Candywriter may have started out as a maker of casual trivia/brain teaser games, but you probably know them now for being the developer behind BitLife, the popular-as-ever life simulator for iOS and Android that keeps getting bigger and better with each new update. This game, which is recommended mainly for players 17 years old and above, allows you to control a virtual human character known as a Bitizen as you navigate their lives from cradle to grave, making good and bad decisions alike as you chase after dozens of ribbons, which designate the type of life that Bitizen has lived.
Even with the folks at Candywriter busy with their social distancing, the company has been hard at work in improving its biggest hit title, and with the God Mode update now in the history books, version 1.34 arrived last week, with not just one, but ten new ribbons, along with a host of new and improved features!
We will be discussing the new features at the end of this article, but as you may have guessed from the title, this new BitLife guide shall focus on the new ribbons and how to get them. You may have gotten the 30 existing ones so far, but are you ready to collect even more?
BitLife Version 1.34 Overview: Introducing 10 New BitLife Ribbons
As you may have noticed, Candywriter appears to have been making subtle changes to the ribbon-getting mechanic over several updates. With some ribbons becoming much easier to achieve (most notably Mediocre and Stupid, the latter of which can simply be achieved by overdosing on drugs), others have become harder over time, but that’s what makes the game fun for many players — the thrill of the chase and the objective of getting all 30 ribbons. However, version 1.34 of the game added 10 new ribbons, including two hidden ones, and we’re going to look at them below.
For most, if not all of these ribbons, you will need to take several specific steps that need to be followed as closely to the letter as possible. Some are easier to achieve than others, and some may prove to be quite challenging and may require several repetitions before getting them right. So join us as we talk you through the process of getting the new BitLife ribbons.
Tarzan Ribbon
If you’re one of the many who at least checked out what all the buzz was about when Tiger King dropped on Netflix, this ribbon should be right up your alley. Basically, what you want to become here is the BitLife universe’s equivalent of Joe Exotic, though the mullet (and everything else about Mr. Exotic aside from his animals) is definitely optional. And you don’t need to limit yourself to wild cats either, as the goal here is to own as many exotic pets as possible during your lifetime.
While you may be able to ask your parents to buy you a few snakes at the regular Pet Store while you’re still below legal age, once you turn 18, the option to buy unusual pets through the Exotic Pet Dealer becomes available. Now the type of pet you will be offered will be completely random, and you will have the option to quit the app and restart it if you don’t like the pet that’s being offered. But we would advise staying away from the big cats unless you’ve got a lot of money and are earning quite a lot of it.
Snakes and birds are most recommended to own in general, though it wouldn’t hurt to mix things up from time to time with a coyote, dingo, fox, wolf, or a bobcat/other smaller, cheaper wild cats. Make sure you keep your relationship bar with these animals close to full, if not completely full! And stay away, as usual, from circumstances that could result in you getting other ribbons — for example, you might want to avoid getting a job in entertainment, as that could trigger the Famous, Rich, or even Loaded ribbons if your Fame/Net Worth get too high.
Going back to our earlier point, it is very important that you do not buy an exotic pet that you cannot afford to feed! Each pet will have a Monthly Expense, and if it reaches the thousands, not even most of the higher-paying jobs will be enough to sustain that pet throughout its lifetime! You may keep that pet even once your bank account is in the red, but even if you keep the Relationship bar healthy, it won’t be long before your high-maintenance pet (usually larger animals like panthers, tigers, or gorillas) will die of starvation.
That will definitely decrease your chances of getting the Tarzan ribbon, because it won’t matter at the end of the day that you’re broke — the fact you couldn’t afford to feed your tiger or gorilla the right kind of food will hint at some neglect on your part.
As an additional tip for getting this ribbon, it’s recommended that you try to get a job that’s related to animals, such as Cat Behavior Consultant or Pet Groomer. (You can also try Veterinarian, but since this requires post-graduate studies, you might end up with a boring old Academic ribbon instead.) The base pay for the first two jobs is rather low, but if you keep things simple — don’t marry or have kids, don’t own a car, buy the cheapest three-bedroom house — and work hard at your job, on top of choosing the right exotic pets, it is possible to stay in the black while making such a modest living and owning all these animals.
