I worked on The Sims. From experience I can tell you these types of games require a ton of experimentation and building before you finally hit on something that feels "fun" and you get lost in playing it. Then it all kind of comes together at once.
Keep it up! Looking forward to what you figure out.
> you get lost in playing it.
The Sims was my first experience with getting lost in a game having a negative impact on my life. Had to do most of a two week 5th or 6th grade geography project in the span of two days after playing the Sims instead of working on it.
Do you have a blog or something where you talk about that work? I'd absolutely love to read more about it. Theory of game design is one of my favorite topics.
I'm not pizzathyme, but if you like reading about game design, iirc the developer of Cogmind had a tremendously good dev blog talking about designing their game: https://www.gridsagegames.com/blog/
one of the original junior Sims C++ devs was an undergrad from Reed college.. he is now director of some kind for Overture Maps iir