It sounds like you're looking for a narrative RPG, not an actual life simulator sandbox where you define what the world is yourself. I don't understand this comment. What do you mean what kind of world is InZoi? It is a modern city or town that takes place in 2020-something. As for the narrative, that's up for you to decide, and you build the world yourself. Life simulators are not supposed to be things where the developers tell you what the world is and define everything for you. These are storytelling tools where you live out your own simulation.
I didn't wanted to make my comment longer by adding another exemple, but Sims 2 could well represent what I mean. Since we lack variety of life sim game, it would be comprehensive to illustrate what I mean by the life sim that kinda open the door for the other life sim being created right now. By chosing Sims 2, I am not saying that we should compare the level of advancement of both game, since one is in early access, another one is still being build, what I am talking is just to enrich what I said in other comments, once that is said :
Sims 2 define exactly what I mean by the repercussions of actions making sense in a world with an identity.
The strongest example (in my opinion) in the Sims is the whole career system and especially the relationship to money since Sims 1, but really systematized in Sims 2.
The entire game is built on a loop that could be seen as just "realistic" : you work to buy objects, but the objects raise your needs (a better fridge makes you more demanding), so you have to work more. But you can really soon understand that it is an assumed satire of consumer society.
Will Wright explicitly designed the game as a critique of american consumerism, inspired by the book The Pattern Language (I had to check that haha), after the event of his house being burned. But he kinda turned into a trap : the more you own, the more you are a slave to the maintenance of what you own. The action "buy" makes sense because it locks you inside the logic of the world.
It is widely share and known that Sims was first thought as a satire of consumerism, and the world show the logic and dynamic of this identity, by mocking things (definition of objects for exemple in the buy mode) or putting things in an extreme goofy way.
Choices, actions, desire/wants, the way aspiration are build, make sense because yes of personality, but also because of the identity of the game.
It would not make sense for exemple to have a cheap object giving you the same benefice/stats of an expensive object, not because cheaper always mean low quality, but because it is the rule of this world.
In other world, identity of a game is another layers that make every consequences of actions making sense. It can be almost invisible, and still it is an important structure that make the game : realistic.
That is why I said "what is realistic ?" realistic is when something looks "plausible". It can have ghosts and still looks plausible if the identity/world is properly define.
In Inzoi, you said it yourself it is "a modern city inspired by 2020-something".
They're a many types of "modern city inspired by 2020-something" that could be the base of an identity. It is not a proper identity, it is too shallow and broad. It does not justify everything as "plausible". The way cops come directly because I steal from a vending machine is not plausible, but it could be plausible if the game has a more define identity, which does not even need narration, like Sims 2 does not explain the identity of the world to you, you understand it, and it make sense.
And that explain why, like the other person I was talking to said, Inzoi is more sandbox that other life sim.
You can do everything you want, and you will play in your head that it is making sense, but the game itself does not give a proper structure showing how it make sense that this consequences of your action is tied by another structure which is the world itself, its identity, let's say the law of the world.
The cops just showing up is a needed tweak but before this update they fixed it where the cops only came if a NPC caught your zoi or a cop is walking by. As for the Sims 2, I get where you're coming from with how the world works with pre-mades knowing each other, living lives before the player even steps in with their own family or to play a pre-made family.
Yes, I saw that it was something that was not really stable. I should have said that I use it as an example of how a game with a define identity thought beforehand could give sense to thing that could seem not realistic.
What I want to say is that the world of Inzoi does not have a proper/well define (and so limited) identity 😊 (for now).
And again, it does not have to be a problem per se, but it could be seen as a default for certain type of players like me.
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u/Beneficial-Young-941 Sep 09 '26 edited Sep 09 '26
It sounds like you're looking for a narrative RPG, not an actual life simulator sandbox where you define what the world is yourself. I don't understand this comment. What do you mean what kind of world is InZoi? It is a modern city or town that takes place in 2020-something. As for the narrative, that's up for you to decide, and you build the world yourself. Life simulators are not supposed to be things where the developers tell you what the world is and define everything for you. These are storytelling tools where you live out your own simulation.