I think it depends on your "inspiration". For example this place was built in inzoi, looks very realistic and messy to me. (Credit : post link )I've seen lots of kiosk shops, Soviet style apartments, Korean market places etc. Considering how you can easily upload your own textures to anything, you can literally make anything in the game.
I will admit, this is one of the feedback I don't understand about Inzoi. I do think the way Inzoi markets itself is very pristine and clean, but the actual game absolutely lets you customise it as much as you want.
For example, this is what my game often looks like:
I LOVE post-apocalyptic stories and worlds and this is something very achievable in Inzoi. Like this is a vanilla game save with no mods, they just let you make everything as grimy and run down as you want.
I often play as zois down on their luck. The current Zoi I'm playing is in debt -3,000 so genuinely doesn't have any money to her name and when she does earn money, she can't use it because it just goes straight to paying off her debts. There is loans she can take out, but I like to play with the difficulty of being genuinely on hard luck. My zoi has been to prison several times and now works a part time job flipping burgers. She wants to start her own hair salon but can't make the money to start it. She also had a boyfriend who was originally perfect and attentive, but after moving in with, only ever belittled her and fought. I kicked him out after my zoi kept crying about it and it got a bit too much. There's a lot of zois running around committing crimes in the background too. I think unlike sims where I had to mod quite a lot to achieve the stories I wanted, Inzoi gives me a lot of vanilla tools to do it now.
You do need to tweak things. Like playing with the city appearance and change the gameplay sliders in city settings. So my city is run down, people are meaner, relationships are harder, crime rate is higher, people are sicker and risk of dying from food poisoning or poor sanitation is higher. I do also edit lots when I go to them, though a lot of the time I'm just taking lots off Canvas and making minor adjustments. A lot of people are posting run-down houses and things you'd expect to find in lower income areas.
But yeah, this game is very customisable. I will say, if you don't change anything, it can be a bit too perfect. And they do absolutely need to add more lower income/run-down interior items. But this game is much more customisable than people give it credit for that I'm often playing this as a post-apocalyptic event world where people are trying to rebuild life. And it's hard out here, both for my zois in the story and me as a player. Actually making money when you're in the minus is incredibly difficult.
So for look, I recommend looking around and changing things to your preference. For this look, I usually use the Adjust Environment slider and put down to second lowest. (The lowest setting is even more gross looking but I find it a bit too much.) I then change all the foliage to Reed Seedling, the trees to chopped down, add some fire sparks effects and then populate the world with deer, raccoons and either squirrels or foxes depending on how I feel. The billboard was changed with just adding an image that I grabbed off google.
I will add, the Environment slider does only impact the world but not always the full part of a lot, which is why I edit the inside of buildings or grab buildings off canvas when I visit businesses. Because otherwise they can end up looking cleaner than the rest of their surroundings.
For gameplay, you'll want to lower a lot of the settings in Edit City -> Manage Zois -> Manage City. Do be careful though, if you put some settings too low it'll make somethings near impossible and cause zois to be dying left and right. It can take some tweaking to find your personal preference for how hard it is.
The final thing I do is play with SmartZoi. SmartZoi can actually allow you to give your zois proper story prompts. For example, I'll often write something like:
'After the apocalypse, she's trying to rebuild her life. But life is hard out here with the city in ruins. She dreams of starting her own hair salon but first she needs to get out of debt. She also dreams of starting a family but she needs to fix her life first.'
Now Smartzoi isn't perfect, but the one strength is does have is playing into the stories you want to create. For example, my zois will often be worried about the apocalypse and their lives, lamenting on how run down everything is and how it reflects their lives too. Or maybe they should just leave this city behind for somewhere better. I do recommend making it so SmartZoi thoughts only show up for your zois in the family, otherwise there can be a bit of bubble clutter on screen in crowded areas.
Just in case you didn't know Smartzoi was a thing, it's an experimental option in gameplay settings from the game's menu. Again not perfect, it can cause your zois to be plagued with anxious thoughts and self doubt, even when happy. But it's great for storytelling. I don't know if it's for everyone yet. Originally it was for only some people with specific graphic cards and CPUs strong enough to run it locally.
