[02.20.26] Next Week’s inZOI Hotfix & Development Update (Updated)

[Kjun]

Hello. I’m posting a little earlier than usual today.

This week is a long holiday period in Korea, so there isn’t much to show in a video. Instead, I’d like to share what will be updated next week.

Next Week Hotfix

• Reduced the frequency of natural disasters and adjusted disaster compensation.
• Fixed an issue where Zoi would continuously walk into walls or objects and get stuck.
• Fixed an issue where “Refill Fruit Drink” would not restock the display when the business was closed.
• Fixed an issue in CAZ where some character Zoi presets could not be saved.
• Fixed an issue where underwear was exposed when worn with certain outfits.
• Fixed an issue where the cushion in the Hanok Studio background appeared abnormally thick in Customize mode.
• Fixed an issue where certain areas of the rattan drawer cabinet could not be customized in Build mode.

Improvements Decided and Currently in Development

• Improving an issue where infant needs and interactions were not processed correctly.
• Adding a user option to adjust rotation/movement and zoom-out speed.
• Lights will automatically turn off when everyone is asleep.
• Improving the issue where conversations would prioritize sitting if chairs/benches were nearby.
• Adding the ability to save makeup and hairstyle per outfit situation.
• Adding an option to lock outfits by situation.
• Graphic improvements for high-end users and fixing awkward distant vehicle movement.
• An emotion system to better show feelings/relationships between two Zoi.
• More variety in bed/sleeping motions.

We are continuously reviewing all the feedback you send us, and it truly helps a lot. I honestly believe that without your feedback, inZOI would not have developed this far.

This genre is complex—fixing one thing can sometimes break another. Since it functions similarly to a tool, there are countless possible interactions. For example, adjusting a single window frame can cause unexpected issues depending on its position and surrounding objects.

That’s why we chose to keep refining the game based on your reports and suggestions.

Please enjoy this week’s video as well.
Thank you.

kjun

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Kjun’s Reply to Your Comments

Hello, it’s Wednesday. As always, before I head home, I wanted to read through your posts and write some replies. Once again this week, I saw so many thoughtful and meaningful suggestions. Thank you. I’m finishing work later than usual today, so I may not be able to respond to everything in depth. I hope you understand. Still, I’ll do my best.

Improvements to Zois’ Behavior and Autonomy

Many of you mentioned that Zois’ autonomy is currently too limited and that they need more diverse reactions and behaviors depending on their individual personalities and situations. For example, when a Zoi behaves in a threatening way, police NPCs should properly intervene, and interactions between Zois should feel more varied and natural. We acknowledge that this area still needs significant improvement.

We will continue working to make personalities more distinct and ensure that reactions vary accordingly. In addition, there was a structural limitation in the game that prevented police NPCs from reacting immediately to threatening behavior. This issue will be improved in the April update.

To explain further: the root cause was a fundamental system limitation where reaction animations could not play until the currently ongoing motion was fully completed. We have been addressing this core issue and are planning to include the fix in the April update.

There were also many requests for more differentiated behaviors based on emotions and personality traits. Players want a system where Zois show “unique behaviors,” meaning that even in the same situation, different Zois respond differently. For example, emotions such as fear, anger, and joy should be expressed through varied gestures and facial expressions, and nearby Zois should react differently as well—creating a kind of “social ripple effect.”

We recognize that this is currently an area where inZOI is lacking, and we are actively improving it. Due to resource limitations, we may not be able to apply this level of detail to every action. However, at least for important situations, we will implement behavior differentiation based on emotion and personality.

Personality and Memory System

Many of you feel that the current personality system is too limited and abstract, and that it should evolve into a deeper, multi-layered system where players can directly shape personalities.

There were suggestions to reference psychological models such as MBTI or the Enneagram to introduce dynamic and evolving personality traits. You also expressed a desire for a memory system, where Zois’ experiences influence their behavior and emotions over time.

Personality traits should be clearly connected to emotional responses and actions, and personalities should change flexibly depending on growth and stressful situations.

While memories do not permanently affect Zois in every case, recent memories between Zois do influence the context of their conversations. For example, if a Zoi recently had a negative romantic experience with another Zoi, they are more likely to choose negative romantic dialogue options. On the other hand, if they had a positive memory, they are more likely to select positive interactions.

In addition, some events that a Zoi personally experiences may remain as trauma and restrict certain behaviors.

Animation and Graphics Improvements

Many of you pointed out that Zois’ animations sometimes feel unnatural, particularly hand movements, facial expressions during conversations, walking speed and posture, and emotional expression. There were also requests for improvements to camera controls, vehicle driving animations, and additional animations for phone usage to enhance immersion.

We are currently improving high-end graphics processing while also optimizing visuals so that lower-spec systems can achieve better graphical quality. We will update this as soon as possible.

In particular, there have been many comments about issues with facial expressions and emotional delivery during conversations. We plan to conduct a thorough review and inspection of these animations.

Life Cycle and Job Systems

There were requests to expand life stages—such as babies, toddlers, and teenagers—with more unique clothing, behaviors, and furniture animations. For example: swaddling blankets for babies, toddler high chairs, toddler clothing, and hairstyles.

