The Life Series is a Minecraft multiplayer Hunger Games-styled series with 14 to 18 players per season. All of the players are famous Minecraft Youtubers, many of them from the Hermitcraft server. This server was created by British youtuber, Grian, who ended up winning the first season.
Every player was given three to six lives, depending on the season being played, and had to be the last person standing in order to win. The Life Series is also known as Traffic Life due to the use of green, yellow and red colors that are used depending on how many lives a player has.
What are the rules to these games? Starting with the first season, 3rd Life, each player is given three lives and all start off as a green name. A green name or a green life is someone who has their name above their head displayed in the color green. They have to be peaceful with each other and are not able to PvP, also known as player vs player when players fight each other.
Once a person dies, they go to yellow and their names are displayed in yellow. They are allowed to fight only if they are aggravated or get attacked by someone else. For example, if a player attacks a red name, making them lose hearts, or blow up a red name’s things such as a house or hurting a pet.
Once a yellow name dies and goes to red, all rules do not apply to them. Alliances that were originally set in stone are allowed to be broken and red names are allowed to attack or kill anyone they want in order to keep themselves alive.
Each season has different twists to them, and spoilers will be provided ahead. 3rd Life was the start of the series in April of 2021, so nothing special was added. Grian was named the winner after a fist fight to the death with his ally, GoodTimesWithScar, who is also known as Scar for short.
Last Life was created in September of that year. The twist to this season was that each player was given a certain amount of lives, between two and six lives, as well as the ability to give a life to another player. The biggest addition of this season was the Boogeyman.
A Boogeyman was randomly and anonymously assigned at the start of each session. A session was a week-long time period when each player was able to make their videos and post them. A Boogeyman’s one job was to kill someone without anyone knowing. Regardless of whether the person was a green, yellow or red, the Boogeyman could kill anyone. Alliances were also not valid to Boogeymen.
If the Boogeyman did not kill someone, they would lose a life in the next session. SMajor1995, more commonly known as Scott, won the series after a battle royal against Ren Dog, Pearlescentmoon and InTheLittleWood, also known as Martyn.
Double Life went back to three lives, but a player’s lives were tied with another player, called a soulmate or soulbound. Pearlescentmoon, or Pearl, won due to Scott, who was her soulmate, sacrificing himself in a pile of TNT. Since he was the one who died first, Pearl was given the win.
Limited Life had three lives as well. Each of the players were given 24 real life hours. If a player died, one hour was subtracted from their time. If a player killed another player, they were given an extra 30 minutes. Players started off as a green name for anything about 16 hours, yellow above 8 hours, and became a red name if they went lower than that. If a player ran out of time, they were done for the series. Martyn won this series after killing Scott and ImpulseSV in a rage while the three were deciding rules on a fist fight like Grian and Scar had done in 3rd Life.
Secret Life was a lot different than the past seasons. Each player started off with three lives per usual as well as being given 30 hearts each life. These hearts were not able to be given back if a player lost some, meaning that players could only get hit 90 times before dying.
Players had to complete tasks from a Secret Keeper statue that sat in the middle of the Minecraft World. If a player completed a task, they would be given 10 lives, and extra gifts if their 30 hearts were completely full. If a player failed a task, they had 10 hearts taken away. If a player does not think they could do a task, they had the option to reroll for a hard task which could grant them 20 hearts if they completed the hard task.
The catch was that players had to keep their tasks a secret unless it was specifically said a player could reveal it. If a task was called out, the task was considered a failure. If a player has a yellow name, they allow a guess to guess someone’s task. If they were correct, the task was considered failed. Scar won this season after sending Pearl into a ravine to an arrow.
Wild Life brought back the six lives due to its complexity and how deadly this season was. At the start of each session, a random moderation to the game called the Wild Card was added to the game. Some of these moderations could be players being able to eat items to keep themselves from starving, deadly snails following players trying to touch them which lead them to their deaths, and each of the players getting their own superpowers. This season was finished by Joel after he knocked Grian from a tree.
The current series was Past Life which used the six hearts mod as well as the Boogeyman rules. The catch for this season is that the world the players play in changes a Minecraft update every session, adding in new blocks, mobs, and techniques every session. Martyn won the season once again in a PvP battle against Scott, Grian, SolidarityGaming, also known as Jimmy and GeminiTay, also known as Gem.
At the end of Grian’s video on episode eight, he gives a timelapsed video of all the work the developers and coders had to do to update the world. To finish it all off, he gives a quick “thank you” to the viewers and then says he will see them all next time saying, “Sooner than you think.”
This YouTube series is so enjoyable and watching various Tuber’s point of views gives viewers so many perspectives of different ways to play Minecraft or overall enjoy the beauty and fun of the game.
There is even lore included in it with people called “Watchers” who watch over the worlds and control how the game plays out. Watchers were first introduced in Grian’s first SMP called Evo SMP. The SMP started off in Minecraft Beta and every few weeks, the game would be updated. Past Life was heavily based on Evo.
The Watchers are not actual people except beings in the Minecraft worlds. Grian in the fandom is said to be a Watcher though it is not entirely clear if this is canon. Martyn is huge in the lore and often talks with viewers on Tumblr about questions they have about the lore to clarify some things. A quick explanation to the Watchers can be found here and Martyn’s handmade videos of his lore in the series can be found here.
The fandom of this series is an extremely welcoming community to people joining into the fandom in the sixth season just like I was, or are veterans who’ve been watching since 3rd Life. There are cosplays, outstanding art and even merchandise that fans can check out throughout the internet. If someone is looking for a