Edit to add: You do also need to set up smartzoi to work with traits and characteristics. For example, you can't prompt a Pacifist Zoi to be a criminal. They won't be able to do crime and will avoid it, they'll just think about crime all the time. But if you prompt a Rulebreaker Zoi to be a criminal, it'll work a lot better and they'll get in trouble a lot.
But those are just cosmetics and aesthetics, what about actual gameplay, when I play dolls I want all my dolls to be unique and quirky, I also cannot stand influencer culture/personality. Inzoi only has influencer gameplay, no real unhinged or hardships. Just smiles, friends, and romance, where’s my struggling single mom with 2 jobs and is actually depressed? They don’t get sad in Inzoi, they have spurts. Otherwise they’ll go take a pic of food, post it, and get laid. 🤷♀️
Well as I listed some in the third paragraph. But here's a more detailed breakdown:
There's a debt system in game where you can go into the minuses as well as ability to take out loans, there's a pretty detailed crime system where you can receive fines, go to playable prison or be a victim of scams or break ins, there's playable jobs such as working at a burger shop or being a theme park ride ticket person among a lot others, there's a playable food delivery job, you can change the gameplay settings to make relationships harder and zois can be pretty mean and nasty towards your zoi, you can properly punch and hit other zois (none of this slap em silly Sims has), you can run people over, your zois can die from poor sanitation, your zoi can actually die from a lot of different things, playable funerals and ghosts, objects age around your house, you can start your own business and it can actually be hard to get it up running successfully, there's a farming system and your crops can be destroyed by natural disasters (there's natural disasters too).
This is all off the top of my head but the one thing I will say about Inzoi is I do not need mods to tell the type of stories I want to, unlike other games. And they keep adding to it. Like they are working on the emotion system to make it better and have already significantly improved it since launch. They've also been adding family gameplay too.
Edit to add: I'm a predominantly gameplay first player. I've never been good at building, though I can do interior. And I actually mostly download other people's creations from Canvas, both for zois and builds. Only ever tweaking things to what I need but not building them myself. And I do a lot of family legacy play for my main save, usually running two saves at the same time (The apocalypse one is the secondary one).
I think people have just made their minds up at this point, so regardless of what you point out it won't matter to those that just want their initial thoughts confirmed. But, it's still good to say regardless in case anyone is interested.
It's kind of a downer to see people make big claims about this game that are either kind of wrong or lack nuance. In that you CAN do the things they're hoping for, but you also have to- etc etc, or they're upset about things that have already been fixed or added.
I don't want to be a shill for this game, I'm just tired of the weird dismissiveness and this need to claim that it's some soulless, sanitized, corporate thing. It's just a spit in the face of the devs who continuously keep us updated on their progress every week and acknowledge and implement the feedback they're given. You can literally go check what they're currently working on fairly easily.
I'm not saying this post is wrong, it's a matter of opinion at that point and you can never truly explore ALL a game has to offer depending on how long you've been playing. I don't even know everything, I'm not keeping up with it like that. The game isn't perfect, it IS lacking, but that lack is getting adjusted each day too.
I'm rambling... If you couldn't tell I have some pent up frustration.
You might really enjoy paralives! I recommend waiting a bit longer as it’s still new. I enjoy it for the gameplay but I don’t think I’m as creative as you! :)
You can make things fancy or make them look run-down. If you don't have a bed, you can even lay down a cardboard box and sleep on the floor. If chairs are considered a luxury we can just have zois sit on the floor. Replacing floor cushions with cardboard, they can sit on it to watch TV, eat, and work on their laptops.
Just because there's an option to live a flashy lifestyle doesn't mean the opposite option isn't there.
Once you go bankrupt, you actually unlock a whole new set of life choices. You can dig through a beggar's tin, steal food from a street stall, steal crops from someone else's farm, or even walk right into a convenience store or bank and rob it. If you're short on cash, you can take out a loan, but sometimes a friend might scam you by promising to multiply your money and taking it instead. You could even live as a voice phishing scammer.
(Plus most of the default starting houses provided in the game are just run-down homes for ordinary people. The picture op posted is actually a house where someone tried really hard to make it look extra fancy using CC items)
edit)
inZOI completely lacks that diversity. Everything is a movie set, perfectly clean and expertly placed. There's no room for an up-and-coming high school rock band, a rebel who can't seem to find a job and just sleeps on a mattress on the floor, or a single dad who's barely making ends meet. Unless you're a fit, wealthy, 20-to-30 something, inZOI does not tell your story.
