Tomodachi Life, known as Tomodachi Korekushon: Shin Seikatsu (トモダチコレクション 新生活) in Japan, roughly translating to Tomodachi Collection: New Life, is a life simulator game for the Nintendo 3DS released in Japan in early 2013, and worldwide in mid-2014. It was both developed and published by Nintendo. Tomodachi Life is the second and final game in the Tomodachi series, proceeding Tomodachi Collection. It, along with the Tomodachi series, was succeeded by Miitopia a few years later.
For sake of uniformity with the rest of the wiki, the article describes the North American version of the game. See Regional differences below.
Like most life simulators, Tomodachi Life is open-ended and features no detailed story. The game starts off by letting the player name an island the Miis will eventually live in. The player is then prompted to create a Mii that resembles oneself. Eventually, the player will be able to make Miis whenever they wish and continue the various aspects of gameplay.
Tomodachi Life has the same Mii-making features as the 3DS system, but with more personal features. After creating the Mii itself on one page, players must write a full name for the character, as well as a nickname that will be used more often. A birthday can be added, and doing so will allow the game to celebrate it when the date passes in real time. A Mii's favorite color and creator are input on this page and gender can be readjusted. If a birthday is not entered, the player must at least determine if the character is a grown-up or a child. The relation to the player can also be decided to indicate if the Mii is of a family member (thus preventing them from falling in love).
The next page allows the player to adjust the Mii's voice. There are six preset voices, but a random voice can be generated and a custom voice can be configured. For the custom voice, the player can toggle its pitch, speed, quality, tone, accent, and intonation.
The final page determines a Mii's personality. The personality is broken up into five parts (names taken from the US version): Movement, Speech, Expressiveness, Attitude, and Overall. Each aspect has a sliding scale, and the personality depends on how each part is adjusted. Personalities play an important role in Tomodachi Life in that they affect interactions and which Miis will be compatible with each other.
After a Mii is created, it will move into its apartment. The room's interior will depend on the Mii's personality.
- Creating a new Mii
- Viewing and editing current Miis
- Viewing travel records and/or family albums of Children
- Viewing the total collection of items
- Exchanging items or Miis
- Sending Miis to the Mii Maker
- Creating or scanning Mii QR codes
- Adjusting game settings
As more Miis are made, the apartment building will upgrade to hold more apartments until it caps at 100 Miis.
- Morning Market: A random Mii sells a random discounted food in bulk at a stall, while attempting to make a sales pitch. If the player leaves the Fountain and enters it again, a new Mii will be at the stall, however the food remains the same.
- Rap Battle: Two Miis participate in a rapping competition. They fire rhymed insults at each other until one of them cannot formulate a rhymed response, when the game ends.
The five categories for clothes are men's, women's, unisex, dress, and specialty. Specialty outfits can include animal costumes, or rare outfits like the Space Suit, which is received when a Mii goes to space.
The houses have a living room, kitchen/dining room, and bedroom. Miis can be seen watching TV, eating dinner, sleeping, chatting, or taking care of a child. Miis cannot be visited while in their house, rather, the player selects a Mii to visit. When this happens, the doorbell rings, and the Miis have a shocked face momentarily. Then the player is transported to the selected Mii's apartment. When the player is finished visiting the Mii, they are transported back into their house. The only way to visit the house directly is when babysitting young children, which parents will sometimes ask the player to do.
In the Compatibility rating, two Miis are selected, and their friendship or romantic compatibility is tested. Similar to the other mode, Miis of opposite gender receive romance ratings if they are not related in-game, and both kids or both adults (except in Japan). Otherwise, the Miis receive a friendship rating. Unlike the other mode, the ratings are static and never change. They are again partly random, and partly based on personalities.
- Magic Show: Magic Shows, which take place between 10 and 11 am, involve one of the Miis (dressed in full magician attire) performing magic tricks in front of an audience. Magic Shows are interactive and require the player to move their hands back and forth, giving the illusion that a second Mii is being sawed in half.
- Tomodachi Quest: Tomodachi Quest is an arcade-style RPG game in which four Miis traverse a simple map and fight bosses based on items in the game. If the Miis succeed in defeating the final boss, the player will obtain whichever item the boss was depicted as.
- Night Market: The Night Market takes place between 5 and 9 pm. At this event, a Mii will sell Mystery Bags which the player can buy for $50 and which each contain three items.
Miis will sometimes also go to the Amusem*nt Park to confess their love to another Mii or converse with friends.
- Chat Session: Miis will occasionally be found at the café gossiping or discussing trivial topics. Chat Sessions can occur at any time of day and involve two to four Miis of a certain gender.
- Pity Party: If a Mii is depressed, they and others may have a Pity Party at the café. At this event, the friends of the afflicted Mii will attempt to comfort them and cheer them up, while the Mii themself does not talk.
Miis can also use the café to confess their feelings to another Mii, go on a date, or even break up. Generally, Miis at the café will simply sit and eat, drink or read a book.
- Flying Disc: The player can throw a Frisbee with two other Miis with the stylus.
- Afternoon Market: A random Mii will sit in the Park and sell a piece of clothing in bulk at a discount.
- BBQ: Four Miis will dine and converse around a barbecue. The player can blow smoke from the barbecue away from the Miis' faces by blowing into the 3DS microphone; otherwise, the Miis will eventually become covered in soot.
- Photo Shoot: The player can get their photo taken by a random Mii using the 3DS camera.
If no event is going on, Miis can go to the park and to play, or sit and read.
All photos and in-game screenshots can also be viewed from the Photo Studio.
Past News is recorded, however only 50 items max can be stored. Older news will be deleted. The player can "lock" specific stories they want to keep around, which will prevent them from being deleted.
Since Tomodachi Life is meant to relate to the player and stay grounded in reality most of the time, four different versions of the game were released to accommodate cultural differences: one for Japan, one for North America, one for Europe and Australia, and one for South Korea.