Now officially five years old, BitLife remains extremely popular among life simulator games, may it be on the Apple App Store, where it had its humble beginnings in 2018, or on the Google Play Store, where Android phone users have long been able to download the game for their devices. The weekly challenges certainly have helped BitLife enjoy a lot of staying power, and it’s easy to see why — for a limited time, players can complete a series of tasks based on the week’s theme, though if you aren’t able to do so before the challenge expires, you can pay a onetime fee for the Challenge Vault, and access to dozens of previous expired challenges.
This week’s BitLife challenge seems to be another combination of international settings and unlikely killers with no real-life reference or inspiration. In the Farside Fugitive Challenge, you will be traveling far, far away as an astronaut, and as far as the “fugitive” side goes, you will need to be doing something illegal or two to complete multiple requirements.
This may take a while to complete, but it is relatively easy compared to other challenges, if you need help getting it done faster, please check out this BitLife strategy guide, which shows you everything you need to do to complete the Farside Fugitive Challenge in as little time as possible.
The Usual Process Applies When Applying for the ESA
The very first requirement in BitLife’s Farside Fugitive Challenge is to create a character born in Italy — they can be male or female, and you can choose any city in Italy, with no specific statistical details to keep in mind except their Smarts. As you’re going to need a college degree before applying for Space Academy, having decent Smarts (60 or better) could help you in getting a scholarship to both university and Space Academy — the latter, in particular, does not come cheap! It is also a good idea to choose Crime as a Special Talent, as that gives you a better chance of killing people (or pulling off other crimes) without getting busted by the cops.
There doesn’t seem to be any specific course you have to take to qualify for Space Academy, but we would recommend science-related courses such as Physics, and once again, performing as well as possible so you can qualify for a scholarship. But before you apply for Space Academy, you will need to get a Pilot License — this will first require you to pay for 40 hours of flight school, and with that in mind, you may need to get a less exciting, “regular” job to pay for that.
After you successfully pass Flight School, your next step would be to apply for Space Academy and go through the required training — physical, flight, and technical training. Physical training simply requires you to work out at the gym, flight training involves the flight simulator mini-game, and technical training consists of general science/space travel questions. If you get your performance bar to around 70 percent or higher within two years, you will pass Space Academy and be cleared to apply for the European Space Agency, upon which you’ll need to successfully answer yet another space travel or science question.
Getting to General Can Be a Grind
We’ve said it many times in these BitLife strategy guides, but grinding is indeed an essential part of many a challenge. And that is again the case as you try to rise the ranks from Cadet to General. Initially, your Reputation will likely be too low for you to qualify for any type of mission, so that means you’ll have to limit your activities to scanning the planets and stars for potentially interesting findings or sending messages across space. But once you get your Reputation above 60 percent, you can go on spacewalks or repair missions.
Keep at it until you get promoted to Captain, which will allow you to launch space probes that can discover new stars or planets. Once you’ve performed well in your missions and other astronaut activities, you will be promoted to Major, which allows you to go on lunar missions, and then General, which gives you clearance to go on Martian missions.
The thing here is to do as much as you can before hitting the Age button and to make sure you’re doing it right. There’s always the option to quit the game and restart if you make a decision in space that hurts your Reputation, or if you crash your spacecraft while navigating through the obstacles in the mini-game. And speaking of that, the game now allows you to watch videos to bypass the mini-game and essentially complete it successfully. Take advantage of this if you’re having trouble dodging the asteroids and other spacecraft you might bump into!
Apply for the Missions, Then Kill Your Targets
As for the “fugitive” part of the Farside Fugitive Challenge, this will require you to do two things — murder someone before going on a lunar mission, then do the same before going on a Martian mission. There is a specific way to go about this, and that’s to apply for the mission first, once your agency director has approved your request, you can go to the Crime menu and seek out your target before heading off on the mission itself.
As usual, the safest way to kill people is via Drive-By, and that applies regardless of whether you chose Crime as a Special Talent or not. This method leaves you with the lowest chance of getting reported by bystanders or getting caught by the police right after, so make sure you have a working vehicle so that you can use this method of murder before you fly off to the moon, and later to Mars.
Accomplishing both of the above requirements should also take care of the task where you have to murder at least two people, and with that in mind, that should also wrap things up for the Farside Fugitive Challenge. As always, you’ll have to choose one out of the four prize chests for a new piece of eyewear or a new hat that you can add to your list of Accessories.