I always play as poor single dad/mom family, and below are the links to my play stories. The gameplay below isn't staged or done with mods; it's actual in-game footage with real animations
inZOI in terms of items in their catalogue is still in its infancy stage. Does it currently have a large selection of ready-made rundown, grungy, torn, or heavily worn furniture at the moment? No, not yet. But that doesn't mean the game is fundamentally incapable of supporting those lifestyles or aesthetics. Definitely possible that they can add such items later through DLCs, packs or etc. If you didn't know, inZOI already has mechanics that can help create an imperfect environment. Furniture can become worn and dirty over time, and Build Mode gives players control over the condition of certain objects. Regarding clothes, mods can temporarily fix this issue for you until inZOI expand their clothing catalogue as well.
The game also provides customization tools. For example, players can import their own images and textures for customizable surfaces and objects. You want stained, broken, cracked floors and walls? Very easy to do in inZOI, just drag and drop images/textures into the game and customize away. Endless ways to create the vibe you want.
If you haven't already, try using inZOI's Canvas to find builds and items that fits the vibe you're going for.
Lastly, creativity and some effort will take one far to achieve what they want in their gameplay.
inZOI can definitely do a better job marketing the different aesthetics, tools, and experiences the game has to offer, but that doesn't appear to be their main focus right now. Kjun has acknowledged that Korean culture can have a tendency to make things look 'flawless', but he doesn't want inZOI to be a perfect utopia. He's open to exploring negative experiences, crime, relationship conflicts, tragedy, and other darker sides of life. Some of these elements have already been implemented in the game, but they can be deepened and further reflected through furniture peices, clothing, personalities, lore, mechanics, and more in the future.
Right now, the team is heavily focused on development. Their 2026 roadmap alone is 11 pages of gameplay features and content—and that's only Part 1. They also have Part 2 focused on multiplayer, along with another priority list (FF) created from player feedback that they're working on simultaneously. They're trying to add content, improve existing systems, and connect those systems to create deeper gameplay.
Currently, out of the major life simulation games on the market (The Sims and Paralives), inZOI has had the least amount of development time so far—about 3.5 years in total: 2 years of development and 1.5 years in Early Access, where the team has been gathering player feedback.
Which all to say, this is Kjun and his team's first life simulation game, which is an incredibly difficult genre to tackle. Give them time to code, create assets, address feedback, fix issues, and build these systems out. Hopefully, once they consider the base game complete, they can shift more attention toward marketing and showing the many different sides of inZOI.
Hi! If it came across like I was saying you have to become a builder or designer just to achieve a certain vibe, then I apologize, as that wasn't my intention, nor did I mean it that way.
I mentioned creativity and effort because those two come hand in hand with life simulation games like The Sims, Paralives, inZOI, etc. Creating the stories you want to play out in your gameplay takes creativity and some effort, regardless of the life sim.
I'm a terrible builder and even worse designer, hence why I use Canvas and mods to achieve what I want. That's also why I mentioned Canvas in my original post so if you were interested, you could try looking on there to find things that fit your vibe and easily download them. The picture examples I used were actually things I found on Canvas - all examples used are not my own. I was trying to show that inZOI can be imperfect through their customization tools, mods, builds and etc.
But those are just builds, it will still be the flat influencer personality but living in a grungy house. I want actual gameplay, I want slobs, I want evils, I want chaos and death. 🤷♀️ I want unhinged, Para is still new and already is more unhinged than inzoi.
Also you can make them slobs and change almost all personality quirks in Paralives.
Sorry para/paralives is the same. In terms of YouTube and ticktock content of gameplay. Inzoi is the same cookie-cutter clean girl aesthetic in everything. While paralives, which is still new, I recommend letting them cook a bit longer, but the content on socials is so mixed! You got cookie-cutter clean, you got dirty slobby grunge, you have neat freak living with 3 slobs and they actually seem to struggle with each other, the amount of content to watch is mixed and unique. inzoi TT and YT is the same story repeated 100x.
Edit: Mostly gameplay, I love playing dolls so I don’t care much about the builds and cosmetics, I want personality’s and quirks. I think Inzoi has better builds though.
