Why we need needs? (Patreon)

in short, yes.. needs systems are generally restricting, but the plan is to use needs as part of the game itself -- not just as a big red stop sign on your progress.

going down the list, first reason to  tamagochi-ify a game is for simulation. it engages your nurturing instinct, or at the very least gives you some resources to manage. in a more personal setting, something like this makes things feel that much more alive. even if there was some total do-nothing 'happy' meter listed on a page, it'll jump out as something you'll want to fulfill if you care the least bit about them.

now, I'm probably not going to go all-out on survival mechanics, but good or bad, your choices will always have some sort of gameplay or roleplay effect. once things go live, I'll need plenty of help on tweaking buffs and penalties until it feels right. I dont -just- want to give away an 'ignore all that' cheat button, or else this part of the game will be completely lost. (like with BHGH's cheats covering up flaws in the design. I didnt hear about most of the issues until long after it was all done) but, of-course, at the same time, I dont want it to become overbearing to the point of taking over the game completely.

..and speaking of that.. needs are there to take over some of the game. love it or loath it, there's always going to have to be something to pull the brakes on your quest to save the world. be it boring dialogue, walking down long corridors or just "press A until you win" combat. now, I obviously dont have the luxury of 1000 years in development to create an industry bog-standard sandbox. (coming to grips with that was actually a lot harder than it should have been -_-) sure, just building more maps and throwing more and more stuff in there sounds easy enough .. but it's a long, slow grind to spend months on a new zone that'll get breezed through in a single minute of play. in short, this was the biggest flaw in splatformer's design. years of work and ... 5-10 minutes of game?

compare that to something else that was big around the same time - clicker games. (dun-dun-dunnn) the exact opposite effect there. new content is churned back and keeps the experience going until you noticed you've spent way too long on something so simple and meaningless.

those are some extreme examples. so lucky there's plenty of middle-ground to play with. 

as game designers, it's our job to find ways to cut corners and recycle content in creative ways that hopefully dont get stale too quickly.