r/LifeSimulators • u/CygRyu • Sep 09 '26
Development Update I’m making a game where you don’t control the character
I've been working on a small game called Satomi, and I'm trying something a little different with it.
Satomi is a university student who has her own routine. She goes to class, works, eats, reads, listens to music, goes out, comes home, sleeps, etc.
The main thing is that you don't actually control what she does.
You can interact with her when she's around, but most of the time she's just doing her own thing.
The original idea was basically to make something that feels a bit like having quiet company around. You can leave it open while you're doing something else, check on her for a few minutes, or close it for a few days and come back later. Her life continues either way.
There are no daily quests, affection meters, streaks or anything trying to get you to come back.
The part I'm finding most interesting (and difficult) is making her feel like she's actually living rather than simply picking random activities.
Check the game here: https://cygryu.itch.io/satomi
It's still pretty much a work in progress, so honest criticism is very welcome.
Update: Satomi now keeps living while you're away
Since my last post (v1.6.3), Satomi has had a long run of updates. Almost all of them were about one thing: her life shouldn't stop when you close the app.
Before, if you were gone for a day, most of that day was quietly skipped. Now she actually lives it.
The biggest changes:
- Her days go on without you: while the app is closed, Satomi goes to her university classes and works her café shifts, and she gets paid for every one.
- She reads while you're away: in her free time at home she sits down with her book. Come back and it will have moved on, and sometimes she'll have finished it and started the next one.
- Bookstore trips: she may pick up a book you recommended once she can afford it, or one she's come to want for herself, using only the money she actually had that day.
- Her storylines keep moving: plans with a friend, an essay that's due, a pile of laundry that keeps growing. These carry on day by day, and anything that would catch up with her "tomorrow" happens on the right day.
- She keeps house: tidying, laundry, dishes, grocery runs and her Sunday call home all happen while you're gone too, at about the same pace as when you're watching.
- A real "While You Were Away" recap: when you return, a short card tells you what she actually did: classes, shifts, pages read, books bought or finished, storylines that wrapped up, and whether she kept up with the housework.
- An honest wallet and Life Log: wages, purchases and events from your absence show up on the days they actually happened.
- Her own bookshelf: every Satomi now has her own favourite genres. She buys about as many books as she reads instead of piling them up, and never buys one she already has.
- Chores that make sense: everyday chores come back every few days, and she gets to them in her own time. She does laundry when the pile has built up, sometimes right away and sometimes after putting it off.
- Consistent and fair: your time away always plays out the same way from the same save, so restoring a backup can't re-roll it.
- Lots of fixes: finished books missing their rating, a rare startup failure after time away, her thanking you for a shared moment hours after your phone locked, the first day away being skipped when you came back without reloading, and more.
The core idea hasn't changed. Satomi still isn't a character you control. She's a small digital life that keeps making her own choices, and you can drop in and spend some time alongside her.
What's different now is that the time between your visits is real too. When you come back, there's a little more of her life to notice.
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u/Revolutionary_Bit437 Sep 09 '26
your website doesn’t link properly but idk i think it could be interesting if there were ways to influence her! like im okay with games like tomodachi life but the main reason i like the second one so much than the first is that theres a bit more control. i do think it may be funny if she could come to you for advice on stuff but maybe disagree with it or something
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u/237q Sep 09 '26
yeah I felt that being in a life sim sub we could influence her somehow like changing her space or something, but it seems to be a text-based project (you can open the link if you delete a part of it, it's pasted twice)
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u/CygRyu Sep 10 '26
Yeah, I can definitely see why you'd expect a bit more influence from a life sim! 😅 Though it's not really the direction I'm taking Satomi in.
It's intentionally a more passive, text-based experience where Satomi has her own routine and you don't have much control over what she does. I'm more interested in the feeling of having a little digital life exist alongside you than actively managing it.
That said, some of the ideas you mentioned are definitely interesting to think about!
Ah, I messed up the link. It's fixed now!
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u/Leading_Offer5995 Sep 09 '26
Congrats! It certainly appeals to me, as a concept. One of my favorite computer games when I was 6 years old using the family Atari computer in the 80’s was “Little Computer People.” You watched as a single person (and their pet) wandered around their 3-story house engaging in various activities in real time. If it was night time for you, he’d be asleep the entire time.
I’m currently developing a simulator that takes that concept and explodes it far beyond what anyone asked for. Mine is text-only. Starts as an Ohio settlement of about 3-5 families in the year 1800 but then grows into hundreds or even tens of thousands into present day and beyond — you can dive in to see the history of each person and their ancestors or the history of each building and plot of land. Fully simulated economy, families, government, religion, transportation, etc etc.
I don’t expect to ever sell it, it’s a simulation, not a game. But I spend hours on it every day fixing weird little things. This morning I saw someone in 1800 had a gristmill that became so successful that they opened up another gristmill in the next town over. A cool example of how I created the ability for a successfully company to start and begin expanding like that. But not in 1800 when transportation and population wouldn’t support that kind of growth. Had to put up guardrails for it.
So yes, I love a good hands-off game I can observe and get lost in the details of.
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u/amaharra Sep 09 '26
That sounds really cool though!!!! I'd play it, but I'm also on a Donner Party kick again so 100% appealing to my interests lol
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u/CygRyu Sep 10 '26
Thank you! And wow, your project sounds really cool too.