Toddler customization is being gradually expanded. We have already developed the ability to change toddler outfits. We are currently working on features such as seating toddlers in chairs and bathing them.

For the job system, there were proposals to add new occupations such as supermarket cashiers, police officers, criminals, garbage collectors, and groundskeepers. There were also suggestions to expand job-specific features—for example, fingerprint collection, arrests, and vehicle inspections for police roles.

We also received feedback about expanding crime-related content, introducing mini-games, adding tool and equipment systems, and implementing crime reporting and punishment systems.

In daily life, players requested more detailed and varied animations for actions such as cleaning, cooking, sleeping postures, bathing, and changing clothes. We are continuously developing more motion variety. Some of you even provided very detailed reference materials—I may have to run straight to the motion capture studio!

Interface and Gameplay Improvements

There were many requests for UI/UX improvements, including automatic lighting, phone call and text message animations, a mini-map, schedule management, and clearer displays of relationships and emotional states.

We are currently developing a system that allows players to choose between the previous UI and the current one. The mini-map, phone calls, and text message controls will be included in the next update.

Automatic lighting turned out to be simpler to implement than expected, but we encountered performance issues. If used frequently, it can slow down the game. We are currently discussing whether to implement it while accepting some performance impact, or to invest more R&D time to create a lighter solution.

There were also suggestions to assign wardrobes and drawers to individual Zois, allow clothing purchases and outfit changes in stores, and introduce an online shopping system. This is currently in development and will likely be included in the April update.

Social and Environmental Elements

There were requests to make NPCs and Zois behave more naturally throughout the city, including adjusting crowd density, differentiating congestion levels by public location, and adding animals and natural elements.

Suggestions included implementing crime reporting systems, news systems, and social reputation mechanics such as fame and fear meters.

There were also ideas to enhance psychological realism, such as school counseling systems, mental health and therapy systems, and reflecting identity struggles during adolescence.

There has been active discussion comparing inZOI with The Sims series, along with strong requests for inZOI to build its own unique and deeply layered systems.

One particularly memorable suggestion this week was adding an “obituary news” feature to the game. Although inZOI still has many areas to improve, reading ideas like this makes me feel hopeful that, step by step, we may truly build a world that once existed only in imagination.

Thank you again for sharing so many thoughtful suggestions about improving and expanding the overall systems of inZOI this week.

Your ideas are inspiring and moving, and sometimes I wonder if my development pace is too slow compared to the passion you all show. Still, I will continue doing my best.

See you again on Friday.
Thank you.

kjun

Discord - Group Chat That’s All Fun & Games

[LennyOgg]

Please tell me NPCs/unplayed Zois won’t be able to do this because they already are really annoying as is with interrupting our Zois and being rude and ruining every day- or night- out

[LennyOgg]

And will this also be able in Multiplayer?
That would be really annoying with some trolls running arround and pestering the players with these actions o.o

[Liessahl]

Yeah, I’m a little concerned about how annoying that could get, even in the singleplayer game. It’s a nice idea but some kind of restriction is needed.

[jllyfshjay]

These are really good implements, however while the light turning off while zois sleep is an improvement, it still would be nice to be able to toggle an auto-light function ourselves. If a zoi wakes up, but the other zosi are still asleep the lights turning back on in the whole house can break immersion. Another idea would be setting it up so that it functions per room.

[JoyIsFunner]

You are doing a very nice job at making inZOI very in depth and I’m loving what you are doing, I ask you to please make lighting and color bleeding a top priority so that I can build my house and start playing inZOI, I want to build my house to what I’m used to like the house that we live in, we have wood flooring, wood walls and white ceiling, but when I try this in inZOI the wood floor tints the whole house and makes a solid white ceiling turn brown like severe cigarette smoke stained, here’s a photo of what the wood floor does to solid white ceiling and the whole room atmosphere.

So again I ask you to please make this a top priority to fix soon

[JoyIsFunner]

I agree, this looks like trying to upset others, very strange to be implemented into a life simulation game and what is that colorful lighting coming out of the zoi’s hands, magic?

[itsmechiie7]

Thank you for the update, Kjun. I’m excited about the addition of keys to perform certain actions that affect others. Although I see concern above about the possible annoyance of these action keys, I do believe this is just a placeholder where you are showing how you are playtesting this. Looking forward to what kind of actions we will be able to perform with these keys!

[Taibak]

Thank you for the regular update, Kjun. We all hope that inZoi will continue to expand its potential over time. I really appreciate that. What makes me skeptical is how much players are bothered by NPCs with these actions.

When the lights automatically turn off at night, there is also less light flickering, at least in my buildings. I like the idea.

As jllyfshjay suggested, I would like to see an option to turn the lights on and off in individual rooms and/or control the lighting throughout the entire house.

As Joy demonstrated in his example with the ceilings, which are actually white but unfortunately look nicotine-stained, I would like to see a fixing so that the ceilings do not become discolored.

[LennyOgg]

I think these actions to bother other Zois/Players will be quite popular among some players, especially in Multiplayer.