Gold Digger Ribbon
This is a rather challenging ribbon to collect, but if you completed the Gold Digger Challenge, which we had previously covered, you should have a good idea of what to do in order to be declared a Gold Digger in the world of BitLife. Whether male or female, you want to marry someone richer than you in terms of net worth, avoid having to sign a prenuptial agreement, and divorce them once someone richer comes along. Lather, rinse, repeat until you’ve earned at least $1 million through divorce settlements, and avoid any situations where you may increase your net worth outside of those settlements.
That essentially means avoiding getting a job and, if you have God Mode activated (this is a premium purchase, might we add), editing your parents’ Money or Generosity stats to ensure you don’t inherit much (if any money at all) when they die. You can also use God Mode to edit a spouse’s Money stat, keeping it low when the time comes to tie the knot and increasing it once you’re ready to dump them and move on to the next husband or wife.
As you may be aware if you already finished the Gold Digger Challenge, things can get tricky if you don’t have God Mode and you’re trying to avoid signing a prenup — NPC Bitizens weren’t born yesterday, and they can sense if someone is after them for their money! As an alternative to editing the Money stat, you can edit Willpower and lower it if you have God Mode, but otherwise, you’re better off paying attention to the Money stat and hoping for the best when trying to marry a rich Bitizen in the game.
Monopoly Ribbon
When it comes to getting this ribbon, it’s all about fixing and flipping. You don’t necessarily need a high-paying job, but still, we would recommend something that pays decently but not too much, such as careers in firefighting or law enforcement, as you buy your first few houses, renovate them, and sell them at a profit. If you take out a mortgage to buy a house, keep in mind that this no longer appears to be a workaround or a shortcut to earning a bigger profit — the game will notify you of your net profit or net loss if you sell a house that hasn’t been fully paid for, and if you sell too soon or don’t make the proper renovations, you shouldn’t expect to earn too much.
We would recommend buying a house that isn’t exactly in the best of condition — preferably one where the Condition bar is orange or red. Once you’ve bought the house — and we would recommend buying it upfront if you can afford it — live in it for a while, renovate it to increase its value until the bar is about 80 percent full or better, then put it on the market.
Better yet, you can purchase a haunted house in similarly questionable condition, renovate it, then exorcise whatever spirits are in the house. You may have to quit the game and restart it several times until the exorcist has banished all the spirits, as a failed exorcism would take its toll on your Happiness.
This could all take a bit of patience and you may need to quit BitLife and restart it multiple times if you get a “No Bites” or similar notification. You may also have to slightly reduce your selling price if no one is interested, but don’t set the price too high either — we would suggest setting the initial price slightly above the midpoint in terms of available pricing options. Just keep repeating this process until you’ve earned at least $1 million in profit through real estate sales — falling short of this threshold would leave you with the Successful or Mediocre ribbon.
We haven’t been able to verify just yet whether becoming Famous or Loaded could override things and prevent you from getting the Monopoly ribbon, but just to be safe, try not to get your net worth up too much and don’t become famous through entertainment jobs in order to increase your chances of getting the Monopoly ribbon.
Movie Buff Ribbon
Ostensibly, this may appear to be a rather simple ribbon to achieve — just watch at least one movie per year, every year, until you die. Doing this, however, discounts all the other myriad possibilities in a Bitizen’s life, and there are so many other ribbons that you can accidentally earn if you simply have your Bitizen live life as normal while merely ensuring they’re regularly going to the theater and watching a Comedy or a Documentary.
So what should you do if you want the best chances of becoming a Movie Buff? The first thing to do is to make sure you get a job that’s on the lower-to-midrange of the income scale. Don’t aim for promotion to the highest possible position — that means keeping your Performance bar from reaching full level so you can avoid becoming Fire Chief, Chief of Police, Superintendent, or other high-ranking positions in otherwise middle-class career tracks. You may even want to prank or spread rumors about coworkers from time to time, simply to avoid performing well enough to earn one promotion too many.
It also helps to avoid having more than one child (thus avoiding Family Guy if your character is male) and, if your net worth somehow makes it to the Successful range, you can buy an expensive car and avoid yearly maintenance so that it depreciates in value while also costing you a lot of money to use each year.
