The next release date for Life by You is fast approaching as the first Paradox Tectonic game promises to shake up and reinvent the very essence of the life game genre. To mark the occasion, we at PCGamesN sat down with studio head and industry veteran Rod Humble at GDC 2023 in San Francisco and learned a lot about how Paradox approaches the genre with Life by You.
Humble is also known as the former CEO of Second Life Creator Linden Lab, and for having headed EA’s The Sims imprint during the development of The Sims 2 and The Sims 3, so he has quite a bit of experience in the genre. We spoke to Modest about Life by You in 2020, but he now has a lot more to tell us.
“In most life simulations, you look like you’re in your twenties, regardless of your current age,” Humble says with a smile in our small meeting room. “If you’re 18 you’ll live to be 20, if you’re 50 you’ll be 20. People love this mid-20’s! You create yourself and then you play a little bit with your life.”
It’s the game everyone has been waiting for from Life by You, and Humble explains that if you’re looking for it, “you’ll find it.” That’s not all, because Humble understands that those of us in life sims find our niche and can hone it over thousands of hours. The new game development tools that will be available in Early Access will allow us to fully customize our Life by You game, just as Paradox Tectonic created it.
“It’s a bit dated for most life-sim gamers,” says Humble. “You tend to specialize a little bit.”
Humble acknowledges that some players will build houses, others create characters, and even more will further specialize, adding that Paradox hopes that “with all these new tools” some will “just create games”, with designers being a specific example of clothing. .
“You can say, ‘All I want to do is create sample jerseys and just share my sample jerseys in-game, everyone loves my sample jerseys.’ You can be a fashion designer and think, “Yeah, I’m trying on sundresses.” That’s all I do.”
Clothing models are just one of many humble examples, and turning bushes into working toilets is another. He refers to all of these different groups of life sim creators as “groups,” from builders to filmmakers, and describes how he wants Life by You’s development tools to help everyone create exactly what their niche is known for.
“All the tools we use to make the game are built into the game,” Humble tells me, “and we share them with the players, there’s no hidden developer mode where we do things they can’t, all mods can use the Same tools as developers.
“For each of these groups, we want to take the time during early access to make sure that the game features are completely robust and develop them in collaboration with player creators in the future,” adds Humble.
If you want even more while you wait for Life by You later this year, our list of the best games like The Sims 4 is sure to keep you busy. Also, you can check the Life by You system requirements to see if the open world game can run on your PC or laptop.
Source : PC Gamesn
