[07.31.26] Making Things Better (Updated)

Hello everyone!
I hope you’re having a fantastic Friday.

It’s great to see you all again.
This week, I’ve continued focusing on improving autonomous behavior.
Our main goal this week has been to make it much clearer why a Zoi visits a particular location.

Until now, even when Zois visited places like cafés or bakeries, they often spent most of their time wandering around, chatting with others, checking their phones, or using the restroom instead of actually accomplishing the purpose of their visit. While these behaviors help make them feel more lifelike, they occurred so frequently that many players felt it became difficult to tell what they had come there to do.

To address this, we’re changing the system so that Zois will prioritize fulfilling the purpose of their visit. For example, if a Zoi visits a bakery, they’ll purchase bread, go through the necessary steps, sit down to eat it, and then return home. Of course, we still want them to feel like real people, so they’ll occasionally have brief conversations or encounter unexpected situations along the way. The goal is to avoid making their behavior feel overly scripted or mechanical.

We’re also rebalancing how Zois spend their time at each location. Most of their actions will now be directly related to their primary objective, while random behaviors—such as looking around or chatting—will occur much less frequently. At the moment, we’re aiming for roughly 90% purpose-driven actions and 10% random behaviors.

That said, making the behavior sequence too rigid can introduce new problems. For example, if there are no available seats or a required condition isn’t met, a Zoi could end up getting stuck. Because of this, we’re also researching ways to strengthen purpose-driven behavior while still allowing Zois to adapt flexibly to changing situations.

Another important improvement we’re currently working on is changing the logic that forces Zois to stay at a location for a fixed amount of time. Instead, once they have completed their intended objective, we want them to head back home naturally.

These improvements are currently being developed for standard lots such as cafés, bakeries, and parks. Business lots and schools already have their own development plans, so they are being worked on separately.

Since this feature is still under development, we’re continuing to test and fine-tune it to ensure it feels natural during gameplay. Ultimately, our goal is for Zois to do more than simply wander around a location—we want players to clearly understand why each Zoi chose to visit a particular place.

That’s all for this week. We hope you enjoy this week’s development video from the inZOI team, and have a wonderful weekend!

–Kjun


Kjun’s Reply to Your Comments

:smiling_face: Hello everyone,:smiling_face:

This is my first post of August. I hope you are all enjoying your summer vacations.

The heat in Korea has been especially intense lately, and I often find myself wishing I could escape to the beach or a swimming pool. For those of you planning a trip, I hope you have a wonderful and safe journey. At the same time, Korea has been so hot that I sometimes feel genuinely fortunate to be at the office under the cool air conditioning. (And I really do enjoy being in the development studio.:psycat_cahaya: :psycat_cahaya: )

As I began writing this post, I thought it would also be a good opportunity to talk about some of the content I mentioned previously.

First, I would like to explain why summer was the only season left without a public holiday when we introduced the calendar and holiday features in the first anniversary update. This explanation is a little overdue. Although summer is hot, it is also a season when many people go on special trips, and we wanted that aspect of summer to be reflected naturally in the game, just as it is in real life.

Previously, the travel system was combined with the relocation feature, which made it confusing and inconvenient to use. This time, we are developing it with the goal of providing an experience that feels like actual travel rather than relocation.

We are preparing accommodations, various events throughout the cities, and a range of interesting places to visit. The development team and I have also spent a great deal of time thinking about how we can bring the meaningful experiences we have each had while travelling into the game’s content.

I imagine many of you are also looking forward to the accommodation feature. In my view, accommodation in inZOI should involve more than simply staying somewhere as a guest. Some of you will likely want to operate your own accommodations as well.

We will first introduce a feature that allows both players and NPCs to stay at accommodations. Later, through the business system, we plan to gradually provide the UI and features needed to create accommodations and configure individual guest rooms. I would love to show these features to you as soon as possible, but we will continue refining them with the development team so that we can deliver them at a high level of quality.