In short, you want your life to be as mediocre as possible while ensuring that you keep on watching movies at least once a year. Also, you can try exiting the game and restarting if there aren’t any new movies to watch — this could happen quite a lot once you reach the age of 65.
Yes, it may sound like lots of work. But being a Movie Buff, after all, doesn’t look quite as impressive on one’s headstone as being Rich, Loaded, Famous, or even merely Successful or a Family Guy who keeps his loved ones happy.
Generous Ribbon
The key to getting the Generous ribbon in BitLife is giving away as much of your fortune as possible. This is why it’s recommended that you don’t take a high-paying job if you’re trying to shoot for this ribbon — even if you give away a good number of expensive cars and houses to your friends and loved ones, earning too much of a fortune at the time of your character’s death could result in the Rich ribbon overriding everything else! But certainly, you would want to focus on giving away cars and houses, as well as smaller gifts, to the people you love on a regular basis. It’s also a good idea to make out your will to charity, as opposed to divvying up your inheritance to your surviving spouse and children.
And speaking of children, having many kids gives you more chances to gift them with cars and houses once they turn 16 and 18 respectively — if you have grandkids, all the better. (Just keep in mind that your children or grandchildren will let you know at some point if their needs are already covered.) Having lots of friends is also recommended, although prepare to hear from your spouse once they find you’ve gifted someone who is not related to you by blood with a flashy sports car or a large house.
When aiming for the Generous ribbon, always keep a close eye out on your net worth, as viewable in the Assets menu. If you’re in your 70s and 80s and you still see it’s close to the $1 million mark or over that, start buying some cars and/or houses and look for someone to gift them to! Again, you wouldn’t want to die with too much in your bank account if you want to avoid that all-too-easy-to-achieve Rich ribbon.
Barbie Girl Ribbon
This is BitLife’s first female-exclusive ribbon since the Cat Lady ribbon was introduced a while ago, and that is, in itself, obvious in the name. The long and the short of this ribbon is that you will need to be born female and undergo as many forms of plastic surgery as possible — Botox, Brazilian butt lift, nose job, facelift, you name it. We’re not quite sure how many surgeries would serve as the minimum to qualify you for this ribbon, but if you can afford it, we suggest going for all of them, with the obvious exception of Gender Reassignment. You will definitely want to die female in order to ensure that this ribbon gets added to your collection.
One important thing about this ribbon — it is imperative that you avoid the temptation to leverage your newly-improved Looks into an acting or singing career. That’s going to trigger the Famous ribbon, or the Loaded one if your net worth exceeds the $20 million mark, as you’ll essentially be remembered more for what you did in the world of entertainment than all the work you had done to yourself in the plastic surgeon’s office!
As such, it’s best to choose a low-profile, yet decent-paying career that could earn you enough money to live comfortably and still afford the surgeries. It wouldn’t matter, however, whether you choose to raise a family or not — as Family Guy is a male-only ribbon, you don’t need to worry about getting this designation instead for living a quiet, middle-class life with your spouse and two to three kids. (That said, it’s probably best to avoid having more than three children, so as to minimize chances of getting the Fertile ribbon.)
Veteran Ribbon
As the game explains, this ribbon is awarded to those who “serve a distinguished career in the military.” As we’ve found out, joining the military out of high school and spending most of your adult life in uniform wouldn’t cut it — you’ll only end up with a Mediocre or Successful ribbon for your troubles if that’s the case. It appears that you need to finish college and start your military career as an officer in order to qualify for this ribbon.
You will also need to advance through the ranks, right until you become the highest-ranking officer possible in your military branch of choice, and also take part in mine-sweeping missions and actually survive them. If you die while clearing those mines, you will instead get the Hero ribbon, so you may want to exit the game right after a mine explodes on you, restart it, and wait for your commanding officer to give you your next mine-sweeping assignment and hopefully complete it that time around.
Based on our experience, you’ll need to complete at least three successful missions in order to qualify for the Veteran ribbon — this is a largely luck-based element as some military careers will sometimes include just two missions, so you may want to quit and restart once you reach 50 and have only completed two missions so far.
