The Life Sim Renaissance: Current State
Life by You is canceled, Paralives isn’t coming until next year, and with no release date for Inzoi yet, the life sim renaissance I’ve eagerly anticipated seems to be drifting further out to sea. With big contenders not yet in port, the wait feels endless. The question remains: won’t any game show up to take on The Sims?
A Hidden Gem: Tiny Life
Surprisingly, while we wait for the other big contenders, there is one Sims-style life sim already out—Tiny Life. Don’t let its lo-fi face turn you off; Tiny Life is excellent. Launched in early access in May 2023, I had only played its demo initially and then forgotten about it. Desperate for something new to play, I bought the full version and spent about a week with it. To my delight, it harkened back to some aspects of The Sims 3 that players have been missing, all while incorporating a bit of jazzy old software vibes.
What Makes Tiny Life Stand Out
Tiny Life has the same basic principles as The Sims: you can create a family of ‘tinies,’ build them a home, and live out their lives through job changes, new relationships, births, and social situations. It boasts an open-world neighborhood, mood-specific interactions, skills and life goals, craftable furniture, and the capability to build non-residential lots like bars and libraries. Tiny Life immediately endeared itself to me with its humor. I tried out one of its default families first: siblings Bernard and Bridget Benson. Bernard has the “mean” trait, which I only realized after he went to work. A series of notifications followed: Bernard insulted every single one of his new coworkers, earning a 2 embarrassed mood status from “embarrassing conversation at work.”
Building in Tiny Life
Next, I ventured into build mode to construct my first tiny suburban house. Although the catalog of furniture and decor isn’t vast, it offers a nice amount of customization. While not as powerful as the color and materials picker in The Sims 3, it allows individual color selection for different parts of an object, like bed frame versus sheets—a feature I wish The Sims 4 had. The build mode may look a bit clunky with its pixelated aesthetic, but it is relatively permissive, allowing you to turn off snap-to-grid, hide walls while building, and other conveniences I’m used to in The Sims.