NSFW/18+ CONTENT!

Okay, so since I’m a Sims fan I generally gravitate to anything Sims-esquey (is that even a word? Is now!), and if said thing has adult content included I am SO there! Hence in my travels I came across a life-simulator game called LifePlay.

The game is, as of writing this, still in development, and created solely by a one-man army who goes by the username Vinfamy. I came across this by accident one day at the Lover’s Lab forums and it looked promising. Naturally being a massive pervert I decided to download it and check it out. Several days later I still say that it has huge potential once the general bugs are ironed out.

First off the bat, since it’s still in the development stages it’s not polished. The avatars are clunky and pretty dated (though this will be addressed in upcoming releases apparently). The clothing, shoes, hair and other accessories are very limited as you would expect. There’s not a great deal to do (yet!) but room to do it (once it’s incorporated of course). If you’re familiar with The Sims franchise it follows that familiar route; fill needs while playing out a virtual life however you wish to play it. One thing that LifePlay has that The Sims doesn’t is arousal as a need. That’s right; you need to get laid sometimes to keep your character happy – bonus!

There are sex options built in already with more to come, including the standard M/F, F/F, as well as group MMF, MMMF+, and scenes of a taboo nature that won’t be for everyone – and being a faithful test subject I tried them all! Will Wright (founder/creator of The Sims) would be rolling in his grave to see this… if he was dead, naturally. But it’s still something that’s always been lacking in The Sims and was omitted of course due to its teen rating. LifePlay goes where The Sims feared to tread, and while there’s a lot of similarities it’s not exactly a cheap knock-off. There’s many reasons but I’ll touch on a few below.

Unlike The Sims, you don’t “move” in your daily activities. I’m not sure if that’s even something that will be added later, who knows. All scenes available to you happen in front of a flat 2D image that serves as backdrop depending on the building you’re in. You click to interact on a place rather than an object. You can’t actually follow your avatar around every other minute of the day. Instead an icon of your avatar will move around the map of the city as you direct them. Clicking on a building brings up a dropdown menu on items to buy or things to do – and certain businesses open or close (meaning access is restricted) depending on the time of day or night you try to visit.

Each place (and luck?) has the chance of triggering a scene you will get to “play”. By play I mean stand, select options from the dialog given to you, or have sex. Sex has it’s own drop down menu. Depending on the scene you also get some detailed sex ERP to read which can add a nice touch to the pixel grinding which is pretty… colorful in its descriptions. Sleeping, eating, watching TV, being creative, and anything else (including work) are all “rabbitholes” for now, meaning you don’t see any of the actions being performed. If a work scene is triggered you will see your avatar for the duration of the scene. And in your apartment (home) you do get to watch your avatar bathe. Either bathing or changing clothes can trigger scenes of being watched (if you live with another), or of course, sex. Other events can trigger randomly while you are at home or work, such as neighbors dropping by or a work-related scene, but for now there’s no interaction beyond standing and reading/selecting text (choices) or sex. One thing I thought was great was the subtle facial expressions when the “peeping tom” scene is triggered – I’m hoping to see more of that as the game progresses.

One massive plus is the fact that even now so early in development there are a huge amount of sliders (morphs) that change the shape of just about every inch of the avatar’s body – more than I think I have ever seen in any game before (but since I’m not a hardcore gamer I guess that’s a redundant statement somewhat. Either way it has a LOT – maybe 50+?) The skins needs work, but the fact we have genitals that we can modify without the need for CC is a great step up as far as I’m concerned. And that’s one more thing that makes LifePlay far different to The Sims; it’s mod friendly, and by that I mean you can modify as you go in game and not have to leave the game to make the changes stick. It’s a game-changer… literally!

As well as mods, the game can be tailored by the player to allow certain scenarios or turn them off altogether from within the game itself. For example you can allow rape (allow the option for an NPC to rape your avatar, and you get to see it happen and control the scenes until scene’s end or fastforward through), include or exclude incest, bestiality, and more. You can assign how many females or males you want populating your city, how many LGBT citizens, assign a specific body type for all your NPCs (so you can make a town of beefcakes or supermodels apparently), as well as allow sexual preferences to everyone including yourself. You can modify your stats as you play, for example: you want that neighbor you just met to be in love with you? Change the relationship numbers and BOOM! Instant attraction. Want 100% work performance? Change the numbers and it’s done. It’s EXTREMELY easy to modify, and that’s on purpose. It allows you to be a god in the way The Sims can’t unless you type in cheat codes or modify.

I don’t want to overhype or undersell the game as again its still in its infancy and by the creator’s own admission has a long way yet to go. It’s also a little confusing to start since there isn’t much information to really initiate you beyond some very basic tips in a separate text file (included in the download, in a Docs folder), so for now you learn as you go. But for all that I really did enjoy what there is to see and do (and the many perverted ways I could do it, to as many as I wanted to do it to). I can see myself losing a lot more hours in it should the game reach a stage of completion where it’s ready to be released. But it’s worth keeping an eye on anyway.

Check it out for yourself at Lover’s Lab here or on his Patreon page here.

(Links are NSFW/18+)