Also be sure to keep your Performance bar full, or as close to full as possible for the duration of your military career — this means having zero tolerance for any kind of shenanigans among your subordinates, or yourself, for that matter, and avoiding any confrontations with fellow soldiers over rumors, pranks, or whatnot!
We haven’t been able to verify whether the Family Guy ribbon (for male Bitizens) overrides any success as a military officer, but to be safe, we suggest aiming for this ribbon as a female, or if you’d rather use a male character, we recommend staying single and/or not having any more than one child.
Of course, the fact that you need to focus on a military career for this ribbon eliminates most of the possibility you’ll earn fame as an entertainer, or make so much money that you’ll be considered Loaded. (You may want to avoid post-graduate studies, though it’s not like you’ll need them — as far as we’ve seen, the maximum age for entering the military as an officer is 30.)
Influencer Ribbon
This one proved to be quite tricky to pull off, but it appears to be very simple after all. While we thought at first that you had to focus on posting to social media without getting famous — hence avoiding a chance to get the Famous, Rich, or Loaded ribbons — it would actually be necessary for you to become a famous celebrity in the BitLife universe in order to collect this ribbon.
It doesn’t matter whether you wish to become famous as a singer, actor, adult film star, writer, supermodel, or whatnot — the important thing here is that you should keep on posting social media updates on a yearly basis. You can skip a year or two from the time you open an account (this option becomes available once you turn 13), but we recommend posting at least 100 updates throughout your lifetime, most of them once you’ve already become famous in your chosen career.
It wouldn’t hurt either to do a lot of the things that social media influencers do in the real world — go to the gym, go clubbing, buy new cars and houses, go on trendy diets, the whole works. But the main thing, it seems, is for you to post social media updates frequently and avoid doing the other things you can do once you become famous.
In other words, it should be all about the updates, without any books written, photo shoots for magazines, Tv commercial appearances, or even talk show appearances, for that matter. We haven’t tried mixing in any of these on an occasional basis, but based on our gameplay and what we’ve heard from a few other players, being an Influencer and getting the matching ribbon should be completely about the social media, without any of the other perks that you can enjoy as a celebrity.
Bandit Ribbon
This is one of the two hidden ribbons among the ten new ones added, and all you need to do to get this ribbon is to pull off a successful train robbery. This is fairly easy as long as you know how the mechanics of train robberies work — you need to be pulling them off at exactly the same real-world time as what is stated in the game.
That means you need to specifically be playing BitLife at 4:20 p.m. if you choose 4:20 p.m. when robbing the train, and need to be playing at midnight if you opt for the midnight time slot. It requires that very specific element of time, but other than that, there’s nothing else to getting the Bandit ribbon.
One thing to keep in mind, though, is that you will still need to keep other aspects of your life as undistinguished as possible after you pull off the train robbery. It’s not recommended that you build on your fortune through honest work, may it be as a top-level business executive or as an entertainer/celebrity, and it is not advisable either that you turn to drugs or other forms of crime.
While the game suggests that the Bandit ribbon is for outlaws, you don’t need to kill a lot of NPC Bitizens, or you may get the Deadly ribbon for killing more than five. Likewise, you’ll get the Stupid ribbon if you OD, even if it’s years after the train heist. Also, make sure that you don’t end up in jail for any reason after the robbery!
Big Boss Ribbon
This ribbon gave us quite a lot of difficulty, but after seeing how a couple people on Reddit got it, it turned out to be quite simple, albeit with a small catch — it is virtually impossible to get this ribbon as a first-generation Bitizen. As this would require you to become CEO at the company you work for and amass a fortune of $20 million, you would almost certainly need to be a second-generation Bitizen who inherited a large amount of money from your parent; while it is possible to earn $20 million in one generation, this can usually be done by becoming a famous celebrity (thereby leaving you with virtually no chance to reach CEO) or by having extraordinary luck in the casino or horse races (thus making you potentially more eligible for High Roller). So what is the best way to get the Big Boss ribbon?
We would recommend becoming a famous celeb with your first-generation Bitizen — Singer and Actor are the best ways to do this, as you can earn several million a year and augment that income with millions earned through books, commercials, and photo shoots combined. Also make sure you have at least one child (the fewer, the better), and if you can help it, do not marry the child’s father or mother. It also helps if your baby daddy/baby mama (or spouse) has high Smarts stats, as this will obviously matter a lot when it comes to the next generation.
