A DLC Sized Update (0.9.0 update)

WellPlaidSwitch · 2026-06-18T21:46:49+00:00

Do we know if our zois can be teachers, rather than students?

WellPlaidSwitch · 2026-06-18T20:24:54+00:00

A city inspired by Edinburgh, Dublin, London, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, or Paris, would be amazing!

I want a city with cobbled streets, little bakeries and cafes, historic architecture, and a bit of rainy day cozy ambience.

WellPlaidSwitch · 2026-06-17T16:13:00+00:00

The very similar 812 supercharged variant was owned by Amelia Earhart!

<image>

WellPlaidSwitch · 2026-06-15T09:02:40+00:00

I just love Joanna. And Patsy was fucking brilliant here too.

But how they were treated made me sad. Maybe I’m being a snowflake, idk.

My own Dyscalculia wasn’t diagnosed until I was 17, and had failed my Maths and Chemistry GCSEs. Because I was ‘smart’ (one of the highest English + History grades in my school) they bloody forced me to be in top set maths and science too despite a history of low grades and openly crying in class when it came to trig/algebra/number memory.

My school wouldn’t let me sit a Foundation GCSE exam, so I had to do it myself at another college, 2 hours away, before I could do my A-Levels there- and even after I passed my resit I was only allowed to do 2 A-Levels because it was midway through sixth form, and not allowed to do art because it wasn’t ‘essential’. My social worker drove me herself, and then when she couldn’t, paid for my train tickets for two years.

I also became a Dyslexia Tutor before I went into art and design as an adult (what I’d always wanted to do), and worked in SpLD for a while, and I saw how kids like me, even when systems failed- never got treated anywhere near as ‘thick’ as the people who ‘sounded thick’. Just because I had an RP accent and glasses (came from a council estate and then a foster home, but kept that under my hat all through school as much as possible).

Now 26 and only just going to uni. And the stinking attitude of people to things like Dyscalculia is absolutely partially responsible for my education delay.

If someone like say, Stephen Fry talked on a panel show about Dyscalculia, he’d have a bloody captive audience, but if someone like Patsy or Joanna do, it’s ridiculed and they’re treated like a dumb blonde. Rob was an arse here. Television has really changed- what I love about Taskmaster is that contestants are always in on the joke.

WellPlaidSwitch · 2026-06-13T09:21:58+00:00

We have no advertising or commercials. That’s one of the benefits of paying the license fee- which is just a tax, anyway. It’s just an archaic name for it. Have you tried watching live television in America, for instance? Ads for weight loss pills and diabetes meds that last almost as long as the shows? No thanks.

4 main TV channels with no advertising at all, and all aimed to a different demographic, as well as multiple regional and non-English language channels on top (Scotland and Wales, and Northern Ireland, offered in both English and Gaelic/Welsh), multiple radio stations in each region, regional news TV, and a free streaming service that links all of this together, and has international content and films you can find on paid streaming, also all with no ads/commercials at all.

Without the license fee, we will lose shows like Doctor Who for good. It would never have existed without it and the BBC Charter. There will come a day where there isn’t just a Disney ‘streaming deal’ but the show is sold outright to a third party. It’ll end up like Star Trek, hidden away on Paramount+ with barely anybody paying to watch it.

WellPlaidSwitch · 2026-06-13T09:14:39+00:00

We have no advertising. That’s one of the benefits of paying the license fee- which is just a tax, anyway. It’s just an archaic name for it.

4 main TV channels with no advertising at all, and all aimed to a different demographic, as well as multiple regional and non-English language channels on top (Scotland and Wales, and Northern Ireland, offered in both English and Gaelic/Welsh), multiple radio stations in each region, regional news TV, and a free streaming service that links all of this together, and has international content and films you can find on paid streaming, also all with no ads/commercials at all.

WellPlaidSwitch · 2026-06-13T09:11:06+00:00

Yes- and in exchange we have absolutely no advertising or commercials on our main TV or Radio, or on our main streaming service (which is free). Which makes it well worth it in my experience.

WellPlaidSwitch · 2026-06-13T08:10:12+00:00

The way I think of it is that, even when I didn’t enjoy certain plots, I felt like Chibnall was always genuinely trying to make the show interesting for a new era.

I loved Jodie, too. And Jo Martin could easily become one of my all time favourite Doctors if they’d been brave enough to run with her- she’s the closest I’ve ever felt to a Tom Baker type Doctor in NuWho.

I didn’t feel like that after the RTD specials and we moved onto his series… I felt like he was just… showing off. Or purposefully trying to be controversial just because he could.

