Devchats posted here are edited for brevity and conciseness -- like editing questions for clarity and removing content that is not about Paralives, for example. When you see this [...] on a post, means that I've removed a bit of text that was just not pertaining to the game.
I will always include a link to the original document at the end of each post. All devchats can be found in the official Discord server through this link.
The posts are tagged with the content in them so you can better search for each area of the game, but feel free to use the search bar for specific topics.
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Zahlea:
Have you considered letting the story progression (or another system) make changes to the neighbourhood? What I'm thinking of is not only moving families in and out of houses, but more changing the neighbourhood: removing houses, putting other houses in their place (based on size of lot and size needed for the house, maybe?), possibly even adding new community buildings like grocery stores or libraries?
Anna:
Yes we have considered it! I think it would be really nice to see the environment evolve around your Paras (and maybe with them too, if they could affect it somehow). The details are still being brainstormed and there might be some technicalities to figure out, but personally I love games where you can see your world changing with time!
Possible Assassin (Ny):
I was thinking about DLC and updates and so I'm wondering I know this is far in the future and we know that there may be few paid DLC but do you guys plan on going the route of the free updates everyone gets regardless so that the game itself is updated or do you guys plan on making it free DLC on steam?
Anna:
That’s a good question, I think both could be used for different cases. Making updates as a free DLC means that people who want to opt out of it could save their spaces, but it wouldn’t be too practical to have lots of DLCs anytime we want to have a bit of content to a game. Also, there might be updates that we feel are too important to the game that we don’t want people to miss if they don’t download it! As those updates and DLCs are indeed in the far future, it’s hard to answer more precisely yet!
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mamafrancine1:
Do you think you'll show a live mode video by the end of this year?
Possible Assassin (Ny):
So I rewatched the Pam video recently and that mixed with today's post made me wonder, What will be the limitations and mechanics of height for the lifestages? Because some of us have been the same size since we were like 13 and others shoot up a few feet early in life so im also kinda wondering will there be limits per lifestage or will we be able to have a teen at 6'4 and a adult at 4'9 with no problem then of course how will it work when paras age up will that 6'4 teen para grow even more?
Anna:
That’s something we’re working on! I think that there’s going to be overlaps of heights between life stages, as you said, you could have a very tall child and a very small teen, which makes the teen taller than the child. We might go for a simplified growth curve system and also some limitations in terms of heights though, but I can’t tell you much more yet.
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WickedBrony:
[...] I was wondering if you have any particular plans when it comes to the social events, like house parties, weddings, funerals, holiday gatherings, etc. that you can host in the game. Will there be goals to complete like in the Sims 4, or will it be more like Sims 2 & 3 where the main focus is on guests having a good time (and completing major events, like getting married at a wedding)? If there are goals, will we be able to select what they are or will the game select them for us? And finally, what sort of events would you, the devs, be excited to have in the game? Thanks for all your work and I hope you have a good day!
Anna:
It’s a bit early to reveal our plans about that, sorry! Personally I liked both types of gameplay in the Sims. Having a clear to do list in the Sims 4 allows the player to discover the party-specific interactions, which are great, but having more options to satisfy (or un-satisfy) all the guests is good too, especially if you have a storytelling plan in your head that doesn’t necessarily fit with the checklist. However our way of doing things might even be different from all the Sims games, so we’ll see!
Jérémie:
I would love to have the option to invite your coworkers or friends to come have a big meal at your house and you would need to try and impress them with your food!
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Chloé:
I’d like for picnics to be available!
Andrei:
It’d be so cool to have big outdoor festivals with live music and dancing nights 😁
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SmallestPolarBear:
You probably haven’t started thinking about this, but do you want making a baby to be easy as soon as you want it you get it or to be a complex process with all kinds of hidden mechanisms with arbitrary pourcentages ?
Anna:
I don’t think we want it to be that much of a hassle. The game still has sandbox elements to it so if we add too much complexity of a system with random pourcentages, that might not be for all players. I think having some random elements or little details in any interactions in the game can add a bit of realism and bring some surprise and variety to the gameplay, but it’s a thing to balance with the sandbox and the chill elements of the game!
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Entirago:
Do you think food would always cost money, or would your paras have a few eat for free options (that hopefully aren't as fulfilling as the more expensive options)?
