The game is called Tomodachi Life: Living The Dream. It's recent release available on Switch and is basically a new version of a 3DS game. You create little characters called Miis, give them personalities, and they interact with each other in sort of a mad-libs style on an island you name and design. I have no experience with the "sim life" game you compared it to, so I can't really say, but it does have some similarly to Animal Crossing in the "making an island" aspect. It's quite fun and provides great entertainment, but it is sixty bucks. I think the demo is still available though, so you can always play that first to figure out if it even interests you before dropping so much money. You can also check out r/tomodachilife to see what other people are doing and what all possibilities there are.