inZOI Another Life Simulation Game in Early Development

[RedMallie]

Wow!!! THey look amazing!!! Did you make them into a couple so that they could get to kiss fast? Or has development of relationships been shortened?

I remember you mentioned the slowing of your saves, but I can't recall if you identified the issue?

Yep, I'll be dipping my toes in InZoi again soon. I think I would focus on developing skills as well.

[Klinn]

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They're just regular roommates but because Ingrid has the talent of forming relationships quickly (Socialite Trait) even before they had an early lunch they were BBF's and Sweethearts. 

Strangely, I couldn't change Ingrid's expression to make her smile a bit. Maybe because she was in mid-bite? Ingrid has prominent cheekbones but I haven't been able to get a good shot of that yet. Must practice.

I never found out what caused the slow saves and loads. Sigh. Hope it doesn't happen again.

[RedMallie]

I hope so too!!

My next very obvious question. Is Ingrid wearing an outwear top without a regular top? Is that possible? Can't remember now. Or is she wearing a CC top ? 

[Klinn]

In the base game you can remove the top and just wear a jacket of some sort but normally you'll see the default gray bra underneath. Mods to the rescue!   I'm using a mod called "No Default Garment" which eliminates the underwear. That opens up all sorts of possibilities even without CC clothes.

I'm also using a replacement skin which include some important details but the quality is only so-so at the moment, and the way textures are packed means I can't easily go in and edit them myself. No, that mod is not a red skin  it's the normal colour. Unfortunately males end up as Ken dolls at the moment but I think that'll change soon. 

I downloaded some collections of CC clothing for swimwear (including a hilarious slingshot bikini) and very risqué dresses for parties etc.

Cheekbones! 

Some mods must be installed the old way in inZOI's Steam folder on your C drive but more are switching to the official installation path in your Documents folder as supported by the game's new ModKit. So read a mod's instructions carefully to get things set up correctly.

[Rosewin]

She must invest in a lot of double sided tape.  Glad you are finding some nice CC. The are great looking Inzoi too. 

[RedMallie]

Thank you, @Klinn!!! In fact, I downloaded that skin and that nude Zois mod in May, but I wasn't sure how to use them, and then I got frustrated with my game crashing, so I left it the. I will see about updating those specific mods and as you point out, learning how to use them. 

The clothes are funny, sexy and nicely made. I'll have a look, too. Eventually. I just reminded myself about the game crashing, so that's the first thing to address in order to try to play it.

[Klinn]

Heh-heh, good one @Rosewin  One of the advantages of games is that physics can be ignored when they're inconvenient. 

 

[Kimi]

That's a pretty risqué sweater! But I like it.

[FzzyDg8]

I like your new couple.

[Firestaar1]

Great looking new couple, and that dress is really pretty, if a bit risque

 

[Klinn]

In that creator's clothing bundle there are some less revealing options, I just went for the max. 

They're a cute couple but I'm not sure if it's going to work out. He's putting a lot of effort into bringing up his artistic skill, admittedly with some not so great paintings at the moment, while she's often trying to interrupt to chat. Seemingly tired of being ignored for too long, she went so far as to walk right in between Ian and the painting he was working on. That should get his attention, right? I like her mischievous little smile.

Later he cooked up some lunch, sat down to eat it and she swiped the plate out from under his nose. Did she eat it instead? Nope, just threw it in the garbage. Poor Ian had to cook some more food while he's getting close to starving. Following my direction, he paid her back though. When Ingrid was getting a quick meal from the fridge, I had Ian causally stand around in the dining area. When she set the bowl down on the table he pounced, grabbing the bowl before she could start eating and dumping it in the trash. 

Will this tit-for-tat behavior have any long term effect on their relationship? Stay tuned.

Meanwhile Ian is slowly working on his horticulture skills. Some nice flowers and crops popping up. The crops can be harvested for cooking ingredients, although only tomatoes are used in the recipes currently available.

This is why I wish we could do some 'spray painting' of ground textures in Build Mode. Then I could actually create a dirt garden area in which to grow stuff instead of some recolored stone tiles. Maybe some day.

