Recently, me and my partner have been playing Tomodachi Life, a game from Nintendo for the Switch/Switch 2 that involves creating an island and socialising Mii’s. It’s a fun game that has plenty to do with a hint of weirdness combined with a user-created content (drawings / defined dictionary) to keep things fresh.

However, the longer I’ve played, the more I’ve found myself thinking that I wish the game had more.

Here’s 10 things I would add if I was able to request changes in the game:

1. Friend introductions – Risk of failure / Rilvalries
   
   The game seems to be weighted high so that when a user selects a topic to talk about, the recipient simply accepts it, is happy about it, and the Mii’s change to like-minded or similar. While I understand this game could be skewed to a younger audience, it would be interesting to have Mii’s that have some “friendly banter” with a risk that friendships don’t succeed, even based on topics provided by the user.
   
   
2. Mii Island Moods
   
   Mii News has some generic “thoughts from the residents” which seem to be random and not related to the topic at hand, and I can’t help think back to Rollercoaster Tycoon at this point. Each Mii could have their own “thoughts on the island” based on what they interact with, and the general island vibe could be summarised to the user at any point. The mood could influence what the Mii does.
   
   
3. Time based actions
   
   I’m thinking Animal Crossing style, although the game already has seasonal things, and has a store that changes depending on when it’s accessed, more things that happen on certain days would keep the game fresh. As example, the supermarket could have sales on Sundays.
   
   
4. Cooking
   
   This doesn’t necessarily have to turn the game into a crafting game or overly have the user mix items together, it could simply be that the Mii could use that donation money at the supermarket to purchase their own food, cook the food in the kitchen in their house (where a kitchen exists) and keep themselves minimally fed. The user could still feed them, however from the time I’ve played, I’ve not seen any downside to not feeding them.
   
   
5. Fashion Event
   
   Mii’s currently are quite opinionated when it comes to their clothes, they offer the user a vibe/style they’re looking for and the user essentially dresses them or purchases the item. With a fashion event, the same could happen, but there could be judges (reusing some Mii’s) that judge the style.
   
   
6. Make the Mii’s Camera Interactive
   
   Potentially a stretch, but we see Mii’s taking pictures of various things around the island. Being able to see a “Mii Camera Roll” would be a neat touch to see what they took pictures of. It could be a collection of all Mii’s photos with their name on them, and the user could save them to their own camera roll.
   
   

None of the above means the game isn’t enjoyable, it certainly is, and there’s much more I’d love to see in the game (and much more I haven’t seen!).