Behind the scenes: Q&A | Vivaland’s Lead Game Designer | Devlog #3 

I'm shocked not alot of people are talking about this, it looks so unique! especially the multiplayer aspect

This actually looks better than what we have seem from "Project Rene"

My personal opinion/suggestions about aging and kids in multiplayer: - AGING - The simplest solution for managing aging in multiplayer when only one player is online is to have an option (enabled or disabled when first opening the multiplayer world) to freeze aging when not all players are connected. Time passes but doesn't count towards aging unless everyone is in the game. For example, if a child has "6 days until teen," those 6 days only count when everyone is playing. If someone plays alone for 10 days, no aging occurs. - KIDS "OWNERSHIP" - When determining "ownership" of a child: - If only one person is in the game, you could do it two ways. Either the person playing has control over the child, or keep it the same system as if both parents where playing but with only one there. - If both parents are in the game, I think a good solution will be for the child to be somewhat autonomous but influenced by parents' commands, like an NPC or like a playable Sim in The Sims with full autonomy activated (but make it good 🤣). Both parents can see the stats of the child, and they can override autonomy with tasks' social interaction (e.g., ask to do homework), I think it should be small chance of failure too, especially for teens. And if a child refuses a command, a buffer time should prevent re-asking immediately (e.g., an in-game hour), requiring the other parent to ask or to wait until you can ask again. Also maybe more than one way to ask a command (influenced by personality maybe?), that can influence the chance of failure and relationship with child. Like if you just ask in a good way, chances of command working and relationship staying the same or getting better go up. But if you do something like "Strictly demand to..." or "Scream to do..." if the child is a kid chances of obeying go a bit higher and relationship goes a bit lower, but if it's a teenager the chances of obeying go lower than normal and relationship is drastically negatively impacted. For contradictory orders from both parents in a small timeframe, the child's response could be 50/50 and somewhat influenced by their personality and relationship with each parent. For example: - If one parent asks the child to play and the other asks them to sit, start from 50/50 chance and, if they're already doing one of those commands, chances go higher to keep doing the same one, and also the child's personality traits (energetic/playful vs. lazy/chill) and relationship with each parent (better relationship makes probability go slightly higher) influence their choice on what to obey to. A small randomness factor should add variety to the child's decisions too, like a small chance that they decide to do neither of those, so it feels more alive. Again, small, it can happen but not so common that it makes you feel like it's just broken. Even better if you add a little fun animation for those rare occasions, like kid shrugging their shoulders in confusion, or making a silly face and then they go do something else. - ADULTHOOD TRANSITION - When a teen becomes an adult, players can choose whether the character moves out or stays with a parent. You can do this two ways: - In a straight forward way, pop-up appears to the creator of the game, like "*NameOfChild just became an adult! Should they move out or stay with someone?" and 3 options "Move Out" (so go autonomous in their own house), "Move with parent 1", "Move with parent 2". Players (hopefully) talk out what they want and creator chooses accordingly. Or you can do it more complex (and fun!) when turning an adult present both players with two options: "MoveWithMe" or "MoveOut." Depending on what player chooses: - "MoveOut" + "MoveOut" = Move out autonomously. - "MoveOut" + "MoveWithMe" = Move with the parent who chose the "MoveWithMe" option. - "MoveWithMe" + "MoveWithMe" = CHAOS! TREASON! Resolve conflicting demand with a 50/50 chance, modified by relationship and other factors (max about 75%-25% difference in chances). Factors could include relationship quality, if both parents have a good relationship the one with the best relationship can get some bonus points, but if one parent has a really bad/negative relationship with the child a lot of points get deducted considerably diminishing probability, also living arrangements so if the parents live in different houses and one of the parents only has one bedroom you can deduct some points for that parent, personality traits can add bonus points too (e.g., childs with money/greed traits prefer wealthier parents), and more. You could add a tiny bit detail for even more fun/complexity. If win goes to the least probable option and the child ends up moving in with a parent they dislike/have a bad relationship with, there could be a limited-time opportunity (e.g., within 2-5 in-game days) for the other parent to reclaim them by asking "Move with me" again in a social interaction, with a small chance of success, adding suspense and depth to the game.

