 1 to 11, the years a card can go on, become rows you can tap, and the later years fold into one strip.
2. Tap a year. Or step through the years with ‹ › and press Place.
3. The card moves to its peg and the board works out 1,000 lives. While it works, the peg is dashed and the old numbers stay.
4. The new range sweeps in from that year on, the meters flip to their new values and a line says what changed.

To put a picked card down without playing it, tap it again or press Cancel (Esc).

Dials snap to stops

Save, Hours and Pay debt faster open a dial. A dial only stops at values the model runs, each one worked out on the same 1,000 lives for free. When a dial opens, the board works out all its stops at once, so moving it is instant, and nothing is drawn between stops. For Hours that is every hours stop for the person and length shown: picking another person or length works that one out when you pick it, and its hours stops on the slider's next move. If today's instant dials are used up, the dial says so quietly and each stop is worked out as the dial lands on it, with the last real numbers on the board until then.

Moving or removing a card

Tap a peg on the board. For a home or a child you get Earlier, Later and Back to hand, and for a home the down payment too. For a dial card its dial opens again, with Back to hand. Back to hand takes the choice off the board: renting, no new child, your usual hours or no extra on debt, even if the future you started from had it. For Save, it goes back to the rate your starting future uses.

With a mouse

Click a card, then click a year, or drag Buy a home or A child straight onto a year: the track opens and the years it can go on light up as you move. Drag a home or child peg along the track to move it, or off the board to put it back in your hand (the pegs of the dial cards open their dial instead); Esc cancels a drag. Hovering over the board shows a crosshair with that year's numbers, and hovering over a year while placing shows a faint peg where the card would go. Nothing needs a drag: every move also works by tapping, and every peg, flag and token is a button.

With a keyboard

With the board focused, press 1 to 9 to pick a card, the arrow keys to choose a year, Enter to place it and Esc to cancel. On a peg, the arrow keys move it and Delete puts it back in your hand. The full list is under Keyboard shortcuts.

When a card can't be played

A card that can't be played stays in your hand, dashed, and says why: you already own your home, there's no debt besides a mortgage to pay down (full version), a Keep is on its way, or trying is paused.

In the free preview you try one change at a time: put the other card back to try a new one. You can start from As you are today and the free futures.

The four meters

Four meters sit beside the board (on a phone, above it). They're read at one checkpoint year, Year 10 at first. They're the same size and they're never added together.

• Money: the Future Midpoint of net worth that year, with a bar for the range most lives fall in. Once you try a change, a grey tick on the bar marks the future you started from.
• Cushion: how many months of costs your savings could cover at the Future Midpoint, and how many in 100 lives have six months in reach.
• Free time: hours a week left after work or study, commuting, caring for children, housework, sleep and personal care, at the Future Midpoint. A couple sees a number for each of you.
• Home: with a home on the board, how many in 100 lives buy in the planned year, how many later, and how many not within the 5-year wait. Otherwise it says Renting or Own.

Tight-money years: when some lives have at least one, a line says how many in 100. It shows only when some do.

The free preview shows Money, and Cushion as the share of lives with six months in reach. The full version adds Free time and Home.

Checkpoints

Flags on the board mark Years 5, 10, 20 and 30, as far as your board goes. Tap a flag, or a year button beside the meters (on a phone, in the What changed details), to read the meters and What changed at that year.

The home token

With a home on the board, a round token sits on its year. Its ring shows how the lives buy: filled for lives that buy on time, hatched for lives that buy later, and hollow for lives that don't buy within the 5-year wait. A purchase waits until savings cover the down payment and closing costs. Tap the token for the numbers.

The debt-free marker

In the full version, a small marker shows the first year the midpoint of your debts other than a mortgage reaches zero, when there was such debt to begin with.

What changed

After each play, What changed compares your try with the future you started from at the checkpoint year, life by life: each of the 1,000 lives is set against the same life on the starting board, under the same luck. Then it says one of these:

• Clearly more: at least 9 in 10 lives end at or above the same life on the starting board, and the Future Midpoint is higher by at least $2,000 and at least 2% of the larger midpoint.
• Clearly less: the same the other way. At least 9 in 10 lives end at or below the same life, and the Future Midpoint is lower by at least $2,000 and at least 2% of the larger midpoint.
• About the same: anything else. Either some lives end higher and some lower, or the midpoints are too close to call.

The reason always sits beside the verdict, and Why? or Details opens it in full. When some lives end higher and some lower, it says how far the life-by-life differences of the middle 8 in 10 lives run.