Anna:
That’s an interesting idea, having free meals in a free canteen or cafeteria could be cool, it could also be a nice place to socialize or volunteer in. I’m not sure they should be less fulfilling as expensive options, to me the fulfillment I get from food is very much detached to how fancy it is or how much stars the chef has. Of course, gastronomy fans might disagree! Maybe this place could offer one or two choices a meal a day only, so you wouldn’t get the choice of your favourite food though. I’m keeping a note of it!
I also saw some places (IRL) where you can buy a coffee or a meal for a stranger (donate an amount of cash to the register when you pay for your own food) and I think that’s neat too!
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Gui:
Question from Lily: Would it be possible for paras to have personal collections or even more than one? I imagine it could be interesting if a para knows someone collects something and gives one as a gift to them so they would be excited! Same could happen to personal unique interests (like a teenage para loving a movie series/superstar)!
Anna:
I think it’s a very nice idea! Gifting people something related to their interests could definitely be a nice detail to bring more life to the relationships. I don’t know about a fully fledged collection mechanism though, because we’d have to make quite a lot of items per collection type in order to make this mechanics interesting.
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mamafrancine1:
also, will there be any sustainable living gameplay?
Anna:
In the past I think we’ve talked a little bit about having eco items, like a solar panel or a wind turbine, but we haven’t decided about specific gameplay yet (how it impacts the environment, that sort of thing) except maybe reducing your bills. Sorry!
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LokiTheShadySpirit:
On the day i write this it's my 22nd birthday.So on that note I'd like to say
I would love to throw birthday parties for my para.
Is that something that is considered
Anna:
Happy birthday Loki, I wish you the bestest of year! 🥳🎂
Yes, having birthday parties are very much on our “to design” list!
Entirago:
In an answer last week, Chloé talked about possibly restricting materials that can be used on items, and I was wondering in that case if materials could be unlocked with a cheat or mod for those players who are ambitious?
Anna:
That was a hypothetical situation, we don’t know much about what we’re going to do exactly since we haven’t reworked our material customization options! I’m sure in any case they will be unlockable in a mod though.
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tey711:
[...] my question today is specifically about 'curved' walls which may be answered by any of the devs inclined to do so. Will there be any incompatibility issues or anticipated glitches with curved walls not connecting well to ceilings which may cause ceiling discolorations or issues which may cause cracks/gaps in curved walls not fully connecting to roofs? Will there be issues when placing a door or window to properly fit on both interior and exterior curved walls? Thank you and I and look forward to your responses.
Jérémie:
So far, our curved walls cause no issues with ceilings and floors, but we will need to think about them more when we get to the roofs. It’s clear that if you create really funky houses, the roof system will need to be robust enough to at least look somewhat good! As for doors and windows, they are still something we’ll need to figure out on curved walls in the future, because it might be tricky to place a wall or window on a very harsh curve. Thanks for the questions!
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Zahlea:
In the roadmap, under Build Mode -> Done, there is a task called "Change the scale of an object". Am I reading it right that it refers to uniform scaling (where I expect the "resizing" to mean non-uniform scaling), and if so - will all objects be scaleable or only some?
Anna:
Yes that’s what it means! Only some objects will be scalable!
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mamafrancine1:
will there be items in the game suitable for tiny houses/small houses?
Anna:
For now we haven’t started the phase of development in which we have to produce lots of items and decide what will or won’t make it, so it’s hard to answer. I’d say we’d love to have a lot of possibilities for building different types of houses, from small places to very big mansions, but it’s hard to tell how many items we will specifically design for those different types of houses!
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original dev chat: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1GQD8Hca7D8Hku8SUSrhWWKtGnr0IQHWZGgwBxr871Bk/edit?tab=t.0#heading=h.8pnfhuaekln8
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mamafrancine1:
will there be some sort of rabbithole university in paralives? it seems really unrealistic how in the sims, it's kinda like you wanna be a doctor? okay read two books and play a game of chess now you're a doctor. I really hope in paralives it's a rewarding challenge to earn some of these more advanced careers.
Jérémie:
It’s still a bit too early to talk with certainty regarding the school system that will be in the game, but I would love to have higher education be present, albeit in a rabbithole fashion, because it gives more opportunities for different gameplay experiences and storytelling.
As for the “becoming a doctor” part of your question, this is much more of a balancing act that we will have to figure out. If a player wants to make a Doctor Para, would it be fun for them to have to play a long time before they can get there? Are jobs more of an element of storytelling rather than mechanics? How do we make the rewards worth it for the extra work that would be put into becoming a doctor? Very interesting stuff!
