From the very beginning, the team behind inZOI has made it clear that they want the game to be a realistic life simulator. Not realistic enough to become tedious or frustrating to play, of course, but just realistic enough to be fun.
And for that reason, I believe that a mechanic related to cooking and supermarkets could add a fun and immersive layer of realism to the lives of our Zois.
What would you think if one day your Zoi wakes up hungrier than your Sim, walks into the kitchen to make some delicious pancakes, but then realizes they can’t make them because they are missing one egg to complete the recipe, instead of the fridge magically acting like a payment terminal that pulls all the ingredients out of thin air?
This would force your Zoi to go to the small food shop around the corner to buy the missing ingredient in order to make their pancakes.
Sounds great, right?
Realistic supermarkets are something I think the inZOI team should aim for in the future.
Currently, the only items available to buy in food shops are snacks and vegetables. And while that may sound discouraging, I actually think it’s a very good thing, because it means the foundation of this mechanic is already there.
The idea of your Zoi being able to enter a food store and choose the missing ingredients to cook a lasagna for dinner, or to buy the entire grocery supply for the month and put everything into a shopping cart, would be fun to watch. But maybe not as fun as watching your student Zoi survive day by day on instant ramen bought every morning at the corner store.
In addition to small food shops, inZOI could have its own supermarket chains spread across all game maps. These would be larger stores, fully stocked with everything you need to cook any dish allowed by your cooking skill level. Mini-markets, being more common on the map, would have a more limited selection of food, ingredients, and condiments.
And of course, if taking your Zoi to the supermarket feels like a headache to the player, there could always be an alternative, such as ordering everything through a supermarket app and having a delivery person bring everything you need in seconds.
But if your Zoi is too impatient to wait those few seconds for the delivery to arrive, or simply doesn’t have enough money, there could also be an option to try cooking without the missing ingredient. Depending on how many ingredients are missing and on your Zoi’s cooking skill, the result could be a decent meal, or in the worst case, a very bad one.
Without a doubt, I think this would be a very fun mechanic to add.
This could be taken even further by building furniture stores in the same way, only they wouldn’t contain all the actual furniture. Instead, a catalog could open from which you could choose what you want to buy, and the furniture would be delivered. Perhaps it would be advantageous to introduce an upgrade system for the same refrigerator, offering three versions: cheap (poor), standard (average), and expensive (good). My aim is to ensure that everything can be excellent. I’ve always found it frustrating when, for example, you want to create a country-style home, resulting in a very simple interior design, which often leads to lower-quality furnishings. This tempts you to buy a high-tech refrigerator because of its superior specifications, even if it doesn’t fit the aesthetic. Sorry, I didn’t mean to write so much.