Documentation of Livly

 Game

• Livly is a mobile game popular in Japan that revolves around dressing up your avatar, personalising your small island and taking care of pet-like companions. The concept is somewhat similar to a shared website called Picrew where creators can send in drawn avatars with multiple outfits and styles for people to choose from. There is no narrative in this game that tells a plot as its main purpose is akin to dress-up games. 

Character

• My character is a custom avatar personally chosen by my style and preferences. It is a character void of personality as it intends to be a blank canvas for players to design. The catch here is that clothes and accessories are claimed through a gacha mechanic. Gacha is where an amount of currency is traded for a random in-game item. These items are in banners that show their rarity from the hierarchy of “normal”, “ rare” and “super rare” with banners that appeal to different styles such as techwear, dark academia, and street casual. This mechanic is often seen in free-to-play games to hook the players into testing out the game and seeing if they are willing to go further and commit. In the case of Livly, is no exception, I have personally not spent real money in this game but with my other experiences with Gacha, the appeal of their concept has made me spend money for PNGs/ models of characters, accessories, and weapons. There is a small forum/ feature in the game that lets people put certain items in their wishlist that they have not attained from banners. Visibility can be toggled and can let other players browse through and request trades in the comment sections of the trade forums. My avatar is referred to as “Hom” in the game and is customized to look like myself. For some people, this is to insert themselves in the game, a more personal touch to a fictional setting. Others could use these blank canvases to cosplay and roleplay other fictional characters or people in real life. For example, I found items that fit the look of this character from another game I like and applied them to my home for fun. The pet-like companions called “lively” are also customized with accessories with a Tamagotchi-like influence from the mechanic to take care of them. Islands too, the places in which you reside can be decorated at will. 

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Convo

• There are several landscapes with subtle changes and themes for people to bring their home and livly to. 

• Communication is not that common here as people are more into the photo-taking aspect in this part of the game. However, occurrences of communication are still present with the texting feature having limited characters to send out. 

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