Maybe "couples" in the game can share a mutual inventory where they can access the same items. For us visually impaired players, can you give us the option to enlarge the UI, fonts, and pictures of the build/buy items? It isn't easy to decorate your house when you can hardly see what everything looks like before choosing it.

3:35 aaaa all this info! love how skill traits are earned this makes so much sense!!! 3:39 yep loving all of this

Maybe you can have like a "party" or "household" system where you can join specific characters into the party. For example if your character gets married to another character of another player that automatically forms a "party" and when they have kids, they will be added to the same party and whoever clicks on the kids can control them. I've seen this concept in some multiplayer games. And also make it possible to play with completely different characters and other parties as well so it's not too limiting. As for aging you can have it as optional, like in the Sims where you age your characters by ordering them a birthday cake so you don't have to worry about how to implement the concept of time in the game with the multiplayer aspect.

6:24 it would be rlly interesting if both players got to vote who gets to be the carer. that way they can decide between them and pass ownership of the viva. if they tie, it could add some interesting game elements as to who gets custody.

Another simulatiin in my list🎉🎉🎉🎉looks great🎉🎉

Been playing a little bit today and loving it. Will leave a good steam review, but I LOVE the clutter resizing tool. I made a HUGE basket of eggs and a very tiny bottle of wine. Absolutely hilarious. I would rather you guys leave that in and have it clip back to a normal size when a viva interacts with it than lose that all together. Great work guys. Will definitely buy.

I cannot wait to play this! I think I'll do a video on the demo.

As for accessibility, for me it would be being able to size up/down any UI, and the ability to turn off flashing effects (if any).

Yes❤🎉 finally a game worth the time and effort. Thank you from a simmer who has been missing something fun like this since the sims 2. ❤❤❤

Hope the game will be modders friendly. And something usefull : Patterns (list of interactions that can be initiated via keyboard shortcuts). 🙂

I am so excited for this game!

Iconic🤩

I noticed characters don't open mouth while they are talking to each other. And can we turn off the aging feature like in the Sims games?

About the child situation, I'd make them like a "third party" viva that is like "from both" but "from none" of their parents. Once one of the parents is online, you can control them (that if they share the same household). If not, you can, like, "summon" the child to your household (if you're the parent that doesn't live with the child). And ofc the child would only age when one of the parents is online.

When will it be fully released

It seems interesting but my question is, if you're playing single player, are you then in an offline more where only you and your character exists, or are you still on a multiplayer server, just choosing not to interact?

Yay

If two players can create a child, why not have sort of a prenup agreement before procreation? So, the custodial parent would be determined before procreation. That could work.

Hometopia is also multiplayer.but it's more focused on building than life simey. But still there you can also build houses with friends and you have a player avatar thingy.

Will there be occult vivas?

Maybe there can be a notification system that alerts both players of what's happening and then they can decide to give each other permissions for things such as who has control over a baby, money, etc. I was going to suggest an app...but that may be too ambitions. Maybe an email alert or text could go out? Something like that?

How will aging work when someone is offline?

The solution to who owns or controls the baby the solution I suggest is that the players intending to be parents have to agree on it ahead of conception by some form of contract, and only when that is decided will the game allow conception to take place. Since both players will have to be online at the time of conception this is the ideal time for the decision to be made.

Will we get expansion packs etc

If you would go for the actual server-open-world way i would join because that way you are really doing something unique, the building tools look promising, not looking for a singleplayer experience and only able to share-build-together in one chosen neaghborhood based on who is online or not.

Maybe instead of removing the avatar when a player logs out, how about just temporarily turning them into a townie/NPC? The avatar can continue going about their daily lives on a set schedule until the player logs back in and take control again. Then your character can continue to grow and age along with the other players, even when you're offline. Maybe that can be a world setting that you can check to enable.

