Update + Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream

• 29 April, 2026
• Update
• Review

Hey everyone. It's been a long, long time since a proper update on my website, specifically something that isn't a journal. I also haven't really drawn as often as I used to for about a year now. Some folks may have noticed I rarely update my "latest art" section on my front page of the site.

The truth is, for these past two years I haven't been able to do very much creatively, including work on other friend's projects and my own art. I deeply wish to be able to share why, but right now isn't the best time. The most I can say is I'm in a slightly better spot, and when it is appropriate and safe to do so, I'll share my story. Currently, I am focused on reuniting with friends I've been forced to neglect, spending time with them, and recovering. I deeply apologize for not being able to do much, especially productivity-wise... after recent events, I have found myself in severe emotional burnout and can only sporadically work on a few projects. It isn't consistent at all, and it leaves me deeply frustrated with myself.

For recovering, I have been playing games and hanging out with my friends. Recently, I had set up a Minecraft server among my much closer pals that runs every Friday and Saturday. It has been going very strong, and it has been a wonderful experience! It is a modded server on Fabric 1.21.1, and while it isn't my first rodeo running a modded server, it is my first mod pack I have made by myself. It isn't perfect, but it has been a blast! Every week, at least 5 people get on, and it's so much fun. I don't have much to share in terms of screenshots, but perhaps this coming session I can share some on Bluesky!

Another game I have been playing is the new Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream. It is such a massive improvement from the 3DS game, and I want to talk in-depth about my experiences so far.

Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream

To start, it's obvious that I love the expansion of gender, pronouns, and romantic interest. Previously, there was only boy, girl, and straight couples. You can now modify attraction and change gender to female, male, and nonbinary! It was such a step-up, and being able to tick all or none for romantic attraction was so validating. Finally, I can have disaster bi and aroace Miis!! Sadly, there isn't an option for polyamory, which I had a feeling would be the case but I also understand why from a development standpoint. Specifically, programming it and testing it and the many relationships a Mii can have with members of its polycule. Unfortunately, there is also an issue with this regarding localization. While many Latin languages are heavily gendered, there has been a push for more gender-neutral pronouns and language. For example, in Spanish, there are the masculine and feminine pronouns "él" and "ella" respectively. For the past decade there has been a bigger push for the gender neutral pronoun "elle", and some games have adopted this pronouns into their localization. However, according to my Spanish-speaking friends, it still isn't very widely known and/or accepted. There is something similar happening in French as well, with their masculine, feminine and gender-neutral pronouns "il," "elle," and "iel." I do think this is more of an accident on the localization team's part rather than outright malice, but I would really like to see this addressed in a future update.

In the 3DS game, you often had to wait for Miis to ask to be friends with other Miis. In this game, you can initiate interactions immediately and place Miis next to each other to interact. Not only does this remove one of the more tedious parts of the game, it makes things much more fun! I've heard some express upset about their Miis not fighting and worry if it was a part of Nintendo's sanetization of the game, but in my experience my Miis hardly ever fought. Even when I had 40 of them, conflict was rare, so I am wondering if this was confirmation bias for some.

Another good thing is the entire quirks system. These actually do influence the Mii's personality, and it really helps them feel less like cookie cutter templates with new looks. That was a big problem I had with the original game, where at some point Miis didn't really feel unique outside of look. I hope in the future, potential new quirks are added. Some I had in mind are:

• Standing with hands behind back
• Walking with hands behind back
• Walking by skipping/frolicking
• Mii has a temper (more likely to get into fights)
• Mii is a chatterbox (more likely to initiate conversations)

Another idea I had was being able to set a Mii's flavor preferences. For example, you have 5 flavors to choose from: sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and umami. You can order their preferences in the order of a list, woth the top being their favorite and bottom being not as enjoyed. This would influence their favorite foods, but still maintain randomness in the sense of you mever knowing what food will be their favorite or most hated.

Mii customization got a huge upgrade this time around. There is a lot more black hairstyles, which was super awesome to see!! Not only that, but you can heavily modify the eyes to have eyelashes or none, adding lipstick to mouths or removing them, or even straight up removing features on a Mii, which I remember wishing for years now! You can also change the skintone to just about any color, which genuinely rules. No more flesh Sans Undertale! My nitpicks though are the fact I cannot change the nose color or independently change one eye color to give a Mii heterochromia. These were available in the Miitopia port, which was odd, so I wonder if it was forgotten about. The face paint system is very fun, but admittedly I am a bit bothered by the fact they can't animate alongside the rest of the features of the Mii. It makes adding very important features, like a specific mouth shape or pupil design, a bit of a pain. However, it is still a very welcome feature. Much better than just constructing things with shapes like in Miitopia.

Sadly, there are some things removed from this game compared to its previous one. There is no longer a Rankings Board, Quirky Questions, or the Concert Hall. I always liked going to my Rankings Board to see which Mii I have paid the least attention to, so I could spoil them a little. Quirky Questions was also just really funny. While the Concert Hall wasn't for me, it made for some really funny moments on playthroughs I have seen. It would be nice to see these return in the future.

You can also now customize how your island looks, which is very fun! Crafting specific pathways, neighborhoods and sections feels really fun and being able to doom Miis to isolation is hilarious, because they can just teleport out. Overall, this game has been a massive pleasure and I cannot wait to see what the future has in store for it.