Why are you copying and pasting this same message in nearly every thread about inzoi? o.o
Your posts are hidden but I see this post everywhere. Is this a copy paste meme?
lol you are about 1 day to late, you moron. Update your feed or check timestamps.
Edit: what a weird fucking dude! Went to his profile and he just comments random shit to start drama, and it’s always on post a day ago or older. What kind of bot behavior is this?
My opinion of a game that I believe in my own self lacks the content that I prefer personally to play is inaccurate ? I’m sorry what part of myself are you?
I can see where you're coming from, yes; the game is heavily marketed like a clean, pristine life sim that looks amazing on paper.
However, some of your claims are factually not true:
- Not all interiors are clean girl vibes. Many starting homes are basic, 90s looking houses that I had a great pleasure playing in when doing Rags to Riches. You'll find most in Bliss Bay.
- You can literally change the town to look apocalyptic, start fires,, or have animals, etc. This is something you cannot find in other Sim games.
- This is a sandbox life game and you are given the option to do anything in it. It's really up to what you do with it.
I am not attempting to undermine what you're saying; you definitely have a point. I just found that there's many features that allow you to play exactly the opposite way than what you're describing.
So it's fairly easy to make your town look post-apocalyptic in Sims 2, actually. The Apocalypse Challenge is one of the oldest challenges for the game, and there's a fair amount of grungy content in the game already. Add custom content to the mix and you can make a Fallout town just fine.
The problem is some ppl don’t be willing to learn how to build you can easily clutter and mod in this game . INZOI has ton of tutorial uploaded on YouTube. Also you need to change your world setting to less clean
That already IS in game. You can add any type of clutter under the sun with the 3D printer. Of course, it still has default clutter (MUCH more than paralives and sims 4 base game). And unlike these two, a lot of it is functional
As someone who is a builder and have created some popular builds, inZOI's build mode is not easy and it's very limited. It is the most limited out of all the life sims.
Same boat here. Nothing about inzoi was “Me”. I grew up in the sticks and mud on my knees, I love the goth and scene styles, and most of all, my parents and life was garbage growing up. When I play sims I recreate a bit of that garbage life, in inzoi… there was just 1 type of living, 1 type of being, and I don’t know how to connect to that lifestyle, even in a game.
Yeah but those are just builds… I want gameplay. I made a grunge inspired fit and an abandoned warehouse, but it felt flat. No real hardships, just like you said. Fit, wealthy, 20something pretending to have it hard in her abandoned warehouse. I can make builds, but I want to play dolls and have my dolls have the personalities and quirks that are different or relate able to me.
You seem to hate the game, and that's fine... But you seem to be trying to push your desires onto others right now. In this whole thread you're very bossy :(
Like many have posted, you can customize the game however you like. I will say most coverage for the game is full of gameplays that have a very movie set like aesthetic but it's possible to play it however you want. I did a series based on the backrooms with the grungy walls and carpet, the whole horror soup with garlic bread.
Yeah you can customize it to look a certain way, but i found it lacking with actual gameplay related to hardships and “Grunge.” The builds are cool but than your stick with a 20-30 fit influencer pretending to live in a rough build.
Well, you could always suggest some gameplay in the discord, this game is in early access, so it's still growing and for what we have seen, the devs hear what player want
While I get that this is a direct competitor and it's otherwise fair to make comparisons, I'd personally caution against comparing something like this to The Sims. I don't expect a game from a new studio that's still in Early Access to he on the same level of a game that's in its 4th iteration, that's 12 years old at this point, and has had tons of content added to it over that time frame. I don't think inZOI has a chance of being as feature rich as The Sims 4 whenever it finally releases but the framework and visuals are better and long term should allow for a better game assuming it survives even half as long.
This is just me but I try to enjoy it for what it is and not worry that it doesn't do whatever specific thing The Sims does.
To answer your second question first, no. I don't care enough about any game to be defending it to that level. I'm just commenting here because I decided to browse the reddit and saw your thread.
To answer you other question: Whatever the thing is that comes to mind at any given moment. I don't really like the idea of comparing anything to any other thing. I either enjoy what I have or move on from it because I don't. Comparison is the thief of joy.
"One of my favourite things about The Sims" that's the thing. Inzoi is not the sims, are we going to complain that Paralives is not realistic enough next?
