New information about how life stages work in Life By You!

Rod Humble’s latest project is shaping up to be his greatest one yet! In case you missed the news, Rod Humble is working with Paradox Tectonic to release a direct competitor to The Sims; an open world life simulation game called Life By You. The development team has been very transparent about the features they’re working on and what will and won’t be included in the early access when it launches in September.

Their latest blog post goes over aging and life stages. Many player questions regarding how aging will work in Life By You have been answered and the dev team talks about which ages will be in the early access and which ages will be in the base game eventually but not included with early access. They also go over exactly how aging works in Life By You and how your characters will progress through their lives.

Life By You: All About Life Stages

Which life stages will be in the game?

The blog post reveals that teens, adults, and elders will be available in Life By You at the start of early access in September. Currently, the team is unsure whether or not children will be included in the early access. They are still working on developing children and want to make sure they meet player expectations when they are introduced to the game. Here is what the team had to say about children:

We are still hard at work to determine if Children will be available at the start of Early Access. This will depend on how development of child visuals and bug fixing goes over the next few months. We have already created content for children, and also feel that the gameplay is rewarding, however we need time to bring visual charm and make sure that this life stage is working properly.

Life By You Blog

They also state that infants, toddlers, and children will all be part of the base game eventually. These life stages have been developed and playtested already but the dev team feels these life stages still need more development before they are introduced to the game. While this may be a bit disappointing to players who were looking forward to more family gameplay in September, they can at least take comfort in knowing the dev team is not keen on pushing out unfinished content just to meet a deadline.

How does aging progress?

Although Sims players might be familiar with the age progression from baby to elder, Life By You’s aging will be a little more true-to-life. Rather than only celebrating a birthday when a Sim enters a new life stage, the characters in Life By You will have a birthday every year, going up 1 year in age at every birthday. When it’s time for them to enter the next life stage, there will be an animation that happens to mark that larger change.

Right now aging follows the progression of in-game time and each human will have a birthday every year and go up 1 year in age. Visuals and animations are tied to life stages themselves and will update when a new life stage is achieved. We are still fine tuning the visuals across all of the life stages in the game right now. We can’t wait to see what you think of aging, so this is a major area where we will be watching player feedback during Early Access.

Life By You Blog

How do different ages interact?

Interactions between characters will be appropriate for their life stage. For example, children’s speech patterns will sound like a child and the things they talk about will be relevant to a child’s unique interests. The dev team is continuing to add lots of new interactions between now and early access. They also plan to continue adding more interactions throughout early access. Players can look forward to lots of life stage specific content.

When it comes to what each life stage can do, this is also suited to the specific life stage. The blog post states that only teens and older characters can cook all the recipes. The way this was worded leads us to think that children will be able to cook some simple recipes that don’t require hot appliances or sharp utensils; however, this is just speculation on our part.

Work/School, Transportation, and Dating

For work, school, and relationships, the blog post reveals that only adults can have careers. It also states that when children are added to the game, there will “likely” be a school for them that is not a rabbit hole. They did not specify whether teens can go to school in the early access or if school will be added for them eventually. However, they did state that university will not be in the base game.

Children will have bikes, tricycles, and skateboards to travel around the world so transportation is also age-appropriate. Dating unlocks at the teen life stage. Teens can only date other teens and adults can only date other adults. There will also be unique conversations surrounding dating for those specific life stages.

Looking for more Life By You content? Check out the first detailed developer livestream and stay tuned for more Life By You News in the near future!