Happy Friday!
I am writing from Shanghai as I'll be attending the TapTap Game Fest tomorrow, which I briefly mentioned in a previous post. At this event, we plan to showcase our multiplayer capabilities as well as the 'MyHome' feature in a brand new game mode called 'Canvastown,' which a small team from our studio has been developing step by step. The name 'Canvastown' represents the idea of you and I living together in a creator's village.
We want to make sure your expectations are properly managed, as features like building an entire city from scratch or laying down roads—as rumored online—are not available yet. Of course, we plan to continue developing features to help decorate your city and edit terrain in the future. Right now, it's just a side project, and we are very much focused on our core goals.
The main goal of Canvastown is get away from mundane daily life and capture memorable moments within life simulation so you can jump in and enjoy only those extraordinary moments. It’s also where you can craft interesting storylines, participate in a set role, and live out their lives.
The attached video shows a brief concept: players go online, enter pre-made scenarios through "AR Company" to participate in a set role. In our dedicated online space, around 50 people can converse and interact in the same channel under mutual consent. The NPC Zois behave according to their roles we’ve assigned. Like a movie director, you can assign roles and cast your actors to create your scenario. I often wondered if doing this would've been me reinventing the wheel (doing unnecessary work) since players usually prefer familiar gameplay.
To further support this gameplay, we'll be providing script mods so that small features to help enliven your story can be implemented. Using mods, we were able to create mini-games like car racing—though it’s admittedly a lesser experience than dedicated racing games. We want to create a flow where these mini-games intended for Canvastown can later be added to the main game as well.
I believe that the biggest joy of playing RP (role playing) games isn't to "clear a game," but rather have a world where you simply coexist with other people. That was the origin for the creation of 'AR Company.' I’ve been pitching my concept where players can, for one moment, step away from reality into this world of inZOI where they can live out a different life. Thinking of the movie 'Ready Player One' might make it easier for you to visualize.
Of course, looking at the current build makes me sigh. There are so many lacking areas, and we have a very long way to go. But someday, I hope to bring this dream of mine to life.
I want to merely provide a solid foundation, and I want it to be you who will be writing the stories upon it. By allowing you the space to create unpredictable situations and social interactions, it may take time, but I do foresee where that can become a living, breathing world.
I am quite introverted and dislike stepping outside my house, but when it comes to game development, I am particularly outgoing when it comes to the challenges of creating something new. However, just last Sunday when I added kimchi as an ingredient to my pasta and nervously checked my beloved wife's expression to see if she liked it, I have a similar anxiety for tomorrow's event.
Some say it’s good to take on new challenges rather than playing it safe, but unlike in games, reality comes with people's evaluations, criticisms, and sometimes applause, which makes it scary for me. I told the company that I would decide the future of Canvastown based on the event's outcome. It might go well, or many shortcomings might be exposed, but I believe it's a necessary process to move forward to the next step.
I hope to write to you all with good news.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart for always supporting us.
Hoping that one day we can live life like a game,
From Shanghai ~ kjun
※ For the video, please check it on Discord or the forum.
🔗 Discord: Link
🔗 Forum: Link
Kjun’s Reply to Your Comments
Hello everyone,
Having safely returned from our event in China, I am writing to express my heartfelt gratitude to all our players. Meeting inZOI users in person at the venue was truly meaningful and delightful. At the same time, showing a build of 'inZOI Canvas Town' that wasn't as polished as I had hoped due to limited time and venue conditions left me both grateful and deeply apologetic.
Event Demo & Multiplayer Clarifications
inZOI is actively being developed with the goal of becoming an online life simulation where players gather and live together in a town. However, given the event constraints, we felt it would be difficult to properly convey this core structure in a short window. As a result, we focused the demo on mod support and select story-save features.
This led to several misunderstandings. To clarify: in our upcoming small-scale tests, we plan to evaluate whether the experience of playing together in a town with other players offers genuine value. Focusing our video content around the China event caused confusion, and part of this was a misjudgment on my part as a developer.
Building inZOI Together
To be frank, the hardest part of game development is deciding a direction that the public will love. I am not a developer who intuitively knows exactly what players want at a glance. I deeply respect and envy those with that instinct, but it is a talent I lack. However, I genuinely love the process of making games, and that passion is what shaped inZOI into what it is today. I am convinced that the right path forward for inZOI is to continuously communicate with you, test features together, and discover long-term fun through your feedback.
Attached Video & Current Multiplayer Features
The attached video showcases a preview of a new city currently in development. We are designing it so that all lots—with the exception of roadways—are fully editable. Since roads and certain elements cannot be completely removed yet, we are currently exploring ways to provide a dedicated editor. Additionally, to verify existing features in a multiplayer environment, we are testing these capabilities on the 'Dowon' map as well.
Here are the main multiplayer features we are actively developing and testing:
Multi-story residential housing system
Support for 20+ players residing simultaneously in a single town
Door locking and visitor eviction mechanics
Simultaneous house building by multiple players
Multiplayer verification for existing core inZOI features
Forming relationships by attending parties and earning income through careers
(During today’s playtest, we identified an issue where non-family characters could not board vehicles together. We are actively tracking down and resolving bugs like this.)
Single-Player Priorities & October Update
Please rest assured about our single-player experience: the vast majority of our development team remains dedicated to single-player, which serves as the foundation for everything we build. Only a small dedicated team handles the process of adapting these systems for multiplayer.
We are preparing an update for October. This update will introduce modding capabilities, implement daily routines for Zois (living, working, and returning home), and provide features allowing you to edit these daily schedules directly.
Reflecting on the flight back, I felt fortunate that our team has built a flexible framework allowing us to test the game in diverse ways. Because I know my own limitations in predicting what everyone will love, we will continue running multiple small-scale tests to improve the game step-by-step alongside your feedback.
I will follow up with another update this Friday. Thank you always for your patience, support, and trust.
Sincerely,
kjun