 

[Rosewin]

Some dirt would definitely be nice, but the plants look really good. 

[RedMallie]

The plants in the pots look great on the stone tiles, but yes, I'd like to be able to plant directly on the soil and make it look like soil.

2 hours ago, Klinn said:

Stay tuned.

I am!!!! 

[FzzyDg8]

[Klinn]

Rose, Red, and Reuben, here's another reason to have your popcorn at ready -- somehow my two Zois have been gender-swapped!

Below on the left you can see the Zoi preset I saved for Ian Islander. Definitely set as a male. On the right is what Ingrid, the other Zoi, sees when she looks up his info. Now he's female and prefers male romantic partners.   And when Ian looks up Ingrid's info, it show her as a male who prefers female partners. 

How the heck did this happen? When you create a Zoi you can adjust their gender identity, and you can adjust it again when you're combining them into a family to play, but I didn't touch any of those options, I was just making a boring old hetro couple. I didn't think to check them at the beginning of the new game, but I quickly ran through the same New Game process again with the same Zoi presets and the genders were as expected, not swapped. Weird.

So somehow as I was playing, the game glitched. And it managed to simultaneously glitch both Zois. Double weird.

This leaves me in a predicament. Do I keep playing and hope this swap doesn't affect other aspects of gameplay later on? Or do I start over again, losing the progress I've made and hoping that the glitch doesn't happen again? Decisions, decisions.

(sorry about the width of the image, I wanted to keep the text legible)

[FzzyDg8]

 I still say, I think they're taking advice from EA/Maxis!

[RedMallie]

Fzzy, I think you're right!!! 

My dear @Klinn, in this particular instance, I'd go for the continuation as an experiment. After all, if Ian (female, likes men) and Ingrid (male, likes women) still match in this gender bender glitch, they should still be able to make a couple, no? 

Completely off topic --> "Rose, Red, and Reuben", I like how that sounds!!! 

[Klinn]

That's true Red, but when visiting the island paradise, if either Ian or Ingrid decide to go, umm, exploring other relationships they could find themselves in a bit of a mess. 

Anyhoo, I've found the source of the problem. You know when you first start up the Character Studio the game will randomly select a Zoi preset? You are free to choose a different preset which is more to your liking but here's the catch -- if the game gave you a female preset at first and you choose a male preset to use instead, the "Gender Identity" settings may not be changed. So you can end up in a situation like Ian Islander:

He is officially (?) a male, but other Zois will view him as a female attracted to other guys.

At this point (August 2025) I am uncertain what impact these settings will actually have on your Zoi's dialog choices and options, nor on how other Zois in the world will react to your Zoi. But when creating one you should remember to check the settings and adjust them to suit your preferences for that Zoi.

Given their possible importance in how the game plays out, I think the devs should have made the options more apparent so you'll remember to check them. That little box-with-pencil button is easily overlooked.

"Rose, Red, and Reuben" -- the three R's  

[Klinn]

4 hours ago, RedMallie said:

In this particular instance, I'd go for the continuation as an experiment. After all, if Ian (female, likes men) and Ingrid (male, likes women) still match in this gender bender glitch, they should still be able to make a couple, no?

Too late, the couple has been reborn. In the process Ian Islander got a haircut and some tweaks to his wardrobe.

"Why is he always writing in that journal of his? Sigh."

Ian had just finished some exercising on the treadmill and didn't have time to change back into his normal clothes yet. As before, the couple reached BFF and True Love status before lunchtime. Onward to skilling! 

[RedMallie]

[FzzyDg8]

12 hours ago, Klinn said:

"Rose, Red, and Reuben" -- the three R's  

[Kimi]

That's so interesting! I hope the devs are able to switch that setting for players.

[Klinn]

.

Well this is an interesting development.

My other Zoi, Ingrid Islander went off to work at the amusement park on Friday. Quitting time was 8:00pm but sometimes she doesn't come home right away. In this case she didn't come home at all that night. OK, maybe she stayed up partying at a wild nightclub or something. Sat morning still no sign of her. By afternoon I'm getting a little worried and went out looking for her.

Turns out she got herself thrown into jail.   I have no idea what she did to warrant getting arrested.

