GoKawiilOn an island in the middle of a distant ocean, I've been collecting people to live together. I experiment on them. I watch them react to foods I feed them and strange outfits I put on them. They call me Divine One.
I call this island Togetherness. This is totally fine, right? Everything is fine.
This has been my existence with Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream, Nintendo's oddest Switch game in quite a while. A sequel to a Nintendo 3DS game I never played, it's a life simulator -- sort of like Animal Crossing, if Animal Crossing were absolutely unhinged and populated with people you created yourself.
It's also a place where Miis -- Nintendo's game avatars that have been around since the Wii -- are in the spotlight. You make them, have them meet each other, watch them do weird stuff and just... keep going. They offer an astonishing amount of customization and even come with their own creepy generated voices, which you can tune to be as annoying as you'd like.
I found comfort and joy just a few weeks ago with Pokémon Pokopia. This time around, it's more about laughs and chaos. Don't expect much agency in Tomodachi Life. You're not personally "on" the island controlling a character like you are in Pokopia or Animal Crossing. Instead, you're the creator -- building a world and introducing both helpful and chaotic elements.
It reminded me of something I couldn't quite put my finger on. Then, as I was watching a TV show with my kid he'd never seen before, it hit: It's The Good Place.
Which is why I created Miis based on all the Good Place characters. I made Chidi and Eleanor fall in love and get married. And Tahani and Jason live next to each other.
You can customize Miis in a lot of ways. I like mine weird -- this one isn't mine. Nintendo
For the other island residents, I made Miis named after all the prescription drug ads I saw on Hulu while watching The Good Place. Dupixent, Breztri, Nurtec, Tremfya…they're all here and doing great, mostly.
"Ant farm" was the thought I had as my island slowly grew -- more residents arriving, new facilities emerging, introduced by the game via news headlines: a clothing store, a home goods store, a food shop, a news station. As you go, new features start to unfold. Surprises. Sometimes island residents fall asleep and have dreams you can watch, and objects manifest from them: a toy robot, a makeup kit. Sometimes a Mii interrogates me about my childhood obsessions.
... continue reading