Life by life: the 1,000 squares

Once you've played a card, 1,000 small squares under What changed stand for the 1,000 lives at the checkpoint year. Each life is set against the same life on the board you started from: filled squares end higher, hollow squares about the same and hatched squares lower, with the counts in words beside them. A life counts as about the same when it ends within $2,000 of that same life, or within 2% of the larger of the two when that is more. The squares are all one colour, because higher isn't good and lower isn't bad: they only show how the lives moved. On a phone they're in the What changed sheet: tap the What changed line (Why?, Details or Why both?) to open it.

When What changed says About the same while most squares are filled or hatched, Why both? explains it: the midpoint moved one way, yet at least 1 in 10 lives ended the other way, by any amount, so the change isn't clear across the range of lives. When some of those lives are within $2,000 or 2% of the same life, which the squares count as about the same, Why both? says so. On a phone, tap Why both? on the What changed line; on a tablet or computer it sits under the squares. The Table view lists the three counts at every checkpoint.

Undo and redo

Undo and Redo step back and forward through the boards you've played. A board you've already tried comes back at once, with the same numbers and no new run. Once today's try limit is reached or trying is paused, they stop too.

Boards tried and pins

Every board you try joins your trail: small pictures of its range, in the order you tried them, never sorted by how they came out. The trail keeps the last 12 boards on the future you started from, and Boards tried counts the different boards you've tried since you opened the page. Tap a picture to put that board back on screen at once, with no new run; with a mouse, hovering over one shows it dashed on the board without changing anything. On a computer the trail runs under the board, on a tablet it sits in the column, and on a phone it opens from the trail button beside Undo and Redo, or from More.

Pin up to 2 boards to keep them in sight: press P with the board focused to pin the board on screen, or use a picture's Pin board button. Pinned boards are drawn on the board as slate dashed lines labelled Pin 1 and Pin 2, and stay on the trail until you unpin them. The trail and pins live only in the page's memory: switching the future you start from, a model update or leaving the page clears them.

Start from

The Start from pill at the top switches the future the board starts from: As you are today, your other ready-made futures, and a future you opened with Play this board. Switching sets out a fresh board from that future; the plays on the last one aren't kept.

Your futures

Below the board (or More › Your futures) your plan's futures sit side by side. Each card shows where most lives land in 10 years, and the futures you kept are listed under the future they grew from. Only futures made from your current answers are listed.

Comparing futures

The comparison lines up your ready-made futures (As you are today and the free futures) on Money, Time, Career, Security and fit to your priorities; kept futures are listed under them, not in the comparison. An arrow appears only when a difference is clear across the range; smaller differences read about the same. Fit is relative to the other futures there, and an overall fit number shows only if you turn it on. Nothing marks one future as the answer. Under the board, Compare shows your futures three ways: Boards (up to a few futures side by side, the same size, each line told apart by style, colour and name; a surprise future's band runs amber from its year), Table (the areas and your priorities), and Stress test (the futures you tick against surprises you pick, the same luck, the cost shown first; the same test again is free). Nothing ranks them: the order is the order you made them.

Opening a future

Open a future to see its whole story: the range year by year, In short, its decisions, milestones, home timing, a typical week, career, health and family odds, the guided questions and What this is based on. The full version adds your biggest levers, choice vs chance and one possible life.

Play this board

On a future's page, Play this board opens the board starting from that future, so you can try changes on it. In the preview, only As you are today and the free futures can be played, and a future that tests a surprise is never a starting point.

Change a decision

In the full version, Change a decision on a future's page makes a new future from a decision you edit, without the board. It uses the same as Keep: 1 included future, or 1 action token once those are used.

Share a future

Share on a future's page makes a link to a card anyone can open without signing in: the shape of the net-worth range with no scale, your choices as words, the odds at the checkpoints and the surprise it tests, if any. Never an amount, a name, an age or anything from your profile. Each future has a single link; a new link replaces it, and Stop sharing turns it off at once.

Share a plan with your partner

On a couple plan, Invite your partner on the plan page makes a link to send them any way you like. Whoever opens it signs in (or creates an account) and joins the plan: they see the same profile and futures you do, and what they can do follows their own access. The link works once and stops after a while; a new one replaces it. Remove partner ends it from your side, and a partner can Leave this plan at any time. What either of you added stays with the plan.

Trying is free. Keeping saves the board you're looking at to your plan, as a future you can open and come back to. It stays listed on your plan until you save new answers with Update where you are (see Getting started).

1. Play until the board shows what you want to keep, and let its numbers settle.
2. Press Keep (or K). A panel shows the change, what keeping adds and exactly what it uses, before anything is charged.
3. Press Keep it to confirm, or Not now.
4. The board turns solid and says what was used. The new future joins Your futures.