In addition to pronoun selection for those with mental disabilities, will there also be colorblindness accessibility options for those with physical disabilities? And will there be disability options or traits we can have on our characters in the game? I think they would blend nicely into the web of different attributes that make every character feel unique.

Will we get pets in game

Will Viva land be mod able to make mods

For birth decisions, I assume you mean name (it would be rather inaccurate to make sex a birth decision since that decision is made at conception, and gender is decided by the player later in life). So, for names, could gameplay contain conversations about names during pregnancy, where both parents offer up names from time to time, that could be either accepted or rejected by the other player. Names that are accepted by both players are a possibility, names rejected by either player are not. Then, at least when birth comes, if the other player isn't online, then an acceptable name can be chosen from these. If a no name has been accepted by both players, then the birth has to happen, so the mother names the child (since she's obviously the one online). Or a slightly different scenario to stop potential arguments: both players come up with 5 names they want for each sex, the other player chooses one of the other players' five names for each sex. The game chooses the final name.

😅 i wish for a bernese mountain dog ❤

I think when the parents of the child log off the child should also log off and if the other parent isn't an npc they take car of the child

Will you make modding your game easier that sims 4?

How many jobs will be in the game? Thanks for your hard good.

I love some of these ideas, I'm very curious about multiplayer, but I have one piece of constructive criticism, I really think you should go bold on the art style of the characters. The criticism that Life By You received showed how unsatisfied people are by generic looking models for the characters, similarly, the largely positive support for Paralives showed how much people appreciate a charming, interesting and unique art style. In the nicest way possible, I do think currently the art style of the characters here is more basic and generic looking, and so I think there would be a lot to be gained from getting an artist or illustrator to come up with a really unique and beautiful form of character that could help the game stand out and get people really excited. I have really noticed that people tend to fall in love with the look of the characters in life sim games, and this forms a big part of the appeal for large chunks of people. Just my two cents!

Will there be fully functional Churches in the game? With pastors, Bible study, weddings, Sunday sermons, etc? I've been waiting for and watching this game on steam.

How explicit will the game be? Will there be nudity, sex, violence, etc.?

If the couple is married when it is born then both parents should get equal control of the baby/child. If the couple is not married then each person should be able to make decisions about who has control of the baby/child. If there are differences or disputes then the couple should be able to go to court to let the AI make the decision based on how long and how often a player has been playing the game, how much the person has invested in the game, and other things.

2:36 wow i what a pretty shot!

This game should have a fictional language and I have the perfect name for the fictional language vivalese

Notes he didn't REALLY talk about Singleplayer? That's because it's pretty much BS, because from what I saw with the Vivaland Dream Home demo or whatever it's called, ( I stopped playing two days after I got it, two days only because I tried to give a second chance ) in the Demo it clearly says that ALL the other lots are off limits to you, only your friends can use them, so when playing alone, there may not even be any other people in the game at all, and you can't build on the those other lots and then create other characters to live in those houses, you can only have ONE HOUSEHOLD PER NEW GAME! SO NO IT'S NOT REALLY SINGLE PLAYER, IF I am wrong then explain how we are supposed to be able to have other characters in our game when playing in Single player mode! I want them to show us an entire video, explaining how Single player works in the game in depth, not just a few words, where all they say is there is supposedly Single player mode! But it's really obvious that Single player is not the focus of this game, so I need solid PROOF that this game can be PLAYED TOTALLY ALONE and still have NPC and or randomized characters at least, IF they aren't allowing us to create characters to place in houses we can build in each new world, to interact with our own main Characters/Household! I have seen nothing about this game that make me want to buy it, it's like Life By You ALMOST, but with Co-op mode, and a FAKE Single Player mode, no modding included in the game, no showing any real game play, and so on! I am not at all impressed! 😒

No way this game supports 12 languages and no Italian :/