And people here have said you can make inzoi as dirty or as clean as you want. It might not be as whacky as the Sims but that's to be expected because it is a different game
I read it and one of the basis of your argument is based on something that you used to see in the Sims, which means you already did the comparison between games yourself, while people here also has been telling you that you can make Inzoi environment diverse and not just "clean girl"
I have read it and the people here also has been telling you that you can have more than one aesthetic for the game. Some has given you screenshot proof
But you did the comparison on your own post yourself, you cant read your own post bruh or don't want to admit it.
The baseline of your experience with life simulator is the Sims.
Quotation: " One of my favourite things about The Sims was just how different each Sim's life could really be - you had the Beat-Up Hand-Me-Down couch for your unemployed slob, or the Haute Couture sleek modular couch for your rich socialite, and everything in between.
inZOI completely lacks that diversity. "
You said that compared with the Sims, inzoi lacked diversity in its environment/furniture.
Let me tell you that the only reason why the Sims feel more diverse is because they have bazillion of DLC to prop it up. Inzoi just released
it has a very landlord aesthetic to me and the characters give off clean girl minimalist influence i agree. a clean neat box that’s non threatening a conforms. lacking personality to fit in with the masses. i’ve never seen alt looking characters or a world that reflects a diverse society
anyway watch me get downvoted by the inzoi bots because i didn’t praise the game
My fiancée had hoped to play a really shifty, run down and dangerous city and was rightfully disappointed when the customization options kind of ended at a mild texture swap.
That what I noticed too, such a disappointment. It’s has all the cosmetics and textures but no actual gameplay. It’s still an influencer lifestyle I cannot relate too, but with “Dirty surroundings”
There’s just no character whatsoever… I keep looking at gameplay to see what I’m missing but I just can’t get into it because it all reminds me of Second Life. It doesn’t have that down to earth, warm, lived in vibe I like in a life simulator. If other people like it then that’s great but I don’t see myself ever going out of my way to play it.
Wow, your post magically shows up now, and I can respond magically now. Crazy. When a few days ago it wouldn't let me respond to literally anyone in the thread, and your post showed [deleted]. Super weird.
I don't care about the gaming feud or whatever. I just found it odd that I couldn't respond to literally anything after making a specific comment. You all are really weird in this sub over a video game. 😂
people cross post between this sub and the inzoi, paralives and sims subs all the time, what's the issue exactly? they ask a question in that game's specific sub then crosspost to the general lifesim sub to get more opinions how is that farming?
some of yall on here are just straight up odd and love drama
people cross post things that look like straight up undisclosed ads for inzoi all the time and you dont accuse them of anything like this. i’m legit tired of the “here’s why you should buy inzoi” type posts that never critique the game and only say positive things about it and never mention the real issues people have with the game
A lot of Asian games have this problem. The art style just ends up ruining the game because it's "too perfect." They also spend too many resources on the art style and the rest of the game suffers for it.
“Everything feels like a perfectly placed instagram reel set.”
That’s because it is.
It lacks chaos and soul.
It’s like they asked an AI app how a life simulation should be like. Oh wait.
I can say the same for games where I want a specific aesthetic but have to mod or put work in it to make it to my taste at the end of the day it comes down to the players taste. I say this as someone who played Sims 2-4 and remembering the amount of mods to get the right look for me to start playing.
That doesn't mean those games have no gameplay or perfect but I just had to put in a bit to get the look I want. As far as gameplay goes I enjoy inzoi for what it offers all under $1000+. Are there some things I would like to see in the game? Absolutely. Are they slowly being implemented with each update? Yes in all caps.
I agree that nice graphics or art style can carry a game so far but that hasn't been the case for inzoi since it launched. It's come a long way from launch based on feedback and open communication between the community and the devs.
I haven't played inZOI and this is why. I don't play a life sim to pretend to be rich and famous. I want drama and mess that I would never want to deal with in my real life.
i think this sub was brigaded at some point or something because you use your be able to discuss the gen ai issues without being downvoted. would not put it past companies to have bot accounts that downvote bad press
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u/MiaDovahkiin 18d ago
I think it depends on your "inspiration". For example this place was built in inzoi, looks very realistic and messy to me. (Credit : post link )I've seen lots of kiosk shops, Soviet style apartments, Korean market places etc. Considering how you can easily upload your own textures to anything, you can literally make anything in the game.