An alternative to Sims? Habs, rediscover your passion for life simulation

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ray_revie
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An alternative to Sims? Habs, rediscover your passion for life simulation

Post by ray_revie »

Hi there,
No! this is not spam, I sought permission from the forums moderators to post this. We're about to launch an ambitious Kickstarter campaign to build an alternative (read much better!) life simulation game than what EA has been spooning out since 2014.
Check us out at www.reviestudios.com and our campaign launches midnight next Monday (US ET).
I've already been msg'd by Zee and a few others who are showing their support - thank you!! My co-founder, Evie is just as bored with Sims 4 and has conceived a new offering - Habs, so have a look at our trailer and our concept art thus far.
If we're successfully funded, we should have playable code before end '19, with release early 2020 - everything we've done has been validated and verified by some of the best in the industry - we've really done our research, and we're now looking forward to hearing from the community as to what you want (over and above what Evie has already stipulated in the base game).
So SPREAD THE WORD!!! As Zee told me, she used to pull all nighters with Sims 3 - now she's just bored!! Let's not do boring anymore - support our Kickstarter so we can give you what you want in a life simulation game, rather than pleasing greedy shareholders & CEO's of AAA studios.

and thank you Perterbee!!

Cheers Ray @reviestudios.com
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Re: An alternative to Sims? Habs, rediscover your passion for life simulation

Post by ZeeGee »

This is really exciting and I hope you get the funding that you need. An alternative to sims with a game creator that respects and listens to what simmers want would be awesome.

Just to clarify, I'm not bored...cause I still play Sims 3 and still pull all nighters. I was bored the weekend I spent playing Sims 4 for free so never even bought it!
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Re: An alternative to Sims? Habs, rediscover your passion for life simulation

Post by ZeeGee »

ray_revie wrote: 25 Oct 2018, 00:26we're now looking forward to hearing from the community as to what you want (over and above what Evie has already stipulated in the base game)
Been thinking about this. I think the main thing that simmers want are choices. To me, Sims 3 is just about the perfect game because it has so many choices. Turn aging on or off, vary the life span, turn weather on or off, change the season, there's the create-a-style tool and the create-a-world tool. The movie maker cheats that allow creators of machinima to make beautiful movies. Don't like holidays? You don't have to do them. Like holidays? Decorate and celebrate! Want beautiful clothes? Find some CC and you can change it to any color you want. It is a creative game for people who love to build homes or worlds, make machinima movies, make clothes or furniture, create sims or just play with the sims that are already there!

The thing that would make Sims 3 perfect is having it in 64 bit so that it would run smoother, and having the animations and the heart of Sims 2. Little animations like getting in the car and driving off, kids greeting their parents with a hug after work, money changing hands instead of just disappearing into the air. I haven't played Sims 2 enough to know what else is lacking.

Where EA has failed, in my opinion, is instead of making a game that gets progressively better as technology develops they seem to be going backwards. They should have taken Sims 2 and added the open world and CASt to make Sims 3. Then they should have taken Sims 3 and improved on it to make Sims 4. Instead they stripped it down, made it look cartoony, took away the choice of turning off aging (for good) and even added questing. NO MORE QUESTING!!! We like creating not questing!!

That's my 2 cents about what I would want in a new life simulation game. :D
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Re: An alternative to Sims? Habs, rediscover your passion for life simulation

Post by ray_revie »

I'll make sure Evie & Hannah read this, excellent feedback
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DarkZA
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Re: An alternative to Sims? Habs, rediscover your passion for life simulation

Post by DarkZA »

Don't forget to post the link to your Kickstarter campaign! The Idea is great, I just love it. The main thing is to spread it among all Sim-lovers so everyone could support this project. Have you thought about describing your project on some gaming-related blogs? My friend owns one of those. You should definitely contact them so they could write an article about your project. Should I tell him you'll get in touch?
ray_revie
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Re: An alternative to Sims? Habs, rediscover your passion for life simulation

Post by ray_revie »

DarkZA wrote: 25 Oct 2018, 09:24 Don't forget to post the link to your Kickstarter campaign! The Idea is great, I just love it. The main thing is to spread it among all Sim-lovers so everyone could support this project. Have you thought about describing your project on some gaming-related blogs? My friend owns one of those. You should definitely contact them so they could write an article about your project. Should I tell him you'll get in touch?
The Kickstarter launches next week (midnight ET, 29 Oct), so once live, yes, we will post a link. We're attending PAX this weekend in Melbourne, and we are seeing up to 10 journalists on Saturday, hoping to get a lot of coverage, we'll keep you all posted via our blog on our website (please don't forget to register and tell your friends to register for updates). And, yes, we'd be most appreciative if could pass this info onto your friend's blog.
Kindest
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Re: An alternative to Sims? Habs, rediscover your passion for life simulation

Post by ZeeGee »

Hi Ray, can you please address some of the feedback I'm getting from the forum from sims fans?