Another area we have recently been working on is improving the autonomy options.

Previously, the settings for the city, the player’s family, and the actively controlled Zoi were defined across several different layers, which likely made the system difficult to understand. Going forward, we plan to simplify this so that the most recently applied option will be the one reflected in that Zoi’s behaviour.:grin:

We are also preparing improvements that will allow autonomy settings to be applied not only to the character currently being played, but also to certain NPC families. At the same time, we hope to provide a broader and more flexible range of options.

As the hot weather continues, please take good care of your health and stay cool this summer. Every comment and piece of feedback you share gives us tremendous encouragement. We will return soon with further improvements.

Thank you.

kjun :growing_heart:

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Dear Kjun thank you so much for the drag and drop items for the inventory. It’s finally here we needed it so much. :heart_eyes:

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What an excellent update - Wow :light_blue_heart: Thank you so much inZoi team..!!

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Thank you so much for this weekly video! It’s always a pleasure to get a glimpse of what’s coming and to follow the development progress.

I’m really happy to hear that the Zois voices have come along well. I’m also hoping that NPC Zois will each have their own different and natural voice, so that every character has their own identity. It might seem like a minor addition, but I think it’s actually a very important element, and a crucial one at that. Voice is an integral part of a character’s identity and contributes greatly to immersion.

I also appreciate the fact that you want to give each NPC Zoi a real purpose in the city, rather than just seeing them wander around aimlessly. I think this will make the world feel much more alive and believable, especially if each character follows their own routine and activities. I just hope the execution will feel natural and that the objectives won’t be automatically the same for all NPCs in the same location, but will vary depending on their personality, background, or preferences.

The drag-and-drop system from inventory to furniture is very intuitive. However, I’m wondering how this will work once in-game. In the video, we don’t see whether the Zoi then performs an animation to go put the object away, for example in the refrigerator. If that’s not already planned, I think it would be a real plus for realism to see the Zoi perform this action after the drag-and-drop, rather than giving the impression that the object teleports directly.

The feature that lets you take a photo and get it immediately in a frame is an excellent addition. It’s a small feature, but it adds a lot of charm to the game.

The improvements to the mini-map are also very much appreciated. One additional idea would be to add a specific marker to directly identify our house, without needing to use the navigation system every time. On that subject, I also noticed that the navigation system sometimes deactivates for no apparent reason, for example when you get in a car. It would be nice if it stayed active until we reached our destination, unless the player chose to disable it themselves. A more reliable navigation system would also make traveling more enjoyable.

The surfing mini-game is a nice surprise. It allows for variety in activities and brings some freshness to the gameplay, especially when daily activities become somewhat repetitive.

Free swimming underwater is probably the addition I like the most. It opens up many possibilities, like collecting underwater objects and, why not in the future, spearfishing or other activities related to exploring the seafloor. I also really like the fact that Zois can chat while being in the water, for example in a pool, because it makes interactions feel much more natural. I’m hoping that in the future, we can also see NPCs swimming freely in the sea, to make aquatic environments even more lively.

There is, however, one point about NPC behavior that bothers me a little. I often get the impression of seeing more adults using the playground equipment than children. I’ve also seen an adult ask a child Zoi to play with them on these installations, which seems quite strange to me. I’d find it more natural if children were the main users of playgrounds, while adults accompany or supervise them, with a few exceptions based on their personality. Even more consistent NPC behaviors based on their age, role, and personality would also make the world feel even more believable.

I really appreciate seeing you continue to improve the realism and the little details that make the world more alive. Thanks again for sharing this, and I can’t wait to discover the next updates as always! :heart_hands:

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Hello Kjun amd team,

thank you for your hard work. I was so glad to see we can finally frame photos properly and drag and drop items from the inventory.

Also again, I’m looking forward to the improved autonomous behavior for the NPCs. Not to mention the pool/water interactions I have been waiting for.

