Life By You
I’m just going to say it: Life By You looks like it could be something special. We’ve already seen The Sims 4’s life sims get the Second Life treatment, but this new mix from Paradox Tectonic, and its subsequent blend of a life sim, modders’ toolkit, and chaos generation engine, has me intrigued. It looks a little bit chaotic, but in a way that’s strangely compelling.
Life By You is a very different proposition to The Sims, which is polished and refined. This new offering from Paradox Tectonic (the team behind The Sims 4 mod The Sims 4 Strangers) appears ambitious and, perhaps, slightly chaotic, but it also carries with it a certain allure. I’m willing to offer that verdict based purely on the footage below (and the fact that I own a copy of The Sims 2 for DS), but I’m hoping to spend some time with it soon.
The footage, from YouTuber The Sims Resource, shows a number of things. At its core, it’s a Sims 4 mod, so it’ll be familiar to those who play and mod the EA game. However, it also looks like it has some of the more emergent elements of Second Life. It also seems to include a little bit of both The Sims and Life Is Strange, with its own flavor of character customization and narrative choice.
Life By You will allow players to freely edit their character, including gender and sexuality, and edit dialogues and conversations. The interface looks super easy to use, and while it will be limited to adults and a few pre-built Sims at launch, it sounds like it will be able to accommodate more Sims and content post-launch.
That’s not all, though. Paradox Tectonic is encouraging players to embrace the game’s fundamentals and offer them up for customization. The editable color hex code and object editor will allow for plenty of tinkering, and I’d expect to see more of the same from the community as the game develops.
On top of that, there’s emergent gameplay. Some actions and choices will have different outcomes based on context, which creates some very wacky and unexpected stories. I’m a big fan of this kind of gameplay, as it gives me the sense that I’m part of a story rather than telling it.
Life By You also seems to pay attention to the little details. The footage below shows discarded clothes piling up and a beautiful arrangement of specific flowers in a vase. I’m not sure what that vase is made out of, but I know it’ll look great in my Sims’ house.
That’s not all, though; the game also seems to have a lot of ambition. It’s not just a Sims 4 mod with a different coat of paint, it appears to be offering up something altogether more different. I’m not sure whether that’s a good thing, to be honest, but the fact that it’s offering something more than just a typical life sim is very appealing.
Paradox is working closely with the modding community to ensure that Life By You can be fully customized and turned inside out, but perhaps its greatest strength is its level of chaos. Some of that is down to emergent gameplay, but it looks like it’ll also be possible to create specific scenarios and stories too.
Life By You is set to release in early access on March 5, 2024. There’s a planned year-long stay in early access, but we’ll have to wait and see whether it can deliver on its promises.
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