In a new article on EA's website, they explain the behind-the-scenes of the last game update Les Sims Freeplay et de l’arrivée des coiffeurs.
Sharpen your scissors: the Hair Salon live event invites you to design your own hair salon in Simville!
We met Joshua Birse, producer for The Sims FreePlayin Melbourne to learn more about the update. While enjoying his own hair salon experience, Josh shared with us the team's creative inspiration and reasons for creating a hair salon event.
Why did you decide to create a hair salon experience in The Sims™ FreePlay ?
One thing I know about our players is that they love hairstyles! They're extremely popular, and players love to see what new hairstyles we come up with. However, in real life, it's not just about the hairstyle, it's about the lifestyle and experience that goes with it. A new haircut isn't just the end result; it's the whole experience!
We wanted to incorporate that into the game and allow players to groom their Sims and give them a full salon experience. To me, this is a natural extension of a very popular dream in The Sims FreePlay.
How did you make the update modern and relevant to the current fashion?
One of the best parts of my job is the time I spend researching fashion, pop culture and celebrity gossip. Best of all, I get to share all of this with the team members. We have a number ofEA Firemonkeys who keep up with the latest fashion trends and star sagas, so they always have good ideas.
Social networks (and the internet in general) are an endless source of inspiration for themes and content. We go through the ideas as a team and determine the best ones that could bring a new experience to the game. Once we have a set of ideas that we think players will like, and an idea of how to make them happen, we work with our community The Sims FreePlay. She tells us if our ideas are good, if they still need to be refined or, from time to time, if they don't really appeal to them (we hope this doesn't happen too often!).
Concepts for women's hairstyles
Concepts for men's hairstyles
Can you tell us some of the characteristics of the Salon de coiffure experience?
"More than a hairstyle: a way of life was our internal motto for the update; we used it to inspire the team to think big! We know players love hairstyles, but what can we do to enhance this popular feature? How can we do more than just hairstyles?
Au départ, l’idée était de créer un terrain communautaire dédiée à la coiffure, ce qui aurait été super ; mais c’est encore mieux d’offrir aux joueurs la flexibilité de créer et de personnaliser leur propre salon de coiffure ! L’événement Ephemeral hairstyles uses the creativity of Build mode and gives players everything they need to build their own hair salon. Oh, and a host of trendy hairstyles, of course.
Visual concept for a porcelain shampoo container
Can you mention some small details that will please the players The Sims FreePlaywhen they personalize their salon?
The event allows players to get all the items they need to build their own salon; this ranges from small custom items like product shelves, magazine racks, and waiting room seats to larger iconic items like the barber chair, hairdresser, and shampoo tub (each of which has new actions). The great thing is that you can use any of the items in Construction Mode to customize your salon and make it totally unique.
Visual concept for decorative dressers for hairdressing salons
How did you collaborate with the other teams on this update?
The Fashionistas are a group of employees of the studio EA Firemonkeys who are reallypassionate about fashion and design. I use this team very often to find ideas and reference content.
Josh working with the Firemonkeys Fashionistas
Pour l’événement de coiffure, je leur ai lancé un défi sur une après-midi : « Donnez-moi les 10 coiffures les plus tendance actuellement ».
We then met with the computer graphics and design teams to determine which hairstyles were artistically viable and how to incorporate them into the game.
Visual concept for a leather hair salon chair
I'm always amazed at what's going on in the high fashion industry (there are some amazing runway looks!) and the intricacies of contemporary hairstyling. This job is so much fun!
Visual concept for a hair salon shelf filled with products
Visual concept for a red velvet armchair for a waiting room
What was your favorite part of the development process?
As with every update, I love seeing the development team get excited about creating new content. Even though The Sims FreePlay has been out for five years now, the event Ephemeral hairstyles shows how new, relevant and trendy the content of our updates is. Our hairstyles rock!
