Life by You's Big Disappointment, InZOI Developer's Honest Confession, and Dating in The Sims 4 - Overview of Life Sims
Let's say goodbye to Life by You together, not forgetting that despite the problems of Paradox studio, other life simulators are still struggling to break the monopoly of The Sims.
Negative information can easily overshadow many minor successes - particularly in the gaming industry. I come to you with topics that may have been overlooked, especially if you have only been seeing news about failures or questionable decisions made by life simulator developers recently.
Life by You - aftermath of the cancellation
I have been following the topic of creating Life by You since the beginning, so I have some insight to share about the information regarding the cancellation of the project.
Right from the start, Life by You surprised us with the exceptionally ambitious approach of the devs, making this game a kind of tool for simulating virtual life, instead of an actual life-sim title with engaging gameplay. As someone who has played a wide variety of games throughout my life, not just casual ones, and has been consistently involved in the game development process, I was incredibly fascinated and thrilled by the idea of creating my own worlds, unique features, or complex quests.
At the same time, I was aware of how the various options available to players can impact the workload and potential challenges for developers. However, I thought that given the other titles in the company's portfolio, Paradox would be able to handle this. Unfortunately, even this giant couldn't do it.
Canceling a game doesn't mean that a certain idea isn't feasible. The official statement mentions that work was stopped because the path to releasing a satisfactory product would be too long and uncertain for the studio members. Despite applying a potential additional financial aid, the later sale of Life by You appeared more and more uncertain.
From the very beginning, the game announced by Paradox Tectonic wasn't a direct competitor to The Sims from EA. It wouldn't win over people who place a high importance on graphics, have less experience with technology, or prefer non-committal titles due to the complexity of the mechanics presented.
This situation hasn't been helped by growing player dissatisfaction over unfulfilled promises and release delays. After Life by You was canceled, many members of the community built around the game were unsurprised and acknowledged it as the best decision at this time.
However, this doesn't mean that everyone was indifferent to this information. Undoubtedly, the emotions remained negative, mainly justified by the disappointment people felt towards the unsatisfactory communication from Paradox Tectonic and the suddenness of this announcement, contrasting with the relationship built over months between the devs and the audience through the official game profiles.
The title has unexpectedly caused more controversy even after the official completion of work on Life by You. Reddit users reportedly found that the character models used in the pre-release versions of the game were supposed to come from a library of pre-made assets.
Relying on these assets isn't an uncommon practice, but it mainly occurs in the case of low-budget titles. However, commentators on Twitter stress that the main issue is the quality and lack of improvement of the materials used by the developers.
The entire Life by You story leaves us with a sense of disappointment. The title was supposed to be a big revolution and the first full-fledged competitor to overthrow the monopoly of The Sims.
In line with developers and internet users, I find the source of the game's failure in the studio's unmeasurable ambitions. With regret, I close this chapter in my private and professional life. However, I hope that the twin projects will learn a lesson from this failure to surprise us within their own reinterpretation of the genre.
InZOI - message from the dev
The regularity and availability of information about the development of inZOI is problematic for Western audiences because the game is being developed by a Korean team. However, the team members are working to address this issue.
Last month, Hyungjun Kim, the developer of the title, posted a long message on the project's official Discord server, primarily addressed to recipients outside of Asian countries. The post described the challenges of developing a life simulator from the viewpoint of citizens from a culturally diverse country, for instance, different from Western nations:
First, I want you all to know that our development team is working incredibly hard towards the Early Access launch of inZOI. First, I want you all to know that our development team is working incredibly hard towards the Early Access launch of inZOI. However, creating a well-made 'life simulator' is no simple task, and we are, by no means, an exception when it comes to facing our own problems during development from time to time.
One of the biggest problems is my lack of necessary insights into the different cultures around the world, simply because I have never lived anywhere outside Korea. This makes it difficult for me to make inZOI into a game that feels truly relatable for everyone. However, I believe that with 'proper communication' between us as developers and you as our community, we will be able to overcome this.