When I first played Sea of Thieves, I happily went through the first steps and thought how cool it all was, started the game and got ganked by players who were just waiting for idiots like me.
Yeah, never played that again, luckily it was on a free-to-play weekend.
One player left (me) but many others (like them) are probably still have fun having power over others and feeling great ganking noobs.

And when I saw how much No Man’s Sky improved, I wanted to play again, watched a video and learned that, if you don’t go deep into the settings and disable it, other players can find and destroy your base and kill you? What?
No way I was going to support that crap.
But many players must be into it so the devs make it possible.

Fact is there are players out there who have fun pestering others and they also pay for the game.
So catering to those is bringing in money too.
On the backs of players who just want to have a good time but they must be a mass that’s worth it to sacrifice us for.

[HeinziDerHeld]

Yes, that’s a major issue with many multiplayer games and modes. My suggestion to keep these “mean players” at bay would be multiplayer mode like implemented in these games: Dreamlight Valley, Animal Crossing, Euro Truck Simulator 2 / American Truck Sim.
Meeting other players in worlds / areas made for multiplayer only (without the possibility to affect any singleplayer / home areas) provides enough freedom for players to enjoy inZOI together, but also offer privacy and safety for their private areas.

[JoyIsFunner]

Yes, this is why we have to play GTA Online in invite only servers, I can play with my friends and simply enjoy the game, try joining an open world and 99% of them are fill with chaos, at which these players don’t have much other than a fast car and weapons and will never have hundreds of fast cars and every house on the map, because they spend their time killing each other (which is insanity) I’m a person that looks forward to progression and if I spend X amount of hours in a game I’m expecting to have something to show for it

[JoyIsFunner]

I know you can’t fix this today @Kjun but I made this image for you and the inZOI team to get a good laugh, I do love your game so far and overall you’re doing great for making a very complexed game in early access

[Elit3d]

Please fix Business do not attract zois when the player isn't there causing the player to lose profit - #7 by Elit3d

[LennyOgg]

@Kjun

Your ideas are inspiring and moving, and sometimes I wonder if my development pace is too slow compared to the passion you all show. Still, I will continue doing my best.

I think the majority understands that developing a life simulation takes it’s time, what many of us upsets are the priorities.

It’s hard to understand why the team wastes precious time on individual number plates for cars, for example, and why it prioritizes frying pan and collision mechanics for weeks and months over issues, bugs and missing features that make the game so frustrating these days.

The ambitious roadmap released in December is already overdue with the promised features for January.

Please offer polls and surveys for all players about what’s the most important for the majority of us and focus on these features + provide a solid core that prevents bugs from happening and concentrate on bug fixes.

Everything else has time until after full release.

If you’re still not sure what to work on, the question you could ask yourselves could be:

Is this important right meow ?

[LennyOgg]

@Kjun

Automatic lighting turned out to be simpler to implement than expected, but we encountered performance issues. If used frequently, it can slow down the game. We are currently discussing whether to implement it while accepting some performance impact, or to invest more R&D time to create a lighter solution.

I’d say invest more time.
Everything that brings even more bugs and issues to the game should be avoided.

[GDfromRivendell]

I’ve already lost count of how many core systems we’ve “sold” to Kjun. I remember how awkwardly I first started shaping the layered simulation/adaptive group and crowd behavior/story progression, the memory system, the Enneagram (with its dynamics, stress/growth desire/fear transitions), and autonomy/routine patterns, and then just waited and waited. Watching how they shot up instantly, then stalled, and still ended up reaching consideration, or even the production cycle – for the complex job/police‑crime system, social media, the CAZ‑fitting UI in the game environment, the clothing‑purchasing system.

And over time I’m moving toward that point where it’s fair to ask: “So what else do you need?” and finally let inZOI be inZOI, with its potential and its own unique timing and place in the market (even though some folks got irritated by the persistent requests to stop turning brainstorms into Sims promo brochures and copying things, though I think there aren’t many of them).

The average production cycle of modern games is 5–7-10 years. inZOI has only had a full 3 years of development so far. And they’re working in the most complicated genre, with no prior studio, no prior experience, and on top of that this engine had never been used for simulation purposes by anyone. So we keep moving forward and hold the line to defend the interests of the game (and Kjun’s), so it can take its rightful place in the games industry.

[official.jade.monet]

Thank you so much for your continued updates and feedback.

I would also like to give a shout out to your tech team. If you report a bug or issue with the game they respond in less than 24hrs and the community is so ready to help.

Hopefully this is an easier thing to implement but I think the satisfaction improvements and excitement would add for players is more hair options (Caribbean/African American) and clothing template styles/cutes/shapes so that your Zois can have more individuality/personality. After a while all your Zois start looking the same because of the limited hairstyles and clothing options.

I am a builder and love building in the game. Its always a part of my storylines. I would love more build objects like chimneys, solar panels (even if they are not functionable), awnings, foundation pillars, Eave, drains and Dormers. Sunoofs would be great too

You’re team is doing a great job. Thank you for all the hard work!