If you have been anywhere on the internet recently, you have seen the new cozy game Nintendo Switch put out. While not technically new, Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream was released on April 16, 2026, and is taking the internet by storm. The original game, Tomodachi Life (2014), can be played on the Nintendo 3DS and was a classic game that gave users free rein on designing villagers and houses. While I didn’t play the 2016 version of the game, I was recently gifted the 2026 one as an “end of the year present.” So, I’m addicted….
Opening the game
The first time I opened the game was 5 pm on a Friday with my friends, no plans for the next day… the perfect ingredients for staying up all night playing, and that’s exactly what we did. I immediately started making all of my friends and forced them to be friends within the game. This was a bit of a mistake, because now in the game, my dad is best friends with Emily Prentiss from Criminal Minds.Â
COmpletely Customizable
One of my favorite aspects of the game is how incredibly customizable the whole thing is. From being able to draw villagers’ faces, to creating what food they eat, and drawing the outside of buildings. This is the feature that I believe is what is making this game so popular. Some of my favorite creations include my villagers themselves. I’ve some of my favorite celebrities like Colemon Domingo and Jordan Peele, and also my favorite artists like Childish Gambino, Noah Kahan, Hozier, Olivia Dean, and Ethel Cain. By using the drawing feature I was able to create Ethel Cain’s little tattoos on her forehead. I also used the drawing feature to create food for my mii’s, the best way I used it was drawing Planketon from Spongebob Squarepants and fed him to my villagers.
NO CONTROL OF RELATIONSHIPS
One thing that I LOVE about this game is the lack of control over the personal relationships and the conversations the characters have with each other. Most of the time, my villagers are either fighting with each other or falling in love. While there is an option to not allow characters to fall in love, I like to turn that setting off. So on my island, Noah Kahan is madly in love with my cat Boomerang…
This game could not have come out at a worse time because, honestly, I usually end up playing Tomodachi Life over studying for my finals. Some of my favorite games of all time include Animal Crossing and Sims, and Tomocadhi Life is quite literally the perfect mix of the two. I would recommend this game to anyone who wants a game that you can binge, but also just check up on every day for one hour a day. If you need me this summer, I’ll be babysitting my villagers and stopping them from making the worst relationship decisions of their lives.
