The first real decision in BeMatrx comes before you have a face or a home. Right after your account details, the sign-up asks you to pick one of 12 careers, and that choice stays with your character for good. If you came here looking for a career simulator or a job simulator app, this is how careers work in BeMatrx, a life sim where the city keeps going when you close the app.
The 12 careers and their main stats
Every career has a one-line description in the app and one main stat. Here they are, grouped by that stat.
- Intelligence: Scholar (pursues knowledge and academic mastery), Doctor (heals and cares for others), Lawyer (navigates the world of law and justice), Pilot (travels the skies) and CEO (leads businesses and organisations).
- Physical: Chef (masters the art of cuisine), Police (protects and serves the community), Soldier (trains for discipline and service) and Athlete (trains for physical excellence).
- Influence: Musician (creates and performs music), Actor (performs on stage and screen) and Model (works in fashion and visual arts).
Your main stat can reach 100. The other two stop lower, and each career has its own caps. The caps also rise with your level: they start low and reach their full height at the top levels. In the app, Settings, then Career, lets you tap any career to see its main stat and caps.
You pick once, at character creation
The career step sits in the sign-up wizard, before you choose where to live. Once your character exists, the career is locked. There's no way to switch, and the Career screen in Settings is only for looking; its Save button stays greyed out. The Help Center gives the reason: the career shapes your progression, and fixing it at character creation keeps that progression consistent for everyone.
Jobs and ranks at the Job Center
Work comes from the Job Center in your city. You only see listings in your own career. Each shows a monthly salary in BeCoin and its requirements: a minimum level and, from Rank 1 up, a minimum in your main stat.
A new character starts at entry level, where there are three rookie jobs. They pay the same and give the same XP, so pick the title you like. Higher ranks begin at levels 10, 26, 42, 58 and 76. When you qualify for the next one, Advance moves you up and raises your salary without resigning, and if you level up into it, the job updates by itself. A same-rank or lower job means resigning first and paying back the salary for the days left in the pay period.
Salary arrives on the 1st of each month, in the morning by your home city's time. Rent climbs the same ladder: 900 BeCoin a month up to level 9, then a step up at each of those rank levels, whatever your job pays. Reaching the top of a career takes months of work, and nothing on the way is sold for real money.
Skills come from books
Each career has its own skills, each with a level from 0 to 100. You learn one by reading its book, which you order from BeShop, the city's store. Once the book has arrived and you're carrying it, reading takes four hours, and then the skill is unlocked. Your career's first book has no requirement. The others need a related skill at a certain level first, and BeShop tells you which one if you try to add a book you can't read yet. You read one book at a time.
Once a day you can set a Skill Focus: pick one unlocked skill below level 75, and all of that day's growth goes into it. From level 75 a skill grows through actions rather than solo practice. If nothing you've unlocked is below 75, Skill Focus points you to a career book.
Career actions and quests
Some venues are tied to careers. An Actor might go to a theatre, a Chef to a restaurant, a Musician to a studio, an Athlete to a stadium. There, some activities are open only to that career, and some raise one of your unlocked skills if you see them through to the end. Leaving some activities early costs part of the XP, and the app tells you how much before you confirm.
One of each day's quests is for your career. There's also a five-step career quest chain, which goes from career actions to skill levels and ends with your career's signature actions. It doesn't expire. Some steps unlock a career achievement, and each career has ten of those, from your first action at one of its venues up to reaching the top tier and maxing out every skill.
How to choose
You can't change it later, so here's what the mechanics reward:
- The main stat. Five careers run on Intelligence, four on Physical and three on Influence. Studying or reading can grow Intelligence, training can grow Physical, and performing or socialising can grow Influence. Your main stat grows fastest when your actions match your career, so pick the stat whose actions you'd happily do most days.
- The places. Career actions happen at venues tied to your career, so think about where you'd like your character to spend time.
It doesn't have to match what you do in real life. The Help Center's advice is to choose the one that best reflects the life you want to build.
BeMatrx is free on the App Store and Google Play for anyone aged 18 or over. You can get it here, read the full list in About career paths, or see how salary and rent fit into a month in A Life Sim You Share With Other Players.
