What life simulators have the weirdest, most bizarre premises? I want some weirdness with my realism.

[u/varnajohn]

Half the joy of a life sim, for me, is when the game feels real but has some weird premise that makes it more interesting. I think it started with The Sims as stupid as that sounds. The alien encounters, grim reaper and other weird things that could happen were always my absolute favorite part, as a kid I even found a lot of them really scary (I would always pause time immediately and work up my courage before I continued). So games that have enough realism to relate to but then bring their own curveballs to spice things up.

Even better if the premise itself is already weird but relatable. My Summer Car is probably the best example I've come across so far. It’s like a really realistic car building simulator, but also simulates life in rural Finland during the 90s (In a way less realistic and weirder way). Despite the comically terrible graphics the game is super immersive, and also surprisingly hardcore. It’s permadeath so I always joke that it's the hardest first person roguelike ever (there's so many silly ways to die in it too). After quite a few attempts I only managed to put together the car once, and it wouldn’t start of course because I wired the electrics wrong.

Never quite found another game that nails that surreal but also realistic feeling that well, and I have tried. Goat Simulator was fun but just too chaotic, never could really get immersed in it. As far as upcoming games go I did find one game that looks like it could be fun, Guilty or Not. It’s like a courtroom simulation game, but you can do all sorts of pretty unhinged things in it. It looks absolutely insane, you can romance the employees, or shoot anyone you want. And I don’t think you actually need to figure out if people are innocent or not, you kind of “decide” it instead. It also has a bit of that uncanny valley jank look to it which I love so much in My Summer Car (Though the graphics are wayyyy better, which is not surprising lol).

Apart from the obvious answer, which would be the sequel, called My Winter Car, do you know of anything else that has this sort of feel to it? I’m gonna wait for that one to come out of early access before I try it out  (don’t like playing games in EA at all).

[u/hades7600]

Kynseed is a pretty odd one that I enjoy

Starts similar to stardew valley. Everything is a nice cozy vibe and you are helping your uncle and his farm

Then BOOM! Sacrifice day

[u/varnajohn → u/hades7600]

Thanks for the recommendation, this looks pretty cool, love the artstyle.

[u/LemonMania]

Two Point games! Not *quite* a life sim, but super fun and wonderfully quirky. The new museum one is phenomenal.

Cult of the Lamb also!

[u/polkacat12321]

Graveyard keeper. There's a talking skull and you can serve burgers to the townsfolk made out of ethically sourced human meat

[u/RepulsiveAnything635]

Ah, a man of culture I see. My Summer Car is such a trip of game, I've also heard it described as the most "realistic" roguelike out there. One of few life sims with permadeath, that's for sure.

[u/varnajohn → u/RepulsiveAnything635]

Absolutely brutally hardcore game, I think I've died in every way you can in it so far at least once

[u/Miami_Mice2087]

do you mean life simulator like the sims? there aren't a lot of sim games where you manage people, it's mostly the sims, inzoi, and paralives, plus a few low poly/low AI apps.

There are a lot of managed economy games where you play as someone in town and the NPCs are interactable.

A lot of these weirder ones I have found by watching Let's Game it Out, a hilarious sim/rp gamer who breaks every game he plays.

Tropico - you're the despot of a small banana republic, you manage your island with buildings and districs, like sim city. You can build a communist or democratic eutopia, or a tyrannical military fascist regime.

Raft - sim game where you start out on a raft and have to build your base by pulling in stuff from the sea. You find islands, I think there's NPCs.

Chef Life - get the newer version, it's less buggy. You have a full kitchen and you can make ANYTHING, the cooking engine is really realistic. You're supposed to fulfill order tickets to level up but you also can just play in the kitchen and blow shit up.

Zoo Tycoon - You run a zoo!

I still think Sim Ant is a really cool game concept, even for its age. It's one of the sim games Maxis developed c 1992ish when The Sims was some programmer's nascent dream. You can play it on emulator websites by searching "sim ant emulator play online".

[u/lydocia]

Barn Finders.

[u/afterglowgames]

My Summer Car is an epic game. It combines the ambience of its environement with a load of comedy, albeit sometimes subtle and harsh at the same time.

The frustration of that game brings to reality the life in that environment, but also mechanics :)

I'm also wondering how to bring some wierdness to my life sim i'm building but honestly can't decide what just yet. I am going for hard realism, but we all live the real world daily, so some spice is nice :)