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(Image credit: Paradox Interactive)
“As a game designer, one thing I enjoy so much is working with a game that clearly shouldn’t have any victory conditions,” Humble says. “There’s a lovely Italian folk saying: at the end of the game, the queen and the pawn get back in the same box. There aren’t any winners or losers in life. You just live a life, and life sims are a great equaliser.”
A whole new world
(Image credit: Paradox Interactive)
Subscribe(Image credit: Paradox Tectonic)This feature originally appeared in Edge magazine. For more in-depth interviews, reviews, features, and more delivered to your door or digital device,subscribe to Edge magazine.
Subscribe
(Image credit: Paradox Tectonic)This feature originally appeared in Edge magazine. For more in-depth interviews, reviews, features, and more delivered to your door or digital device,subscribe to Edge magazine.
(Image credit: Paradox Tectonic)
This feature originally appeared in Edge magazine. For more in-depth interviews, reviews, features, and more delivered to your door or digital device,subscribe to Edge magazine.
Our demo puts us in the shoes of aspiring gardener-slash-fitness guru Ronnie. The first thing we see as they step outside is a colourful house that wouldn’t look at all out of place in The Sims. But then the camera pans out to reveal a more recognizably Paradox world, with quasi-realistic trees, geography and ambient audio. It’s a visual direction that’s consistent with the publisher’s signature style, but Humble says this aesthetic approach serves an important purpose. “I wanted a more grounded look,” he says. “The tone I really wanted is just this sense of, ‘Hey, I can really tell a relatable story’, and our style isn’t getting in the way of it or hanging over your head.”
Humble doesn’t mention The Sims directly, but the connection is easy to see. Sure, you can try to tell serious stories in The Sims, but when your character wakes up with cartoonish fumes emanating from their unwashed body and greets their loved one with “shalooba farken”, or gibberish to that effect, that style sets distinct limits for the shape your story can take. You have to supply most of the emotional depth from your imagination.
“Making a life sim means bringing games to the most important thing in the world – our lives – and being able to help players tell stories that they can relate to, that are very personal, that they couldn’t in any other medium,” Humble says.
(Image credit: Paradox Interactive)
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The game of life
(Image credit: Paradox Interactive)
An unfazed Ronnie heads home for an extended lunch break, stopping outside their house to pick some flowers for an arrangement, which also levels up their gardening skill. The vase they pick is customizable, and the arrangement changes visually depending on which flowers or other greenery you use.
“Making a life sim means bringing games to the most important thing in the world – our lives.“Rod Humble
“Making a life sim means bringing games to the most important thing in the world – our lives.”
This feature first appeared inEdge magazine. For more fantastic in-depth features and interviews like this, you can pick up single issues atMagazines Directorsubscribeto the magazine, in physical or digital form.
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Creature Commandos review: “James Gunn’s heartwarming, R-rated tale about super-monsters proves that the DCU is in good hands”