Tiny Life

Those who have played the Sims will feel how familiar the gameplay is and pick it up right away. Very similar but no greedy corpo dev behind it, smaller and charming and a bit simpler but not to its detriment. Developer is still working on it (it's still in early access) so all good, though more chill and less chaotic than the classic Sims experience.

I have only played a few hours so far, but I really wanted to leave a review because I think this game has a ton of potential. I've been struggling to find a life sim game that scratches the Sims itch, and this is definitely the closest one I've found. Still waiting to see whether it manages to keep me hooked long term, as well as what futures updates will bring, but I am very enthusiastic about it for sure!

This game is in early access. That means a LOT of things are missing. HOWEVER... there is a public roadmap. You can look at things. The devs are active in the community. So far, you can ask questions on Steam or itch.io, go to the Discord to interact, and submit a bug report through the website. You'll get responses pretty quickly. Plus it's really fun??? I've loved the Sims for a long time, but EA is... a mess, to be polite, and we need more competition. TIny Life is similar enough in gameplay that it's a super easy transition, with enough differences to be interesting and unique. I've been enjoying myself and I think the art style is super cute. It needs more stuff, but that will come in time. One thing I love is how... it's like, you can 100% be queer. There's no real gender in the game, you choose your own pronouns (including custom ones!) and your reproductive abilities, and That's That. I also LOVE the headphones accessory, as someone who wears headphones a lot irl. I can make Autistic Tinies! :D So far, it's shaping up to be a really cool game. I look forward to what the future holds.

Hundreds of games, and this will be maybe the 5th or 6th I've refunded. In 24 minutes it completely locked and froze up twice (had to restart computer both times). I guess I'll stick with Inzoi and Sims which work fine for me. I had this on my wishlist for a while, and grabbed it now, but it's just unplayable for me. In 24 minutes of play time I started a new game with the default settings and two worlds selected. I clicked an empty lot and started creating a character, and it almost immediately began to lag hard. It got to the point where I couldn't even close the game, and wasn't able to even bring up task manager so I just powered down. I was going to refund but figured I'd give it one more shot since I've wanted to play this for a bit. I started again, deleted the original save, started one with only the first listed world selected, created my character and entered build mode to place a wall. The immediate locking and freezing up happened before I could place a first wall. I don't think there's anything else to say really. I obviously don't recommend this game. It seems that others haven't had the same problem, just like I've never had that problem with a game before.

I love pixel graphics and this is a nice cozy simulator that is already awesome even in early development. Dev has open communication and details all the changes even though that takes extra time. I rarely buy games before they are released but this is a labor of love and I'm glad to support. The only negative thing I can say is that if I play with the controller everything works great except naming books you write (probably not an issue on the deck due to pop-up keyboard).

Absolutely loving this game, I'm finding it very nostalgic and comforting to play. I’ve made a whole queer neighbourhood: a messy sapphic commune where everyone’s dating each other, a throuple trying to start a family, and a lavender house full of chosen family. It’s so well-made, runs beautifully on Steam Deck, and gives you freedom to just make the world you want. I can see myself sinking hours and hours into this.