Dee:
What is the backstory to the development of paralives? To expand upon the question, was this the brain child of one of the developers and they hired people to join in. Or are the developers like a group of friends who wanted to make a game and after some brainstorming the idea of paralives came about? Maybe all of you were super frustrated sims modders and decided to make your own game instead of trying to help the sims. (This is my current head canon). Apologies if this has been asked before, if so please point in the direction of where that is.
Alex:
I have been playing The Sims all my life and it’s one of my favorite games. In 2018, I quit my job as a game developer because I wanted to start my own solo project. I had a lot of ideas to make a new life simulation game and I thought people would be interested since there is not a lot of competition in that part of the video game market. I never thought people would be that interested though! The Patreon worked well and I was able to hire more people on the team and that’s what I did. We grew from 1 to 10 since the end of 2019!
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Zahlea:
I touched on this briefly last week, with my own examples, but I'm interested in hearing from you:
In the roadmap, under Paramaker -> Done, there is a task called "Camera controls in the Paramaker" that mentions modders being able to edit properties of the camera controls. Are you able to elaborate on what types of things a modder could change with regards to the camera?
Anna:
We didn’t want to get too much into details on the roadmap, but some examples of settings would be: the minimum and maximum zoom distance, the zooming curve behavior (how quick it goes from one to the other), the rotation speed, … There’s also a lot of settings related to other features in the game, like how the zoom and auto zoom behave in the Paramaker, etc… Hope that answers your question!
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Possible Assassin (Ny):
Do you guys think you'll create some form of a guidebook when (or after) the game drops?
I know there will be tutorials in the game but I'm wondering more along the lines of the more in depth cool tidbits and way some mechanics do the game might work type stuff if that makes sense
Anna:
That would be a nice idea! I love when games come with physical goodies to go with it, brings me back to old times where we could read the game booklet of our games before playing!
We might do something like that but we’ll know more in a while when we get closer to the release.
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LunaTaoimhe:
Whats your attitude towards discovered exploits; will the attitude be taking them out of the game entirely - or making it harder for normal players to accidentally cause it?
Alex:
Exploits can be really fun so unless they are causing too much issues to players who might stumble into them by mistake, it’s possible that we might keep them into the game. Paralives is a single player game and already has cheats so it’s not a big issue if people use exploits I would say :)
SmallestPolarBear:
What is Sebastian’s signature dish?
Anna:
You’ll see it in game, I can’t spill it out just yet! 🍝
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Zahlea:
[...]
Will para within our household that we aren't controlling (and have high autonomy) have the ability to travel around the map on their own? For instance, maybe Greg decides that he wants to pay a visit to his friend (and crush) Jess, while we aren't controlling him, maybe he just heads over there.
I could see maybe having settings for this to not be a thing, have a prompt so that you can object to it or just let them do what they want.
Anna:
It’s an excellent question! We have yet to decide the details about how the autonomy will go and how far we want to be able to customize it. I feel like one problem with this would be that for people who like to control many Parafolk at once or like family gameplay, it might feel a little bit frustrating if your Paras constantly go out unexpectedly. It might be an option but we have yet to test it out and see if it can bring more to the gameplay than just keep them always accessible! (well except for when they’ll go to work or school)
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Bone Shells:
Hi, not sure if asked but will there be representation of visible/invisible disabilities?
Anna:
Hi! Ideally, we would like to add elements in the game that allow disabled players to represent themselves, but we haven’t decided which ones and how yet since there are a lot of different disabilities and ways to represent them.
We’ve asked our community about disabilities in the past and we got a lot of ideas and feedback about that! To name only a few things from what has already been suggested, we are considering mobility aids like wheelchairs, customizable items like prosthetics, interactable objects like stim toys, different options for communication or work and school adaptations. I talked about it a little bit in this Patreon post!
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Bone Shells:
Piggybacking off of the TS4 release, what systems will be in place for the school experience since it will initially be a rabbit hole?
Jérémie:
Hello! We are still brainstorming schools and how they will work in the game, so I have nothing to say about them at this moment.
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Bone Shells:
Overall, when it comes to niche character quirks, will we be able to give Paras unique little idles they can do, like in the sims?
Anna:
That’s something we are considering! Little idle animations and different walking animations are definitely a great way to add more personality to a character.
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LunaTaoimhe:
Have there been any thoughts into whether paras can partake in artisan skills - things like making cheese, paper, wine, etc!
Anna:
For now, artisan skills like these are not planned. It’s not a definite no though, things could change when we focus on the skills design!
