I feel like the Social-Sim/ Life-Sim genre is a little underdeveloped

[MrAnonym]

Social-/Life-Sim, eh? First probably makes you think "Sims". But there's been the essence of it in places where you wouldn't expect it, like in Crusader Kings or Rimworld (especially with Psychology mod). The Guild franchise qualifies, used to play that one a lot when I was younger. Technically there's also Dwarf Fortress but I feel like the social sim aspect gets lost easily with the high number of NPCs and convoluted interface. There's definitely Artificial Academy 2 which is gold standard for me and something I wish would appear again in the form of a sequel or a similar game with enhanced gameplay features.

 

I'm not aware of other games right now that model a lot of detailed NPC actors in a sandbox scenario interacting with eachother and the player being thrown into it as an equal (as in, it's not inherently player-centric). Makes me a bit sad to see that appearently it's quite the niche since these types of games have always been fascinating to me in an ant-farmy way.

 

To summarize what I like about the games I listed:

 

- Simulationist non-player centered approach

- Customization of behavior and aesthetics of individual characters

- Characters "bumping into" each other, pursuing their own agenda

- Interacting personally to mess around and see how the system reacts

- Less abstraction is better, lots of detailed personality traits like in CK2 for example

- Porn(-modding). If you are here you probably agree at least with that one.

 

Well, guess my point is I'd like to see more of that / express my longing sadness for the vague idea of a game that doesn't exist lol

 

 

[Kit Kitten]

My initial thought on the topic, at least from The Sims style of things is maybe EA has some sort of legal thing they try to pursue if anyone tries to do anything like it, regardless of if they have the grounds for it or not... that or other developers just haven't come up with any ideas that'll set their game apart from existing ones enough to even try. I do agree that games in the genre are few and far between and as you said we mostly see just small elements of it in other games but rarely the whole package. 

[Guest]

I've always wanted something like the sims just a bit more adult, and by adult i don't necessarily mean sex stuff, i would love something that is a mix of say the godfather 2 game and the sims, and maybe added sex stuff as well, EA really shouldn't have a monoply, Simulation type games are always the most interesting if done right

[FauxFurry]

Second Life is the best you're going to get for the time being. Singles: Flirt up your Life was one of the last attempts that anyone made at the genre and that was back in the era of the Xbox 1 as in the original not the Xbox One.

[Madison09]

The genre is definitely lacking in titles. I think the biggest problem is that no developers have the balls to take on the Sims franchise or invest enough into a new IP that can successfully challenge it.

[MrAnonym]

4 hours ago, Madison09 said:

The genre is definitely lacking in titles. I think the biggest problem is that no developers have the balls to take on the Sims franchise or invest enough into a new IP that can successfully challenge it.

IMO a new game doesn't even need to be exactly like the Sims as long as it's ambitious enough with modelling interactions and relationships. The housebuilding part is optional for me, but PC-NPC interaction probably shouldn't be the only activity in the game for variety and long term goal reasons.

 

Let me tell you a pipe dream: I had this idea for a 2D pixel-graphics social sim that's set in three floors of a dystopian Kowloon-like skyscraper, with ~30 NPCs. It should probably feature randomized NPCs with lots of diverse and impactful personality traits, money as a resource, an (off-map?) occupation and an inventory for important items and probably food too. Group- or gang formation systems would be cool. The big goal is to get enough influence to become and stay the defacto leader of your tower section through some sort of influence- or power system. Being friends with everybody, gaining favors or controlling the tower through force are possible ways.

 

But that's a pipe dream because I can't code and sadly I've proven quite resistant to learning it multiple times.

[NickNozownik]

On 4/14/2019 at 3:42 AM, FauxFurry said:

Second Life is the best you're going to get for the time being.

People still play SL? Last time I checked it was full of internet tough guys, single moms and completely unresponsive characters (bots I assume).

But yeah, I highly encourage everyone to play Second Life. Can I habe Lindenburgs pls, I'm autistic ☹️

[FauxFurry]

2 hours ago, NickNozownik said:

People still play SL? Last time I checked it was full of internet tough guys, single moms and completely unresponsive characters (bots I assume).

But yeah, I highly encourage everyone to play Second Life. Can I habe Lindenburgs pls, I'm autistic ☹️

I wouldn't know. There was no announcement of closure so I figure that it still has the minimum viable player base.

 

For now, there is too little bang for the developer's buck to bother with adding any other features other than the basics related to the game genre if it is aimed at an adults-only audience. One of the only adult visual novels with any gameplay at all was Amorous and that was abandoned before it was completely finished.

Too much stigma, not enough people willing to spread good word of mouth, et cetera. 

 

That's one little reason to hope that the silliness about derivative, unoriginal non-indicative titles can blow over soon so that Subverse can have a successful, highly visible launch. Other companies won't balk at the prospect of bankrolling or platforming adult games if they look like they'll pull in a good return on their investment.

[Guest]

3 hours ago, NickNozownik said:

People still play SL?

 

53 minutes ago, FauxFurry said:

so I figure that it still has the minimum viable player base

There is around 750,000 to 1.1 million users that login every month. And about 160,000 on any given day. You do have a number of bots but those are people that had used some program to set there avatar on auto when their not logged in.

[Rogelio11]

Hopefully we get a another that is like the sims so then we got more choices to play with. (I know there is sims 3-4 with adult mods. )