We regularly experience fantastical stories in the world or videogames – flying to other galaxies, living other lives, killing robots, kissing dragons – but our own lives and the tales that arise from simply living remain relatively unexamined. That’s something Jake Solomon, former lead on games like Marvel’s Midnight Suns and XCOM: Enemy Unknown, is looking to change.
The idea behind pivoting to making a life simulation game started when Solomon was finishing his work on Marvel’s Midnight Suns. “I started to miss emergent, player-driven narratives,” he tells us. “I’ve always wanted to take the design techniques that we use in our games and apply them to almost anything. I started thinking about, well, if I really wanted to make a game about player-driven narratives then I should double down on that.”
Deciding to focus on emergent narratives led to a decision about where to set this mysterious new game and what genre it would slot into. “The goal of the game is to tell a story. You can’t play the game without writing an interesting story and, to me, that really felt like a modern life setting,” he explains. “I’ve always liked simulations, and I’ve always liked life sims, and when I say life sims I’m only talking about one game, which is The Sims. And so what we’re focused on is a life sim that really tries to elevate the choices the player makes in their life, both the small and the big choices, leaving it up to the player to navigate that drama.”
Stories are key to understanding what Solomon and his team at his new studio, Midsummer, are working on. “It’s a life sim set in a small town because I think those are the best settings for this,” he tells me. “All these characters are interconnected with a bunch of relationships and the player can choose what kind of story they want to tell, whether it’s a romantic story, humorous story, whether it’s more dramatic, and they guide their character through their daily life in this small town. But at every moment we’re trying to make sure that their choices have an effect on their life moving forward and the town overall. So all this emergent drama happens to the players, we have storylines the player takes part in, and they can steer it in any direction. So the idea is you can’t play this game without writing a story that will be unique from other players.”
The concept behind the game is one of putting player choice right at the heart of what you’re doing, with the player deciding not only how their character reacts to events but what form those narrative events take. “We’ll have these storylines which inject drama so it’s not just the minute-to-minute drama of our regular lives,” he says. “You’re going to get approached and someone’s like, ‘your mom is back in town,’ and the player gets to choose what that means. So you can pick an answer to that, so you can say she’s here because she’s getting married to someone I don’t like, or she’s here because she isn’t over the loss of my father, or just she’s here and I love her. We present something as a storyline and the player gets to choose which way the storyline plays out.”
In addition to your character’s life being molded by your decisions and reactions to narrative events, you’ll also find the town around you change as you play. “Everyone starts with a similar town in terms of environment, but you’ll be able to redecorate your space,” Solomon explains. “The town itself will change depending on the cast of characters living there and the storylines playing out.” This means that every player’s town will end up unique to them, with towns being a reflection of its citizens, rather than the residents being shaped by the town.
Player choice even affects towns, with a full creative mode in the works that will let you alter anyone living in your town and also the town itself. “The first thing I’m going to do is make Gilmore Girls,” he laughs. “I’m going to have one Midsomer Murders town too.” When quizzed on whether or not we’ll be seeing cozy, British-style murder stories, he was adamant that while “characters will certainly die and we want characters to get sick and leave the town,” it’s unlikely there’ll be a killing spree featuring unlikely weapons, though maybe some British murder mystery DLC is going to happen down the line.
Sharing stories, characters, and towns will be baked into the game, with a Spore-esque menu system that’ll let you upload your creations for friends or strangers to use. “The hope is that if your friend has a character they’re able to share you can put that character in your town and you’ll be able to see the events they’ve had, their personality, what they look like.” Having these other characters integrate into your town should allow for more drama to emerge organically, their personalities and plotlines mixing with yours, again creating something that should be unique to each player.
What Solomon is looking forward to most is seeing how people use it – as a sandbox, as a toy, or as something to explore life. “Some people really cherish life sims because they’re able to see life the way they wish it was or construct a life that reflects conflicts that they have,” he says. “It’ll be really interesting, outside of fanfiction, to see what players create given enough control over characters and towns and see what storylines players resonate with when we turn them loose.”
The game currently has no release date as it’s still in the prototype phase, but Solomon expects that we’ll see more next year with a potential Steam Early Access release at some point to follow.
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