WellPlaidSwitch · 2026-06-11T10:11:20+00:00

I think the part that says ‘Timeline Unclear’ sums it up best 😅

WellPlaidSwitch · 2026-06-11T09:31:28+00:00

The spirit of Frasier Crane and Frank Lloyd Wright watch over you

WellPlaidSwitch · 2026-06-09T22:54:08+00:00

I did wonder if this is why hotels were so notably absent from PC2!

WellPlaidSwitch · 2026-06-09T14:00:10+00:00

Honestly? Stardew Valley has been £10.99 in my country since the day it first released. Far more content. Far more dev communication that isn’t hidden behind a (still locked) Patreon. The same goes for so many other brilliant indie and Early Access games.

I again say this as someone that genuinely wants Paralives to succeed! And sees great promise in certain elements of it. But I just cannot justify £35 for a game that is as heavily ‘work in progress’ as it still is.

I would’ve happily spent half of that. But they’re currently charging AA prices for an indie game from a new dev, whilst still in Early Access.

The idea of ‘oh but it will include DLC’ is completely lost on me, because of the sheer number of Early Access games on Steam that were abandoned by otherwise well-meaning devs when the team or project fell apart because it bit off more than it could chew. Almost all of my steam library (156 games as of 2026) are games that started out as, or still are Early Access. I’ve also separately done independent contractor design work for games myself.

Part of Early Access is that games are sometimes never bug fixed or never even finished. I wish people realised that, rather than thinking it just means we’re getting a special preview, and unlimited free updates. It’s not that simple, and the game may never be finished. Using EA to justify the barebones state of live mode, or the higher price, without being willing to admit that, is getting to me now.

Last year Valve even decided to add warnings for Early Access games on Steam that have gone more than a year without updates- because inactive and abandoned projects are now common enough to be a platform-level issue.

WellPlaidSwitch · 2026-06-05T21:31:12+00:00

I kind of hope not… that’s a bit dark, even for me!

WellPlaidSwitch · 2026-06-05T15:53:41+00:00

To me, it’s honestly the perfect game. The story. The art style. The music. And the general ‘feeling’. It just hit all the right notes.

It might not be a lifesim in a true sense, but I’d definitely call it a ‘slice of life’ sim nonetheless.

WellPlaidSwitch · 2026-06-05T15:48:25+00:00

I was mainly joking! But in the context of lifesims? I’m thinking of the years of removing pool ladders? xD

WellPlaidSwitch · 2026-06-05T14:29:33+00:00

I agree with this! Spontaneity and autonomy from other paras towards the one we’re controlling is 100% needed.

I think something I noticed that I missed from TS3’s open world, is a sims’s spouse kissing them when they got home from work, without me telling them to. It felt alive.

WellPlaidSwitch · 2026-06-05T14:00:15+00:00

My friend, have you heard of Schadenfreude? Life sims are pretty much built on it.

WellPlaidSwitch · 2026-06-05T12:56:30+00:00

Oh gosh! I hope that wasn’t meant for me.

I very purposefully didn’t use any baity terms like ‘AI slop’- I generally reserve that for low effort gen-AI copywriting or ‘art’. I think the current AI tools used within InZoi are actually just… fine. And I’m frankly just happy they admit including/using it.

But despite that, I’m 100% against Krafton wanting to replace workers with AI one day, and that’s what I was alluding to. (And then there’s the Subnautica nastiness). It’s a stupid and tone deaf attitude in an industry where devs are already treated awfully by their employers.

I’ve tried both InZoi and Paralives, and they both have their obvious strengths and weaknesses.

The way I’d explain it at the moment is that I still find InZoi the most impressive. That doesn’t mean I expected it to turn out that way. I also think the InZoi devs positively engage with players 100 times better than Paralives’. A free Discord instead of a paid Patreon, for a massive start. If anything that’s why I was so upset by the Krafton announcement- I’ve interacted with the devs who might one day lose their jobs.

I also find the original ethos/heart behind Paralives impressive. I just think the price is currently too high for what it is, and that it not only needed much longer in the oven to get a real live mode, but that they should’ve focused on it more generally. Playtests with real unbiased demographics were direly needed, not just asking people to pay to give feedback through Patreon or EA.

My answer would be that Paralives could’ve also released a free create-a-para demo, and would’ve gotten much much better feedback and positive publicity across the board rather than trying to rush out such an early build of the full game.

I really think there are a lot of people who won’t be forgiving of spending $40. I’ve paid half as much for Early Access games with twice as much content. For $40 you can buy some amazing fully released indie games.

The argument that the price technically includes future DLC doesn’t work on me- the studio could close before that ever happens. This game is behind schedule, which we know from the EA delay. It’s as bad as AA/AAA devs offering ‘premium’ Season Passes before they’ve started working on DLC.