What it uses

• 1 included future. Full comes with 12, once; there's no monthly refill.
• When those are used up, 1 action token (shared with Flower Architect).
• Nothing, for a board that's already on your plan: the panel says This one is already on your plan, uses nothing and offers Open it.
• With neither left, trying stays free and the panel links to Get 50 action tokens · $9.95.
• In the free preview, Keep explains the full version instead.

"The model was updated since you looked"

Keep checks that the numbers would be exactly the ones you saw. If the model or its data changed in between, nothing is charged and the board shows the new look, so you can decide again.

What a kept future adds

The same 1,000 lives and the same numbers you saw, plus your biggest levers, choice vs luck, one possible life year by year, career and health. On its page you can ask questions, draw Same choices, different luck and, where it's switched on, Test a surprise.

On a shared plan, your partner can see futures you keep.

If a Keep doesn't go through, trying again won't charge twice. Your included futures and action tokens are shown in the header and on Your plans.

Choices are what you play. Chance is what happens to the lives: markets, pay, layoffs, surprise costs and windfalls. Life Path Architect keeps choices and chance apart, so a difference between boards comes from your choice, not from luck.

What you can do today

• On the board, every line uses your plan's own luck: the same 1,000 lives for everything on screen. The amber chance lane marks this.
• On the board, New luck (the dice at the head of the chance lane) re-deals every line for the same choices, for free, up to 30 times a day — a count it shares with the dials. It changes only what you see: keeping a board always saves your plan's own luck, never a roll. On a future's page, Same choices, different luck does the same for that future.
• On a future's page (full version, where it's switched on), Test a surprise makes one thing happen in the year you choose, in every one of the 1,000 lives where it can apply: losing a job, your employer closing, a big home repair, a big rent increase, a promotion or an inheritance, for example. You pick who, when and, where there's a choice, how big.
• On the board, the chance lane holds the surprise cards under the dice: Deal one draws a surprise at random among those that can happen on your board, and Choose one shows them all, greyed with the reason where one can't apply. Either opens the surprise in the board's panel (who, when, how big), and the panel shows what the test uses before anything is charged: 1 included future, or 1 action token once those are used. A board that isn't on your plan yet is kept first (1) and then tested (1), both said first.
• The result opens on the board as a detour: the grey band is the same choices without the surprise, the surprise's own band runs amber and dashed from the year it happens, and the peg on the chance lane opens the comparison with and without it. You can keep playing cards on a detour: they keep the surprise, so the board answers what helps if this happens. A detour is never a free start in the preview.

The surprise sheet shows what a test uses before anything is charged: 1 included future, or 1 action token once those are used. The result is saved as its own future next to the one you tested, comparing each life with itself without the surprise, and it says in how many lives the surprise could happen. Testing the same surprise on the same future again is free. A surprise test is a test, not a plan: it doesn't mean the surprise is likely, and its size is an assumption we show you.

Chance events across the lives

Some chance events are part of every life's luck when they're switched on under Your household: serious illness and, on a couple's plan, losing a partner and, only if you turn it on, separation. They happen at the rates seen in national data, in some lives and not others.

Coming later

A surprise lane, where you can deal or choose a surprise right on the board, is planned but not here yet.

Illness, a partner's death and separation are never cards. You're never asked to play them: they stay as switches in your answers.

Guided questions

Every future has a list of guided questions, such as "Could the money run out?" and "What happens if things go badly?". Our own templates answer them from the numbers already worked out for that future: no AI, nothing typed and no limit. Some are part of the full version.

Ask in your own words

When the app is in English, a future's page also has Ask in your own words, where you can type a question in English. AI sorts your question: it matches it to a fixed list of the kinds of figures a plan has, and our code writes the answer with the engine's numbers. The answer says whether AI matched figures or only sorted the question.

What is and isn't sent to AI

• What you type is sent as you typed it, with names taken out where our rules spot them.
• With it go a fixed description of the kinds of figures any plan has, and the names of the futures you're comparing, in words like “the future where you buy a home”, with no numbers.
• Contact or identifying details, such as emails, phone numbers, addresses or dates of birth, have to come out before a question can be sent.
• AI never sees your plan's numbers, your other answers, your name or your email.
• Questions are never saved and never used to train AI.
• A plan with sensitive answers never uses AI. The guided questions answer instead.
• Futures that test a surprise aren't covered by typed questions yet.

Sensitive topics

When our rules spot a sensitive topic, like health, pregnancy, alcohol, smoking, gambling, relationships or safety, the box asks you first and sends the question only if you choose Send anyway. Where it may help, it also shows free support lines. Our rules can miss unusual wording, so type only what you're comfortable sending.

How many you can ask

• Each day: up to 30 typed questions with Full (members too), and 5 in the free preview.
• Each month, from November 1, 2026: 100 a month in your first 12 months of Full, then 30 a month; members 100 a month while their membership is active; the free preview 20 a month.
• Past the monthly allowance (Full and members), Ask with 1 action token for 5 more questions. Extra questions don't expire, and the daily limit still applies.
• The box shows how many you have left. Guided questions never count.

Turning AI off

On your account page, Never use AI on my plans turns typed questions off. On a shared plan, if either of you turns it on, it applies to the whole plan. The guided questions keep working.

These hold everywhere in Life Path Architect, on every board and every future.

1. Ranges, not predictions. Every future is 1,000 simulated lives, and you always see where most of them land, never one promised line.
2. No board is the right answer. Nothing here tells you what to choose.
3. This isn't financial advice. Your decisions are yours; for big ones, talk to a qualified professional.
4. Nothing is drawn between engine stops. Dials snap to values the model runs, and every number you see came from the engine.
5. Typical values are labelled. Anything you left out uses a typical value, and the app says so.
6. Choices and chance are kept apart. Cards are choices; luck and surprises belong to chance.
7. There are no scores, points, levels or a best board. The meters sit side by side and are never added up.
8. Same luck for everything on screen. Every line on the board faces the same 1,000 lives, so a difference comes from the choice.
9. Your tries aren't stored. Plays, the trail and pins live only in the page's memory while the board is open, analytics never record your cards, years or amounts, and only counts of today's tries and instant dials are kept.
10. For adults. You need to be 18 or older.

Ranges from 1,000 simulated lives, not predictions. No board is the right answer. This isn't financial advice.

Trying is free. Only keeping a future (or changing a decision), testing a surprise and extra typed questions use anything, and the button always says what it will use and how many you have left.

• Included futures are always used first, then action tokens.
• Action tokens are shared with Flower Architect. To buy more, look for Get 50 action tokens · $9.95.
• Daily limits start again at midnight UTC, which is 8 pm Eastern time in summer and 7 pm in winter, except Same choices, different luck and the ready-made futures for one plan, which count the last 24 hours.
• Your included futures and action tokens are shown at the top of your plans and in the header.

Everything on the board works by touch, mouse or keyboard. These keys work while the board has focus.

Shortcuts work only while the board has focus, and undo never fires inside a text field. The single-key shortcuts (1 to 9, K, T and P) can be switched off under More › Single-key shortcuts; the arrow keys, Enter, Delete and Esc keep working.

Accessibility

• List mode: with text at 200%, or on a board narrower than 320 pixels, the board becomes a list of years with their numbers, with the cards on the board and the home token as buttons above it.
• Reduced motion: if your device asks for less motion, every change appears at once, with no sweeps, flips or moving cards.
• Screen readers: the years are a list of buttons, cards and pegs are buttons, dials say their value and which stop they're on, the 1,000 squares are read as one sentence of counts, and one polite announcement reads each settled result.
• The table view lists every year's range and Future Midpoint: the same numbers as the board.
• Colour is never the only cue. Dashes, hatching and words carry the same meaning.
• Pinch zoom stays on.
• On a tablet or computer, More › Time runs switches between down and across. These settings last until you leave the page.
• Dark mode: Appearance (in the board's menu and on your account page) is System, Light or Dark. System follows your device; the board, the cards and every page follow the choice, which stays on this device only.
• On an Android phone, Vibration when a card lands gives a short tick when a placed card's numbers arrive or a dial lands on a stop: the same tick for every result, never a verdict. Switch it off in the board's menu; iPhones can't vibrate from a web page.

The board is the same game at every size. What moves is where things sit.

Phone

One screen for one hand. The meters run along the top with the What changed line under them, the board fills the middle, your cards sit below it, and Undo · Redo · Keep are at the bottom, under your thumb, with the trail button beside them. Details open in a sheet that shrinks the board instead of covering it. On a short screen the cards fold into a Cards tab, and while you place a card a bar with ‹ Year › and Place takes their spot.

Tablet held upright

The board on the left and a column on the right with the meters, What changed and its squares, your trail, and Undo · Redo · Keep at its foot. Your cards run along the bottom. Time runs down.

Tablet on its side

Time runs across. The board sits on the left, your cards under it, and a side panel on the right holds the meters, What changed, your trail, the details and Keep.

Computer

Your cards sit in a rail on the left, the board in the middle with your trail in a strip under it, and a panel on the right. Panels never cover the board, and Esc closes them. The question-mark button in the header opens the quick guide; on every size it's also under More.