The surfing mini game is a pretty cool workaround. It would be nice if we could have more of those, like a mini rhythm game at a Arcade Dance machine per example.

The voice feature is also exactly how most players wanted it and it’s a huge thing to make our Zois more unique. Big Thank You for that​:four_leaf_clover:

Everyone have a nice week​:four_leaf_clover:

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Hi Kjun and the entire team :psycat_thumbsup:

Thanks a lot for this new video :psycat_thumbsup:

Since you mentioned photo frames it would be great to be able to customize them even further I’d love to have more templates with different shapes like round, oval, or heart-shaped frames.

I’d also love to be able to create real memory boards like the examples below, mixing photos of various sizes, Polaroids, collages, postcards, tickets, drawings, or little notes. Being able to add a date or the location where the photo was taken beneath each image and then saving these layouts as reusable templates would make decorating even more fun and personal.

Here are a few examples of what I have in mind :psycat_thumbsup:

I think this kind of customization would add even more charm to our homes and really showcase our Zois’ memories. :psycat_paw:





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Hello! :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

That’s a great idea! The main thing is making sure it doesn’t cause Zoe to return home every time between visiting different places. Otherwise their path will turn into “café - home - park - home - chatting with someone on the street - home - came to the beach to practice standing on a board - and right back home again - and then back to the beach to swim now” :grinning_face:

About the video: underwater diving is super cool! But the surfing mini-game is still not entirely clear, of course. Maybe it’s great, but it really depends on how difficult it will be to maintain balance. Personally, I really don’t like reaction-based games, so I’m really hoping it’s something not too complicated.

And please, please, please!!! Just make it possible to disable the icons above Zoe and the white outline highlighting of selected objects without mods, as built-in game settings! :folded_hands: :folded_hands: :folded_hands: :folded_hands: :folded_hands: :folded_hands: :folded_hands: :folded_hands: :folded_hands: :folded_hands:

I understand that during development this doesn’t bother you at all - it’s more convenient for you that way, and besides, you have half the screen filled with additional text, coordinate axes, and debug data. But honestly - in game mode it’s just incredibly annoying! Especially if you’re playing with just one character, and there’s no need at all to know whether they’re selected right now or not, because you only control them anyway. But even if there are many of them - we can always see the portrait at the bottom.

Please, give us such a gift! :slightly_smiling_face: Just as an option, yeah? Please! :folded_hands:
After all, modders made this ages ago - so it can’t be that difficult, right? It’s just that almost every time after an update there’s a problem with this mod, so I had to stop using it.

Yesterday when I launched the game, I realized that I actually felt physically unwell from the constant flickering of white outlines of objects passing under the mouse cursor, just because I enabled following Zoe, and they’re walking around the apartment, and the stationary mouse cursor, accordingly, passes over all the furniture, doors, paintings… And if I, who don’t have epilepsy, feel this way - then surely people with similar conditions could have very serious negative reactions. This option would be really useful from that perspective too.

Hugs to you all, and have a wonderful weekend! :sparkling_heart:

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Thank you, those seem like great changes to me!

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About the drag and drop feature: Could you fix that when you place items on a table for example, that they’re on a symmetrical grid? When I put multiple folded pants for example on a table, there is no way to have them placed aligned properly and there is no free placement on it. Now that the drag and drop is going to be implemented, I would like to have this fixed aswel.

About the autonomy fixes: Along with this feature I would like to have the “call over zoi” and zois showing up to a text message to come over for example, fixed. Calling over zois takes way too long or they straight up don’t show up and the same for when you have a meeting planned with a zoi. When it’s a timed event for example, when you get a text message about figuring out whether you’re friends or something more, they always show up after the event is over. This should definitely be fixed along with this implementation.

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Regarding the question that you asked “If there’s anything you want to see improved even further, please let me know down in the comments.”

