After recently completing the two-decade long tutorial known as Academia, I've been dropped into the Open World part of Life...kinda like a Sandbox, but people get salty if you do something wrong...

Edit: seven year review - game is mostly solid, but occasionally World Events throw everything into pure chaos. The "Planning" strategy is high encouraged by the game, yet it seems to only be slightly better than the "pure chance" alternative. Not sure if bug or intended expectation subversion.