Preferences, Addictions And Allergies - Simulating The Human Experience

How can some people work two jobs, while others struggle to get out of bed in the morning? What compels one person to shower twice a day, and another to consider personal hygiene completely optional?

To simulate this variety in human behaviour, I would like to introduce the Preferences system. Every character in your household feels allergic, hate, dislike, like, love or addicted towards different aspects of life.

To use an example, let's look at a theoretical character Bob Baker:

Bob loves sleeping and hates hygiene. He loves sleeping so much that in addition to the base needs of hunger, energy and fun, he has a 'sleep' need to satisfy.

His sleep need is fairly straight forward to take care of - just sleep on a bed.

The image above shows he recovers +800 energy from sleeping, but also +90 fun from loving sleep and +120 fun from liking comfort. On the flip side, his hatred towards hygiene means he actually loses fun when forced to take a shower, as seen below.

It's this balancing of needs and choosing priorities for activities that forms the core of This Grand Life 2's gameplay. 

Maybe you want to roleplay a character who is allergic to authority and becomes unhappy when interacting with the government. Such a person would be upset when applying for a transit pass at the Town Hall.

Activities like jobs and education also have a set of preferences. A lawyer would not have much fun if they hated paperwork, while a delivery driver who loves driving would find work much more tolerable.

You might even get opposing preferences for the same job. For example, someone who dislikes working but likes being social would feel mostly neutral towards working as a food server.

You could even create absurdly overpowered characters with an addiction to work who can maintain multiple jobs, only stopping to eat and sleep. However, a drawback is that if they ever stop working, their work need won't be fulfilled and they will suffer penalties.

This leads us to the next topic on health, happiness and milestone birthdays, which I will discuss next time.