Can you please fix these shoes, they are one of my favorite shoes in the game and ever since the Holiday clothing release no textures work on them anymore These shoes are glitched after Christmas update, Please Fix

After Update: texture covers laces and part on the soles.

Before Update: Excellent Shoes.

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Thanks so much for sharing yet some more very cool insights. As mentioned a while ago, I can’t wait for the family photos to finally get implemented. Also I loved the scuba diving and the surfing mini game. In general, the whole post looked very amazing and I’m very much looking forward to experiencing all of this in the game. Have a lovely weekend, team =)

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Yeah!!! I even had a mod installed to get rid of the white outlines, but I removed it to avoid glitches.
Also, please don’t remove the kitty from the lobby! I’m begging you! :sob: :folded_hands: It’s so cute :heart:

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I wouldn’t want that because it’s ridiculous. Quickly organizing the inventory is the best option. Thankfully i’m not that obsessed with realism it would harm the game. You forget that this is a game.

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I really like the direction you’re taking with purpose-driven autonomy! One little detail I think would make it feel even more immersive is letting Zois visibly carry the items they buy when leaving a store.

For example, after buying bread at a bakery, it would be nice to actually see them carrying the paper bag as they walk outside, head to their car, or go home before putting it into their inventory. The same could work for groceries, shopping bags, coffee cups, flowers, and other purchases. It’s a small detail, but it would make everyday errands feel much more believable.

Also, since you’ve been improving the water and environment lately, I’d love to see lakes and ponds become even more lively with natural touches like lily pads, ducks, and swans. They would make parks and waterfront areas feel much more peaceful and alive, especially if they have little interactions like Feed ducks.
And it would be a great thing to add FLAMINGOS, it would make photos look asthetic and the beach seeing FLAMINGOS fly and land on the water, with a little feed interaction too :flamingo:

Lastly, thank you for sharing these weekly development updates and videos. It’s always exciting to see what the team has been working on, and I really appreciate how open you are about the development process. Looking forward to seeing these improvements in-game :blush: !

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The Zoi voice config showcase looks great! However, please consider adding a height adjustment feature. The current default setting (males always taller than females) limits custom character traits and feels less realistic. Really hope the dev team listens to community feedback and adds a height slider!

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best game for me ! Thanks Kjun for the peak update ! Voice change :heart_eyes:

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Hello Kjun, thanks for the video.

I’m also happy about the drag and drop items for the inventory, it would be great if you could do it for the fridge too (drag and drop food from the table to the fridge).

I’m super exciting that you could finally take a pictures and get a frame with it . (according what i saw on the video, the landscape which goes on the frame should be the one where we took the picture, right ?) if it’s not please make it possible to do that way it would be awesome

I can’t wait to be able to dive with my zois and make them grab some stuffs under the sea, i love it !!! Will swimming become an official skill? i hope it will . Currently in the game, we only have the option to click on the ocean and call the “Zois” to come here quickly. But they can’t swim. I hope that with the new diving feature and the new swimming skill, our “Zois” will be able to swim even on the surface and that we’ll have the option to “swim laps” so they can swim on their own for a while.

Regarding the “surfing” minigame, will the “zois” who practice this sport receive any skill improvements (swimming, fitness, etc.)? I’d like to know how this will actually impact the game. I like the idea because in one of my stories, one of my characters is a surfing enthusiast (of course, at the moment, he couldn’t actually surf, so I just had him practice on boards at Bliss Bay beach), but I’d really like him to finally be able to pursue his passion with the help of this minigame and for it to have a real impact on the gameplay of the zois who practice surfing.

Regarding the behavior of the “zois,” I really like how the “Inzoi” team has worked on this aspect. It will definitely add much more realism to the game and the lives of our characters.

Have a nice week everyone !

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Quick question Kjun will the older Zois have voices that match their age ? :psycat_paw:

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Hey!! The inventory thing was so needed, thank you, thank you! And I’m sad not to see the kitty in the lobby :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

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