First, how are you going to develop a fully fleshed out simulation game in that short of a time period? Why are you limited on time as it states on your website? Most games take years to develop from what some are saying. And second, there have been many comments about the habs. The environment is lovely but that's not what makes a game. What makes the games are the habs themselves and that's what people really want to see at this point before they can get behind this. Thoughts?
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Re: An alternative to Sims? Habs, rediscover your passion for life simulation

Post by ray_revie »

ZeeGee wrote: 25 Oct 2018, 15:33 Hi Ray, can you please address some of the feedback I'm getting from the forum from sims fans?

First, how are you going to develop a fully fleshed out simulation game in that short of a time period? Why are you limited on time as it states on your website? Most games take years to develop from what some are saying.
Great questions, I'm going to answer the first, and Evie is going to answer the second.
We have validated and verified our storyboard, game concept, functionality and overall time line with a two major games studios in Melbourne over the past year or more. Many ppl may not be aware, but Melbourne is home to over 120 games dev studios including EA, who have had and still maintain a major presence in Australia. The 2 studios we've collaborated with have many experienced ex-EA employees, many who have actually worked on The Sims in past jobs. When Evie pitched the idea last year, the excitement was high, and we developed the business plan together with fully costed timelines, project schedules and resourcing (and the bill$$).
We're limited on time today simply because of budget - Evie & I are using family funds to do what we've done to this point, and relying on crowd funding for the remainder - that's the harsh reality of securing funding locally for what ppl still refer to as a "doll house game, played by girls."
With the most up to date software dev tools now available, our technical & production collaborators are very confident on their timelines, which include almost a full 6 months of testing/QA before commercial release. As you'll see from Evie's response, concept, gameplay and creative is all but done, barring additional design desires/wants we receive from modders/community.
Please believe me when we say, we've done our homework - and you're absolutely right to ask such a question. I hope I've answered it sufficiently.
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Re: An alternative to Sims? Habs, rediscover your passion for life simulation

Post by Evie_Revie »

Hey ZeeGee!
This is Evie, co-founder of Revie Studios alongside Ray. I am REALLY into the Sims, especially the third one. Not ...into the 4th at all. In answering the second part of your question about the Habs themselves, I have conceptualised how they'll be designed, trying to pull together the best elements from all Sims offerings with the aim of improving them. All of this is still up to be debated and I'm more than willing to listen to feedback and ways to improve it.

We intend to include emotions and multitasking from the Sims 4, but make the emotions similar to the moodlets in Sims 3. Emotions are very much attached to our experiences so we could have a certain number of emotions, all colour coded, and instead of moodlets being only green, white and red depending on whether they're positive, neutral or negative, they would be coloured based off the emotions. I liked the moodlets because it felt like the Sims were really reacting to the world around them and I'd love to expand on that. The traits from the Sims 3 I thought were good but some of them felt more like quirks than anything like vegetarian or can't stand art or clean freak. So these can be "quirks" that have certain influence on what a Hab will/won't want to do and will like. I'd love to incorporate Sims 2's turn off/ons and their habits elements too. Lastly, I looked to OCEAN: the big five personality traits. Openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness and neuroticism. So, for example, a Hab with an "agreeable" level of 8 would be very agreeable, flexible to new things, while a Hab at level 2 of "agreeable" would be less so. Very much running in the same vain as Sims 1 and 2 on their different levels of personality. Also would like to incorporate the different levels of interests on certain topics like sports or politics. We even want to include two religions for Habs to possibly follow, similar to Sims Medieval.

We're also expanding our life stages. Such as including preteens and kindergarteners (and more). Each early life stage will have a set of skills to learn, not just toddler. Each life stage will have a "Big Day" that is usually a transition point and how well or badly it goes can have an impact on them. E.g. a toddler ages into a kindergartener, spends first few days at home, then their Big Day is their first day of school. Having parents there will help them settle in better.

I hope that answers your question. I'm happy to answer more if you need. Thanks for your interest!! ~Evie
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Re: An alternative to Sims? Habs, rediscover your passion for life simulation

Post by ZeeGee »

Ray, yes you answered everything sufficiently and then some. :)

Evie, I love your vision! Especially the different life stages. It was always weird to have a toddler go to child... then teen. So they're a child from what, 3 to 12?! I love the different colored moods too. Religion and politics? Are you sure you want to go there?! It's not something I would want to incorporate into my game but as long as it's optional then who cares, lol! You'll probably get many differing opinions over what will work and what will not but, in the end, it's YOUR vision. :)

Hope y'all have a great weekend at the PAX thing and stir up lots of interest!
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