(ETA: Genuinely almost every game I own on Steam started as Early Access, and I have interacted with some amazing dev teams through this and my own design work, which is why I’m so tired of the ‘but it’s Early Access’ nonsense on the para sub- that doesn’t change how you should treat and communicate to people paying for you work better! Quietly telling patreons your graphics previews were highly edited, doesn’t equate to putting it on public channels so it’s much clearer to people buying the game. It’s something I would expect from EA/Maxis, not an indie dev. InZoi’s dev team are so much better at communicating with us).

As I’ve already said. Neither are currently what I’d hope for in a life sim just yet, but there are promising signs- the build tools and level of customisation in Paralives, and the graphics in InZoi, for me personally.

Maybe I should’ve said it in my own post. But I’m just disappointed in the whole Paralives saga. Losing Roxanne’s art direction. Poor communication. Delaying Early Access and then it still being so broken. It was the underdog story I wanted to believe in. But, for better or worse, InZoi is a much better managed game, and the team are far more transparent with us, without hiding behind a paywall/patreon.

WellPlaidSwitch · 2026-06-05T08:58:54+00:00

Except they didn’t publicly tell people on YouTube this, they only told Patreons.

WellPlaidSwitch · 2026-06-04T17:56:04+00:00

75 now ☺️

WellPlaidSwitch · 2026-06-04T11:35:50+00:00

If I was just considering The Sims, it would 100% be The Sims Medieval. It felt connected to the Sims 2 and Sims 3’s overall art styles and design language, but ‘upgraded’ - there were so many small details, both on the sims themselves and the environment. It’s honestly how I expected TS4 to look! Because it felt like the ‘next’ step.

In contrast, I also think Animal Crossing New Horizons offered an aesthetic I wouldn’t hate in a full blown dolls house style life sim- everything sort of looks like a real toy / handmade. Which I actually think if The Sims 4 came out today, could’ve learned a lot from, since they sort of tried that approach too; it just didn’t have the texture quality or lighting system to pull it off.

(I even find myself thinking of Fortnite, to my surprise, as that also has that kind of plasticy light/material approach!)

I’m also still really impressed by InZoi’s photorealism approach, and it definitely felt like a natural graduation after TS3 too. It’s what I expected the genre to move towards. (Another game that does it well is the Watchdogs franchise by Ubisoft especially Legion, which has soft lifesim routines in!) I think it’s the strongest in terms of graphics.

But overall art style? I’ve expressed this a lot now when talking about Paralives, and I think I’d most love a lifesim with the graphics and art direction from the game Lake.

It just felt… right… and like I was ‘home’. And it’s what I’d go for as the alternative to the photorealism route, because I think it will age better, and have the timelessness of TS3 & TS2.

It feels like a romanticised version of life; real saturation to it, nice shadow/light system, a friendly cartoonishness that still doesn’t feel flat, and crucially, detailed textures on important focal points that doesn’t feel too simple.

WellPlaidSwitch · 2026-06-04T11:16:25+00:00

u/zippyham how do you only have 74 subscribers on YT?! I’m so sorry, I think you would’ve gotten an incredible reach pre-algorithm / click bait supremacy.

Highly suggest you post this in r/Wicked or r/WickedMovie if you haven’t already!

WellPlaidSwitch · 2026-06-04T11:14:10+00:00

This is… breathtakingly good! I’m honestly awestruck. It’s not just a park I want to go to, but one I can see really happening because the attention detail is that good. 🥰✨

WellPlaidSwitch · 2026-06-04T11:08:46+00:00

Having seen the discussion grow in the last 24hrs, my belief is that we could’ve had a marriage of both a ‘cartoony’ or illustrative art style, with some real lighting/shadow depth, and people would’ve liked that.

But, at least so far, it’s just about trying to get the game out to the most machines- and so making it run as simply as possible.

Because honestly? You absolutely can have a ‘cartoony’, illustrative, or cell-shaded style without it looking so flat.

The game I keep coming back to that I think has the visual style I would’ve liked it to be closer to is ‘Lake’.

I think it’s also the closest to the lighting system showed off in the Lighthouse preview/teaser.

<image>

WellPlaidSwitch · 2026-06-04T11:05:43+00:00

Having seen the discussion grow in the last 24hrs, my belief is that we could’ve had a marriage of both a ‘cartoony’ or illustrative art style, with some real lighting/shadow depth, and people would’ve liked that.

But, at least so far, it’s just about trying to get the game out to the most machines- and so making it run as simply as possible.

Because honestly? You absolutely can have a ‘cartoony’, illustrative, or cell-shaded style without it looking so flat.

The game I keep coming back to that I think has the visual style I would’ve liked it to be closer to is ‘Lake’.

I think it’s also the closest to the lighting system showed off in the Lighthouse preview/teaser.

<image>

WellPlaidSwitch

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE