Post October 2025 Update

 First a little background:

I bought InZoi when it was first released in early access earlier this year. I had a blast playing it for about 60 + hours, then ran out of things to do and Sims 3 was calling my name. I briefly revisited it when the August update with Cahaya was dropped but decided to delete all my saves and start over fresh with the October update. I was intrigued as to how the new trait system would work. Would it make the Zoi into unique characters? I randomized the personalities, and selected the Ambition and Life Aspiration based on those traits.

Rather than spend a lot of time in CAZ making new characters, I decided to use some presets - some downloaded from Canvas a while back, and one I created when InZoi's character studio first came out. 

I decided to create a "halfway house" for ex-cons in Bliss Bay. The residents are Boone Evans, Ariana Evans, Jesse Garner, and Shanice Shanice. 

Boone Evans - (adult) ex-convict - crimes: grand theft, assault, and grifting.

Personality: Charmer - Extroverted - Slacker 

Ambition: Notorious Villain 

Life Aspiration: Life of Abundance

Family: one daughter, Ariana, who was placed in foster care while Boone was in prison. He has since been awarded custody, but because he was imprisoned when Ariana was just a toddler, she really doesn't know him well. (I know a child would not realistically be allowed to live in a half-way house, but that's the beauty of a life-sim game. Anything is possible.)

Boone, bless him, really wants to develop a good relationship with Ariana and be a good father to her. He autonomously selects and reads parenting books. He also is still tempted with criminal tendencies and has goals related to kicking/damaging vending machines and littering. He has an urge to marry Shanice who has been flirting with him, but for some reason when she tries to kiss him, he balks. I wonder what that is about. "I want to marry you as long as I don't have to kiss you." He's a weirdo. 

Ariana Evans - (child) former foster kid, recently reunited with her estranged father.

Personality: Innovator - Genius - Clumsy

Ariana has become friends with Shanice, so maybe that's Boone's motivation for wanting to marry her - to give Ariana a two-parent family. I think Ariana must have had bad experiences in foster care. One day she had a sad moodlet. I checked the reason for it, and it appears one of her friends was taken away by CPS. No name given for the child, though I would like there to have been for storytelling purposes. An NPC child with a picture would have been nice. The backstories I created for the household is just head-cannon and not included anywhere in the game itself, so this incident really wowed me as it fit so well with Ariana's backstory. Ariana also has a good relationship with Jesse maybe because he's a bookworm wanting to live a life of wisdom and she's a genius.  

Jesse Garner - (young adult) ex-convict - crimes - attempted robbery of a convenience store, some gang affiliation. 

Jesse is basically a decent person who got caught up with the wrong crowd when he was a teen. He has no interest in continuing on that path, but instead wants to educate himself and become known for his intellect. 

Personality: Recluse - Cheerful - Bookworm

Ambition - Walking Encyclopedia

Life Aspiration: Life of Wisdom

The house I moved the group into was based on their funds available. I had to add some bedrooms, so the house now has three. Because Jesse is a recluse, I built a garage in the back which is converted into his own room. He still has to go to the main house to eat and use the bathroom, but his room has a workbench, bed, chair, reading lamp, and bookcase. He has urges to learn new things and goals to repair objects etc., so the trait system seems to be working well with him as well. 

Shanice Shanice - (created by SatchOnSims) - (young adult) ex-convict - crimes: shoplifting and petty theft. 

Personality: Visionary - Slacker - Materialistic

Ambition: Partners in Love

Life Aspiration: Life of Romance 

Shanice autonomously flirts with every Tom, Dick, and Harry she sees. She and Jesse are close friends, but he's the only one she doesn't seem to have any romantic interest in. It's funny, because Boone developed a "mutual crush" with Shanice, but the crush wasn't really "mutual" because Shanice didn't feel the same about him. She liked him, and he was a romantic interest, but not yet to the mutual crush level. In fact, Shanice had met someone else she was infatuated with who did become a mutual crush - his name was Markus Hall. (Pictured below.)

And there's also Ruya Yoshida she would like to get to know more, and they have an upcoming date on Saturday. Oh, and she's also enamored with an ice cream man who works down on the beach. So many men, so little time! But her main obsession is with Markus. For a brief time, she had an urge to marry Boone, but that quickly faded. She tried to make things work with him, but the dude refuses to kiss her, so too bad for him I guess. 

In retrospect, it's probably just as well. Shanice had an urge to buy a wine fridge. The only one in the game is a big commercial one; it's not functional, and it took half the household's money to get it for her. The chick is HIGH MAINTENANCE! Poor Boone would be going broke trying to make her happy. 

One thing I really like is the opportunities from other Zoi who call and invite the household members to participate is activities such as gym buddies, coffee get-to-know-you dates, and club dancing, but I'm not sure if the activities event list works or if I just don't understand how it works, because I have trouble getting the Zoi to complete the items. The get-togethers are fun despite this and the lots are well populated for these activities.

One gripe I have with the game is the fact that I've got two slackers living in the house, and no one seems particularly interested in house work. They all are eating constantly (I think the needs levels need to be adjusted. I'm using the 48 hour default, but these guys are always hungry.) They leave dirty dishes all over the table. They can only wash one dish at a time, so I have to keep queuing them up to do it. They do a few, then get distracted with other things. It's a lot of work. Getting the dishes done takes forever, and every time I come back to the house, there's a heap of dirty dishes again. Too much like real life! 😒The devs need to make it so all the dirty dishes can be washed at once.