BitLife has just rolled out a new expansion pack — the Secret Agent expansion — and as evidenced by that update and the recent Model expansion, the game just keeps on growing and adding new features even in its sixth year of availability.
Something else that remains consistent for both iOS and Android versions of the life simulator game is the weekly challenge feature — we’re now five years into that aspect of the game, and it’s still driving its replay value and attracting players each week as they complete a series of tasks based on the week’s given theme.
This week’s BitLife challenge crosses into what we believe is uncharted territory (or hardly covered territory) for the game’s pop culture/current events references, as it’s inspired by a true crime case — that of Louisiana woman Gypsy Rose Blanchard. Each of the Pushing Roses Challenge’s requirements are inspired by the details of her case, and while each of them are very specific, we’d say this challenge’s difficulty level is right in the middle.
That said, if you’re having difficulty completing the challenge at any point, you should definitely keep on reading and check out this week’s BitLife mini-strategy guide, which features everything you need to know about the Pushing Roses Challenge.
Choose Crime as a Special Talent
When creating a character for the Pushing Roses Challenge, you don’t need to pay attention to anything in particular, just as long as the character is female and born in Louisiana — New Orleans appears to be the only city represented here — just like the real-life Gypsy Rose Blanchard.
You don’t need to pay close attention to any stat (except probably Smarts, which should be around 50), but what you’ll want to do here is to choose Crime as your Special Talent to make the process of killing your mother easier. (Of course, you’ll need to make sure you do this at age 23, and not a moment sooner or later! You’ll have to re-roll for a new character if your mother is unknown, and restart the challenge if she dies before you turn 23.)
The drawback here is that having Crime as a Special Talent could work too well for you — you may end up killing your mother and getting away scot-free for it. What we would advise here is to commit other crimes that may have you serving at least ten years in prison — for instance, you can try pulling off multiple bank robberies or attempt another murder or two.
But again, be careful about this leveling up of your dastardly deeds working too well, as you may get the death penalty and automatically fail the challenge if you’re executed within ten years.
Escape from Jail if You Aren’t Freed in Ten Years
Typically, when you’re arrested for murder or any other similar crimes, even a guilty plea won’t get you anything close to ten years — it will usually be much more than that, and you may get a life sentence.
There is the option to behave as well as possible when behind bars, which means staying out of trouble, volunteering whenever possible, and generally minding your own business, but the chances of getting your sentence drastically reduced for good behavior in the BitLife universe seem to be quite slim. Instead, your best bet would be to escape if you don’t want to wait too long to complete the rest of the requirements for the Pushing Roses Challenge.
Thankfully, there’s no longer any need to memorize or follow elaborate escape routes from how-to videos on YouTube — the game would usually give you the option to watch an ad video so you can steal a guard’s uniform and escape without anyone noticing. Ad videos seem to be longer than they were back in the day — you may need to sit through a minute of advertising. But it’s a small sacrifice to make so that you can escape without any risk of getting caught — at least not in the meantime.
Look for Potential Spouses with Low Craziness
Once your character’s a free woman, the next steps would be to find work as a writer and find a spouse whom you can marry within two years. We’ve had instances where we ended up with a partner who absolutely refused to get married within two years of dating, even when we purchased expensive (and authentic) rings at the jewelry store. This seems to be related to a high Craziness stat, but fortunately, that’s one of the stats you can view when looking for potential partners via the various options in the Love sub-menu.
There’s no restriction when it comes to gender or sexuality, but the important thing here is to look for partners whose Craziness bars are less than 30 to 40 percent full. Strangely enough, this means they’ll be more amenable to tying the knot even if you don’t have a ring to propose with, and once you’re ready to get married, you can choose any venue, any honeymoon destination, and disregard the prenup option — all that is irrelevant as long as you get married within two years of walking free from prison.
It May Take a While to Become a Famous Writer
Now here’s the reason why it makes sense to escape from prison once you reach the tenth year of your sentence — you don’t want to be too old to become a famous writer, as is sometimes the case when you first take this job in your 50s, or even 60s.
But even if you take a writing job at the age of 33, you may need to wait at least a decade, and keep using the Work Harder option at least 2-3 times a year until your Performance bar is full, before you reach Famous status. (Also, be patient if you don’t see the Writer job available right away — it will pop up eventually after you quit and restart BitLife at least a few times, and it’s one of the few occupations where having a criminal record won’t disqualify you from the job.)
After becoming famous, chances are you’ll have to wait about two years before you see the option to publish your memoirs. Do so at the soonest possible time, and regardless whether your book receives great reviews, terrible ones, or somewhere in between, that’ll be good enough to check the final requirement in the Pushing Roses Challenge and complete it, thus allowing you to choose a prize chest and unlock a new accessory for your BitLife characters (and NPCs too).