review: tomodachi life - living the dream
I have been anxiously awaiting the release of "Tomodachi Life - Living the Dream" on Nintendo Switch. It came out yesterday, and I have been lucky enough to spend the past 48 hours playing the game, making Miis, and discovering what is possible.
There are already immediate reactions: IGN released this review highlighting that the game is delightful, but lacks social media sharing capabilities. The game intentionally makes it difficult to share screenshots, videos, and assets because it is so easy to create problematic content (e.g. depictions of real world people doing inappropriate things). As a fledging Roblox developer, my insights are a little different - I am examining the core game loop and paying attention to what makes the game fun.
Tutorial Flow
The game has a LOT going on - Mii creation, Island Design, asset design, relationship management, etc. Similar to Animal Crossing, the game does not give you the full suite of tools immediately. You unlock the more complex capabilities as you level up in the game, which is a clever onboarding mechanic. The more time you spend in the game, the more things the game gives you to do.
Tomodachi has a "Wish Fountain", and as you interact with your Miis, your status bar at the "Wish Fountain" continues and you are granted "Wishes" to decide where you want to put your energy in the game. This is particularly interesting to me because it has (so far) four main progressions to follow - you can enrich your Miis, the Island, the Houses, or the Assets that your characters engage with. From a design perspective, a different team could work on each progression, and integrate the separate flows at the end. What I'm trying to say is that the game creates a forking pattern of things to achieve that feels something like a skill tree. There is always something new to do.
Character Creation is Fun
The Mii-making flow is rich. Not only do you have a delightful design flow for the look of your Miis, but you also are given personality toggles that at first seem odd and irrelevant, but create personas that are startlingly accurate for the characters I am trying to emulate. I spend a lot of time trying to make characters that resemble friends or celebrities, and part of the "delight" aspect is getting your personality card at the end and seeing a description of your Mii that is derived from your inputs of "Honesty", "Movement", and "Quirkiness".
Miis are Always Doing Something
The game keeps you constantly engaged because the Miis need constant maintenance. They develop worries (thought bubbles with scribbles above their heads) that you need to click on and resolve. Once resolved, the Miis move about their lives and pursue their interests without you having to tell them very much. You can nudge them in any direction you want, or you can simply sit back and observe. It's like having an aquarium with no dead time. There is always something interesting to look at.
Low Engagement vs. High Engagement Interactions
Playing with Miis gets a little boring after a while - you can poke them, nudge them, buy them clothes, and if you begin to lose interest in this mechanic, you can pivot your time to Island Design. Designing the island feels like a different kind of game, where you are painting on a canvas rather than pushing characters around. Then, if you are ambitious and have a lot of time, you can also design your own assets pixel by pixel. Assets are things that the Miis interact with in the game - like food and clothing. If I were to describe the level of engagement intensity, I'd plot it out as such:
Playing With Miis -> Building the Island -> Drawing Your Own Assets
This allows for different players to spend their time in different parts of the game, or even for a single player to engage in what feels like three different engines in one. One note - the Miis offer little mini-games, which are the lowest brain cell activities I've ever seen. They involve coin flips, red-light-green-light, and 3 card montes. You do gain gifts from these activities, but I find them to be the least engaging part of the game.
How This Influences My Own Game Development
As I make Roblox games in the future, I think I need to really champion the initial onboarding flow of my game. There should be plenty to explore and do when a user first logs on, and leaves them excited about the possibility of what can be achieved. I like how Tomodachi paces the reveal of features after a user understands core concepts. If anything, this will be the most important thing for me to focus on when making games in the future.