Once you’ve earned your first $20 million or more (we suggest $30 million in order to take taxes into account), you can have one child — preferably the one with the best Smarts — inherit all your money through the Will & Testament section under Activities. Once that child is close to turning 18, you can either overdose on drugs (nightclubbing is still an option if you’re 50+ and famous) or go to the witch doctor to kill the first-generation character off, in order to ensure you control their heir right before they enter college. Alternately, you can only choose to have children in your 60s or 70s so that you can still live up to a fairly old age before the next generation takes over.
Now that you’re in control of the first-gen Bitizen’s heir, the usual steps apply for a CEO career path. Enroll them in a Finance or Information Systems course, make sure their grades are excellent or close to that, and if they’re popular enough, have them join a fraternity or sorority to increase the chances of bypassing the job interview — and the sometimes silly questions that come with it. After that, you can then enter Business School, then apply for a job in the Corporate track (Business Analyst, Financial Analyst, Computer Programmer, etc.) once you graduate.
While working your way to an executive position, make sure you’re making as many friends as possible in the office. Popularity will come into play once you become an Executive Vice President (usually by your 15th year at work, assuming your Performance is consistently good), as this could help you get promoted from one executive post to another sooner rather than later! Sometimes you won’t be able to help it — some of the guys and girls at work may refuse to make friends with you. But as long as your Popularity at work is well past the halfway mark on a consistent basis, odds are you should be a CEO by the age of 65 or a bit younger.
After becoming CEO, you can retire at any time you like, and just as long as you don’t do anything that could get you another ribbon — e.g. saving someone’s life (Hero), doing dangerous drugs and overdosing (Stupid), winning a ton of money via gambling (High Roller) — you will almost surely get the Big Boss ribbon once you die.
What Else Is New In Version 1.34?
Aside from the big addition of 10 new ribbons, Candywriter has added a variety of other features, which we shall be detailing below.
One important non-ribbon addition, we’d say, is the arrival of the Challenge Back Catalog, which allows players to redo challenges that had previously wrapped up, including the Alphabet Challenge, Ghostbusters Challenge, and Shamrock Challenge. This is great for new players who missed out when the first challenges were introduced to the game, or anyone who may not have been able to complete them before they expired. We presume all challenges will eventually be added to the back catalog upon expiry, which means there’s no need to fret if any of them threw you off too much for your own good!
Since the launch of version 1.34, BitLife has gone the way of Google and its daily themes for its search engine, this time introducing new scenarios specific to a certain day of the year. While topical scenarios (Tiger King and coronavirus scenarios still pop up from time to time) are still very much a thing, these new scenarios are only good for one day — for example, April 12 was all about National Grilled Cheese Day, while April 13 celebrated Scrabble Day. (As April 12 was also Easter Sunday, the Easter Bunny job was also temporarily available among the list of careers, though be warned that it pays rather low!)
As explained in the changelog, BitLife now comes with 88 new achievements, which include, but are not limited to those you can achieve for attending a BTS concert or becoming a K-Pop star (that is, becoming a famous singer in South Korea) for the latter, running into trouble while on a yacht (fitting, considering the recency of the Luxury update), and earning the top belt in all five available martial arts disciplines. We suggest giving the Achievements list a look-see, as Candywriter has seemingly added something new in each and every category.
Other new additions include cheating parents, which means it’s not just your partner who may fool around with other people — your parents, too, could be up to some hanky-panky, and we can imagine that wouldn’t look good for the Happiness of young Bitizens. Vacations and cruises, which were shut down temporarily in-game to reflect the current real-world situation amid the COVID-19 pandemic, are now back in business — that’s good news for anyone hoping to get the Globetrotter ribbon!
There’s also the option to take part in sweepstakes, which we haven’t encountered, but presume may be related to the free in-game car giveaways that make some of your stats perfect. Finally, enemies can no longer be unfriended, which means they’ll always remain in your life in one way or another — the option still remains, however, to change status back to Friends and see if you can still patch things up.