That is the reason why we decided to release inZOI as an Early Access game. In a game that's focused on the topic of 'life', we wanted to listen to our players, who I know come from a variety of cultural backgrounds, to which I believe will help us gradually make this game into a more and more 'complete' experience.
This is an interesting and non-obvious topic in the case of life simulation games. Individual cultural influences can have a significant impact on the development of life-sim type games due to the influence of traditions and small elements of everyday life on our perception of society.
Considering these diverse perspectives could have a significant impact on reaching non-Korean players who wish to portray their own personal stories in inZOI. It's very promising that the developers are noticing and highlighting this at early stage.
Nivalis - a fresh look at the life-sim genre
If you are looking for a more alternative approach to the life-sim genre, Nivalis will allow you to experience the challenges and charms of everyday life in a cyberpunk city.
The game is scheduled to debut on Steam and Epic Games Store in spring 2025.
- In a first-person gameplay without rigidly defined goals, we have to navigate our life in a brutal yet captivating futuristic city.
- Our successes will be determined by the career path we choose - whether we opt to operate a food stall, a pasta stand, a stimulant shop that will evolve into a bar, a restaurant, or a nightclub.
- In the meantime, we will be able to take care of our own home, build friendly or romantic relationships with the characters we meet, or engage in more mundane activities, such as growing plants or fishing, in a different version than usual.
Even though Nivalis deviates from the titles most often associated with the life simulator genre, it has the potential to fill the gap, appealing to players looking for grounded gameplay in a fantastical world.
The ION LANDS studio, responsible for the title, has developed two games, including the positively rated Cloudpunk - set in the same city as Nivalis, but with a more rigid narrative, focusing on the story of a courier of the future.
The Sims 4 - new DLC, changes, and promotions
The recently announced expansion for The Sims 4 titled Fall in Love may be controversial due to its depiction of some exaggerated elements of interpersonal relationships. However, it introduces the long-awaited dating app function, which has been replaced by many mods, and the heart-shaped bed, iconic for fans of the previous installment of the series, known from the original The Sims, or the ability for couples to cuddle while sleeping just like in The Sims 2 and The Sims 3.
However, in recent years, the premieres of DLC for The Sims 4 have been accompanied by free updates, introducing changes related to them into the game. While the members of Maxis haven't yet announced any specific content that will be available to all players, based on the trailer alone, we can identify a few elements that may extend beyond paid DLC.
The first is definitely the possibility of building rounded pools. Although it's easy to overlook such a small detail against the backdrop of the impressive apartment visible in the trailer, drawing conclusions from a similar situation when rounded walls were added to the game, it might not have been intentionally highlighted, suggesting its inclusion in the update.
Similarly, there is a depiction of barely visible eyelashes of an entirely new type in the new gameplay footage. Additional, more realistic eyelashes divided into clusters are also on the wish list of many community members. Making them available to all players would certainly be a satisfying move by the devs.
Apart from the still unconfirmed, potentially free elements, the game developers are hinting at possible connections of the Fall in Love expansion with other DLCs in an interesting way. On Steam we will find a new bundle called Get Dating, offering a 15% discount when purchasing the entire set. It includes Get Together DLC, Bowling Night and Movie Hangout stuff pack, as well as Simtimates Collection Kit.
We can use all of them to create romantic scenes between characters in our game, thereby connecting with the latest expansion. This could also indicate interesting additional interactions that arise from taking into account the other DLCs simultaneously.
Paralives - construction show-offs
From the first announcements of Paralives, many players were primarily impressed with the great freedom in terms of building. After years of working on improving the gameplay, the developers decided to return to this system, showing us its current version.
One of the most unique building elements in Paralives is the intuitive terrain grid, which we can freely turn on or off, adjust its density or even set at an angle corresponding to our less obvious buildings.
In a post on the Patreon platform regarding changes to the building mode, a new version of the item catalog was also included.
Its new project primarily includes a large number of characteristic icons, replacing the text. This intuitive solution is frequently used in games and can improve our comfort while building.
Despite the recent ups and downs in the world of life simulators, the genre continues to evolve and will undoubtedly bring us many positive surprises in the future.