When I found her she was exhausted from no sleep and starving from missing her meal times. Fortunately she did have Purr Coins I could use to buy her some donuts and fix up those issues. But needless to say, Ingrid is still not very happy. Her karma is terrible too.

I have no idea how long her sentence is. Her cell mate looks to have been incarcerated for a while. His prison jumpsuit is filthy. Also, note there are no doors on the toilet cubicles. Figures.

Not much I can do at the moment, just check in with her every few hours to see how things are progressing. Or not. Hopefully she won't have to stick a shiv in her cell mate.

[RedMallie]

That is just... STITCH INDUCING HILARIOUS!!!! 

 

Of course, provided it was not my own Zoi!!!! I am thinking if Ingrid is in jail with a male inmate because the game identifies her as male, too?????  

She's got the "don't mess with me, or else" look on, might as well get her sharpening the shivs already. 

[Kimi]

Wait. They have JAIL!?! This is fantastic! And now I need to know why she was tossed in. 

[FzzyDg8]

[Klinn]

I know it sucks but you're there because of something you did. Don't try cooking up any schemes to escape. It will not end well.

 

4 hours ago, Kimi said:

And now I need to know why she was tossed in. 

You and me both, Kimi. 

[Firestaar1]

I also didn't realize there was a jail!! 

[Klinn]

Lights out at 11:00 pm sharp.

All alone. Try to get some rest Ingrid.

[FzzyDg8]

[RedMallie]

That is amazingly weird!!!! 

[Klinn]

The next afternoon, 24 hours after Ingrid was arrested, she was finally released. While in jail her karma slowly improved a bit, partly due to the few things I could tell her to do, and perhaps partly because she really didn't care for the situation she found herself in.

The first thing Ingrid wanted to do after regaining her freedom? To go over to some random Zoi on the street outside the police station and yell at them sarcastically. Is that really the best life choice at this moment?  Now there's a cop running to catch up with Ingrid.

I cancelled that ill-advised impulse and the cop backed off. OK, it's time for you to find the nearest bus and head home. Which she does. By jaywalking against a red light. Hoo-boy. I guess we should think of her as being released on probation. No more crazy stuff or you'll end up back in jail.

She's home!

My main Zoi is very happy to see her return, even with the knowledge that a period of rehabilitation lies ahead.

 

I still have absolutely no idea how this all happened. Did she fall in with a bad crowd at her amusement park job? There were no clues in her messages or memories. No shady types in her contacts list. Only odd thing I could find was that she must have spent a fair amount of time fishing, given the number of fish in her inventory. Unless she stole them?

A Zoi's behavior is driven partly by their karma. If a Zoi does bad things, insulting people or littering etc, their karma decreases which makes additional nasty actions available, leading all the way to picking fights with other Zois and assaulting them. It's self-perpetuating downward spiral. As their behavior becomes worse, it's more likely that the police will intervene and cart them off to jail.

What I find surprising is how quickly this happened to Ingrid. On Friday when she left for work her karma was high Normal, almost at the 'Good' level. A day and a half later when I found her in jail her karma had sunk all the way past 'Normal', 'Fair', 'Bad' and down to 'Terrible'. That's a huge swing in a very short time.

Most of my inZOI families I've played have been composed of two roommates. I manage one of them pretty closely and let the other mostly follow the whims of their autonomy to see what happens. Previously this worked out OK. As expected, the autonomous Zoi's skills and achievements did not advance as quickly as the primary Zoi but they turned out fine. However this was the first time I've had a Zoi plunge into a pit of madness.

While Ingrid's on probation I'll be monitoring her more closely. But once she's back to a respectable state and is set loose to follow her autonomy again, will Ingrid repeat her self-destructive cycle of behavior?

The crystal ball is cloudy.

 

On 8/13/2025 at 11:22 PM, RedMallie said:

I am thinking if Ingrid is in jail with a male inmate because the game identifies her as male, too?

Nope, this Ingrid is part of the new roommate couple, the ones I recreated after discovering the Gender Identity confusion of the first pair. So she was female with a (smelly) male cell mate. It's a unisex jail.