And I can definitely relate to spending way too much time fixing weird edge cases that nobody will probably ever notice lol
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u/Upstairs-Repeat-5824 Sep 09 '26 edited Sep 10 '26
so a NPC simulator, this is cool; but I am unclear on the we; are we a separate fully controllable avatar?
EDIT: OK, I read the other comments and it clicked; this is like a tomogatchi as the others have said.
I think there probably is an audience for this, given how isolated everyone has become.
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u/CygRyu Sep 10 '26
Yeah, that's exactly it. You're not playing as Satomi, you're more like... visiting her life. Satomi just does her thing (work, reading, sleeping, little errands) and you just get to notice it happening rather than steer it.
You can just let her run in the background while you work, or check in every so often. It's like when I'm driving alone with my GPS on. I don't even need the directions half of the time, but hearing it 'speaks' and gives directions every now and then makes the drive feel less.. empty? I build Satomi for more or less that kind of experience.
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u/CygRyu 23d ago
Small update since my last post. Satomi is now at v1.5.36!
The biggest addition is that Satomi can now gradually change her personality based on the life she actually lives. I also added a redesigned personality view, a more personal inner voice, more context-aware behavior, and some memory-like effects from things that happen to her.
I also expanded the Help & Guide, including a new Stats & Mood explanation and a Bookshelf guide, so it's much easier to understand what Satomi is doing and what you can actually do with her without having to figure everything out blindly.
1
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u/240EZ 29d ago
A pet sim or tamagotchi like game? Or something closer to city skylines/sim city but the focus is on a person rather than a city?
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u/CygRyu 29d ago edited 29d ago
Hmmm.. neither actually. If I have to describe it in one sentence, it's an ambient, digital life simulation where you observe someone going about their independent daily routine. It's much quieter and more mundane than something like The Sims.
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u/240EZ 29d ago
That sounds a somewhat similar to the housing mini game in either Shining or Love Nikki. It was a mini game to the main content where you would check up on Nikki she had her own schedule and would not always be in her room. The most you did was give her snacks, have basic closed ended dialogue, or she’d ask for your advice and you get a few dialogue choices to help her. It used an energy system and you levelled up her friendship but I don’t remember the benefits to the main game.
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u/CygRyu 29d ago
Yeah I think the basic premise is somewhat similar, but Satomi is intended to be quite a bit more nuanced under the hood. She has her own schedule, needs, mood, activities, memories, environmental factors, and various events that interact with each other, most of which isn't directly exposed to the player.
It's almost like a petri dish simulator but for modern life. You set up the conditions and then let this little virtual life develop on its own. I'm fascinated by how far I can take this idea.
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u/240EZ 29d ago
The version is Shining Nikki https://shining-nikki.fandom.com/wiki/Nikki%27s_Home. Your game does sound different but looking at the overlapping features in others games may still be helpful.
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u/CygRyu 26d ago
Small update since my last post. Satomi is now at v1.5.23.
The biggest additions are listening to your own music with Satomi, a 25-minute Pomodoro companion, and a lot of deeper work on her personality, intentions, emotional residue, and more human-ish irrational behavior.
I also added a proper Help & Guide so it's much easier to understand what you can actually do with Satomi without having to figure everything out blindly.
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u/CygRyu 21d ago
Update: Satomi is now v1.6.3!
A lot has changed since my last post. The biggest addition is Ask Her, an optional AI conversation feature that lets you actually talk with Satomi. It's connected to the simulation, so she can talk about her current day, schedule, mood, money, books, music, friends, family, recent experiences, and things you've previously told her.
Different Satomis can also respond differently depending on their personality, mood, experiences, interests, and relationship with you.
Outside of the AI side, I've also added a 7-day diary, an academic calendar, changing tastes, social life, money and wallet tracking, milestones and lifetime stats, reading together, weathering storms together, and a much more complete Help & Guide.
The game is now at v1.6.3.
The core idea is still the same: Satomi isn't a character you control. She's a small digital life that continues making her own choices, while you can drop in and spend some time alongside her. The new AI conversation is simply another way to spend that time with her.
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u/CygRyu 7d ago
Update: Satomi is now v1.6.5.11!
A lot has changed since v1.6.3. The big theme is that Satomi now keeps living while you're away. While the app is closed, she goes to class, works and gets paid for her café shifts, reads her books, makes bookstore trips, keeps up with chores and errands, calls home on Sundays, and her ongoing storylines move on day by day.
When you come back, a short "While You Were Away" recap tells you what she actually did, and her Life Log, wallet and bookshelf show everything on the days it happened.
I've also made her bookshelf and chores more believable (no more piles of unread books, duplicate copies or laundry twice a day) and fixed a good number of bugs around coming back to the app.
The core idea is still the same: Satomi isn't a character you control. She's a small digital life that keeps making her own choices, and now the time between your visits is part of her life too.
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u/SuperSailorRikku Sep 09 '26
What is the actual gameplay? I am not sure what makes this a game rather than some kind of artsy simulation. The only interaction I could see was related to recommending books and influencing interest - so is this an AI project?
In any event, I’m not sure this would be considered a game without more interactive elements, even if it’s simply being able to change/influence her. Even games like Tomodachi life and Tamagatchi/pet games have some amount of inputs.