Pocket Gamer Connects London 2017: Live the life you've dreamed of in the social MMO Trendy Town

When we caught up with InnoSpark at PGC London, the developer showed us an early build of a mobile game that made us think: "why hasn't this been done before?"

It's titled Trendy Town, and is a social MMO in a similar vein to Habbo Hotel or Second Life, but on a much grander scale. You're still wandering around a fictional universe making new friends and living another life, but the goal here is to, eventually, become a virtual star.

And that can be in almost any field. You can show off your mad cooking skills, be the authority on the latest fashion, or take trendy snaps to share on the virtual social media, NewsBook.

Express yourself

The emphasis is on expressing yourself in a virtual environment - and that extends past the 20 billion different avatar customisation options. With the emoji system, you can interact directly with another avatar and perform actions like hug, kiss, and hold hands.

Essentially, you can have your own virtual girlfriend or boyfriend, and send them gifts in-game.

Real world conditions also affect the virtual world. For example, if you're in London at night and it's snowing, that will be reflected in the game visually.

Be a star

To become a virtual star, you have to dedicate yourself to a craft and share your results via photos in the NewsBook. These will then get rated by your fellow players, with the top-rated contributions going into a magazine.

This will increase your rank. Get rated highly often and you'll eventually become a celebrity, at which point your avatar will glow.

Other players can tap on your avatar to view your profile. If they like your look, they can purchase your wardrobe, which earns your player in-game currency.

You'll also have your own villa, which you can decorate however you'd like, creating rooms to perform your various activities.

Make your own fun

Aside from the almost endless number of things to do, the developers really want the focus to be on user-generated content. To that end, you can create your own in-game events.

These can be as simple as meeting with a bunch of players to grab coffee, or even hosting your very own fashion show.

Aside from that, features from other mobile MMOs, like guild war, will be implemented in a non-violent fashion, but we're not exactly sure how that will look at this point.

When's it out?

Trendy Town will enter soft launch in the next couple of months and, depending on how it goes, will launch globally around autumn.