 

[Kimi]

I wish they had memories like TS4 does. Or at least a better journaling system. This needs investigating!  

[Klinn]

The dev's roadmap showed "memories" for Update #4. That was supposed to arrive in December but their schedule has slipped a bit, so maybe in January 2026?

[FzzyDg8]

Very interesting!

[RedMallie]

6 hours ago, Klinn said:

It's a unisex jail.

It's all very interesting.

It keeps me wondering. Maybe the options when a Zoi goes astray vary more greatly according to the personalities chosen when creating them. It certainly requires further investigation and research.

After I check if my pc can run InZoi for a manageable time, could I pick your brain about how to install the mods you are using for the Zois' appearances, please, @Klinn? I surely need a refresher course.

[Klinn]

Sure, I can help you with those mods. In fact, you've given me an idea for another "Tips & Tricks" post explaining the different classes of mods and how their installation methods differ. Hmmm.

[RedMallie]

[Klinn]

@RedMallie  I've created a post over in the Tips & Tricks section explaining how to install those mods. You can be the first victim, I mean first player, to see if what I wrote makes any sense at all. 

[RedMallie]

It reads very clear, @Klinn!!! I'll be a willing victim tomorrow!!!! I've had this awful allergy today since mid morning and now, my antihistamine medicine is sending me straight to bed. 

[Klinn]

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The rehabilitation of Ingrid has begun. First step, let's tone down the wardrobe, OK? No more itsy bitsy miniskirts and open jackets flashing your assets. No sir, young lady, now it's baggy shapeless overalls for you! And yes, you have to wear the T-shirt underneath. No boobs peeking out around the bib. 

What? Is that too drastic a change? OK, how about a top which is relatively discreet compared to your previous outfit complimented with flowing sheer drape to add a touch of elegance? You can keep wearing your heels.

Next step is to change jobs. I'm not sure if there are shady types hanging around the amusement park, especially at night, but how about something less risky? Working for the Bliss Bay Times as a reporter sounds better. And with time you'll move up to become an editor or perhaps even higher! So brush up on your writing skills.

Oh, and yes, you'll be doing a LOT of charity work to improve your karma.

 

[RedMallie]

[Kimi]

I love it! Haha! And the story behind why is fantastic. 

[Klinn]

I was doing a quick check of a few of the latest update's changes and now Ingrid & Ian are enjoying their new, very very tiny pool in the front yard where Zois walking by can cheer or boo or whatever.

Ingrid is currently swimming au naturel due to mod complications. To be investigated. Eventually.

 

[Klinn]

So I started up a new game and Zoi for the DLC. He's Ian Islander the Third and closely related to the previous ones. I'm doing something very strange (for me) this time around. Playing just a single-Zoi family, and not using the money cheat. Instead he moved into a small lot & prebuilt house in Bliss Bay. Will stay there for a week or so before going on vacation in Cahaya.

A lot of the townie Zois passing by the house are running. Do I have a bed rep already? There's a cop who walks by frequently, keeping an eye on the place and any suspicious activities.

One side effect of playing without the money cheat is that my Zoi is getting out of the house more often. Can't afford any exercise equipment so have to go out look for a gym. 

[Rosewin]

Hardly played and already has a bad rep?  

[FzzyDg8]

Reputation is everything!

[RedMallie]

[Firestaar1]

19 hours ago, Klinn said:

There's a cop who walks by frequently, keeping an eye on the place and any suspicious activities.

 It's like they KNOW!

[Klinn]

.

It's worse than I thought. Ian Islander was out front of his home meeting various Zois and chatting with them and I noticed that there were three different cops walking past the house from time to time. Talk about a heavy police presence! 

Then I discovered that the house immediately next door has been abandoned, boarded up, and put up for sale.

Is Ian's presence really bringing down the neighbourhood that badly? I wonder if I can get him to spray graffiti on the fence. 

Meanwhile, I discovered that the Fire Station has disappeared from Bliss Bay. Well, the building is still there in modified form, but there's no marker on the map and you can't visit it. You also can't select it as a career any more. I wonder what would happen if I tried to load my old fireman save. Would he suddenly become unemployed?