Tomodachi Life Living the Dream: Log 1
My Switch had some issues but now it’s fixed!
I've been eagerly anticipating Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream since the game's announcement and knowing I'd play it, I had immediately pre-ordered it once the pre-order window opened. However, once the game had become available that's when my Switch decided to run into problems. I did give some updates about this over on my Notes tab/tag1 and basically what happened was the LCD screen on my console had randomly started malfunctioning. Instead of a clear picture, what greeted my eyes was a slightly blurred image with multiple colored horizontal lines. It made it difficult to look at the screen.
I was upset and originally thought my Switch had reached its end. After wallowing in my sadness for an entire day, I thought, "Maybe I should look into this and see if anyone else also had this problem before."
So once nighttime came, I did some research and found out there's a high possibility my Switch can be saved. The answer I kept coming across was, "Replace your LCD screen." At first I was hesitant to modify my Switch mostly because I've never worked with electronics before, but after looking up some tutorials I eventually felt confident enough to try fixing it. The tutorial I followed was by Dack’s Electronic Repair and thankfully I was successful! Now my Switch has been revived and I'm so happy! I can finally play Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream!!
I was able to take some photos during the process but majority of the time I was trying to concentrate on fixing my Switch. As much as possible I didn’t want to break anything, lol. Here’s a photo of my new screen before I connected it to the rest of the console.
The sharing screenshots situation for Living the Dream
I wanted to mention this detail because I’ve never encountered this with other games before and I love taking screenshots and videos + plan on sharing those screenshots here. For anyone who isn’t familiar with the Switch, players can take screenshots and 30-second video recordings by pressing a specific button made for this ability on the console itself. Either press the button for screenshots or hold it down a bit for video recordings.
About Living the Dream: because of the nonexistent censorship (as far as I’m aware of!) in the game, Nintendo had decided to limit the ability to share the screenshots and 30 second video recordings players have taken directly from their Switch. I’m going to guess it’s because Nintendo doesn’t want to deal with all the drama/criticism from ppl about what would’ve been possibly censored and what would’ve been possibly accepted.
Anyway, this means if players want to share their in-game screenshots and video recordings they took directly from their console, they’d have to transfer the files to their computer via SD card. I do this with my 3DS so I guess I’ll be doing the same thing for Living the Dream too. Another way to share screenshots and video recordings is to basically record gameplay via a computer with a video capture device.
I actually did attempt to transfer my screenshots like how I usually do from the Switch itself but when I tried to do that I was given a message, “Screenshots and videos from this software cannot be sent to a smart device.” Usually you’re able to download your screenshots by scanning the QR code provided by the Switch. It was interesting to see a message I rarely see and I immediately checked other screenshots I had taken from other games to make sure it was just Living the Dream doing this and yup, it’s only Living the Dream.
The First Miis to Move to Apple Island
Whenever I play games where you can make avatars, I either add original characters or fictional characters I'm heavily invested in at that moment. For Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream, I decided to go with original characters made by me and my friends first before adding fictional characters, which is what I also did with my playthrough2 from the Tomodachi Life 3DS game. Also, similar to my playthrough from that game, I've decided to name my island, Apple Island. It's a reference to Nanako, who's the first character I added onto my island. Apples are associated with her.
Nanako
In the 3DS game, the player is refered to as the first Mii's Look-alike. So I’d be called “Nanako’s Look-alike” by all my Miis. For Living the Dream, you can choose what you want to be called and I chose "Orion." Leader, boss, mayor, or any other name like that felt too serious to me and I already had the idea that Nanako would be the leader of Apple Island so I thought going by my username felt right. Also, yes Nanako is the leader (or legally the co-leader), lol.
Without going into too much detail about Nanako's canon character background, she's from a puzzle horror video game my friends and I are still in the process of making. A Tear in the Canvas is the title of our game, and it follows the story of a young girl, Nanako, who finds herself lost at a carnival and has to find a way out. My friends and I love horror RPG Maker games from the 2000s to 2010s and were inspired by many of them (most notably Ib and The Witch's House) when we decided to create our own game. Since our game is still a work-in-progress, I can't share specific info to avoid spoilers.
In this alternate universe, Nanako and her grandparents move to Apple Island. Nanako is a social butterfly and had befriended practically everyone on the island including the previous leader of Apple Island. The previous leader liked a lot of Nanako’s ideas for the island and they decided to give her the position of co-owner (Nanako basically runs the island atp).
Seraphina aka "PhiPhi"
PhiPhi is also from our game. She's the second Mii I added onto Apple Island. She's an extrovert, chill, mischievous, and an artist who specializes in painting and drawing.
Jake Long from American Dragon Jake Long
I love American Dragon growing up. My friend is a big fan of the show and she shared3 her Mii version of Jake with me when we hung out a few weeks ago. I blurred out her info for privacy reasons.
Chase
Chase is also from our game and he's Chance's twin brother. He's an extrovert, laid-back, a bit of a goof, and confident. He's also a musical actor.
Chance
By this point you know Chance is from our game. Their similar names are intentional and meant to confuse people, lol (sometimes I also get mixed up with their names). Chance is an introvert and an author. Before he and his brother moved to Apple Island, he was also a barista.
Chance does style his hair in a loose ponytail, and here's a screenshot of that.
Some moments
1. Nanako being silly
Nanako had asked me about what my favorite weather was and I said sunny weather. I thought her response was unintentionally funny and had to share this moment!
2. Playing Green Light, Red Light with Chance
Chance wanted to play Green light, Red Light and he made this adorable expression.
You can find the posts about me attempting to fix my Switch here: “RIP to my Switch,” “Gonna attempt to fix my Switch,” and “I fixed my Switch!”↩
I do have a tag for my Tomodachi Life 3DS playthrough. It’s called orion’s Tomodachi Life 3DS logs.↩
A few weeks ago I made a blog post about the Mii sharing situation for Living the Dream and how Nintendo wasn’t going to allow players to share Miis. I found out you can share Miis and items in-person.↩