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mamafrancine1:
if there is the possibility to have twins in paralives, will there be any gameplay just for twins?
SmallestPolarBear:
Asking for hoopsie and mamafrancine if they are twins triplets and so forth in the game do you think you’ll add twin specific interaction/ mechanics? ( twin sense, twin language, twin health issues, parents confusion,etc)
Anna:
We can’t say yet! I agree some special interactions like talking in twin languages would be a nice touch, maybe they would also be available for regular siblings though?
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Indi:
Any updates on baby/children gameplay, or is that all still in the design stage for now? 👀
Anna:
Sorry, it’s still in the design stage for now! Well, except for the small brainstorming we sometimes do to adapt the occasional animation and interaction to children 👀
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Entirago:
Andrei, do you think there'd be different sounds for footsteps? The soft padding of bare feet versus the whisper of socks versus the click of heels or the clump of boots?
Andrei:
Hey Ent!! Good question! There’ll definitely be different sounds for bare feet vs footwear. As for how many different types of footwear sounds there’ll be (boots, heels, sneakers, sandals and all), we first have to determine which footwear items will find their way into the base game! Audio always comes last in most of these cases.
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Entirago:
Silly suggestion, but it came from my previous question: could Paras do sock-skating (socks on like a hardwood floor)?
Anna:
Haha, that would be fun! I used to do that all the time at my grandma’s house since she had … I don’t know what to call them… Those pieces of fabrics that you put under your feet to slide and not damage the floors? It’s called “patin” in French which can translate to skate!
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CatchyVirus:
Demetres wanted to know if there'll be games, like hide and seek, tag you're it, hopscotch, jump rope, Simon says, and other activities similar to those ones. It'd be neat to see "old school" games in Paralives 😁
Anna:
Oh, those are nice ideas! I feel like “hide and seek” and “tag you’re it” might be quite complicated to program, AI-wise: what if there’s no place to hide in the terrain you’re in? How far can the people involved run? How do we make sure the whole playing behavior looks realistic since the terrain they will play in is generated dynamically? “Simon says” might be a little easier to implement with animations, since we can at least restrict the play zone to a little square zone and not move around too much. It would be a nice little game to see for sure!
Entirago:
I have a question from Domon this week:
"So my question is about shaders and different textures. We've seen improved metal with specific metallic shine, we've seen barely shiny ceramic tiles and 50s highly reflective fridges. Now, can we change the material ourselves, like showed in the old kitchen video where kitchen countertop could be wood, marble etc. Like can I change that fridge to be metallic and then the shader would act like on the extractor fan. Or make the extractor fan ceramic and then the light would barely show similarly to the tiles? Or are those locked to specific objects?"
Chloé:
Hi Entirago!
The way our materials work currently, it is possible to assign them to pretty much all furniture items. So yes, in theory, you could put ceramic on your oven hut! In practice though, this system and its interface is still very much a work in progress, so I can’t tell you how it will work in the game exactly!
We might restrict the choice of material that can be used for different furniture items for the ease of the player. Otherwise, it could be a bit hellish to navigate through possibly hundreds of materials for a singular object, most of which you probably wouldn’t actually choose because they wouldn’t make much sense with the item you are customizing.
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Possible Assassin (Ny):
I know you guys may no longer be working on build mode right now but I'm wondering have you guys thought more about having windows, doors, and potentially some deco objects be able to move along with the curve of curved walls?
Last time it was asked we were told "at the moment they just don't" meaning there was at least a chance of this changing
Jérémie:
The answer hasn’t changed. Some objects, like frames and simple decorations can kinda fit on curved walls, but nothing more complex, like doors and windows. This is a prickly issue that we’ll tackle at some point and we’ll be sure to share what we decide when we get there!
LunaTaoimhe:
Will there be support for additional sliders for PAM, like will someone be able to add things like elf ear or orc mouth sliders to the PAM?
Anna:
Yes! Modders will be able to add any sliders they want to the PAM :)
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original dev chat: https://docs.google.com/document/d/12rhWk4AkorhBQDlY6-nE0gaJnTUF1DtVOXluqIkJzos/edit?tab=t.0#heading=h.8pnfhuaekln8
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Possible Assassin (Ny):
Chloé and the rest of the environment team, my first question is for yall!
Can you guys give us a in depth look at what changes you guys made in the environment from now and the PAM video?
Chloé:
Hello Ny! When we did the PAM video, I was still in the somewhat early stages for the rework of the environment art style. Over time, we felt that some aspects of what we had shown in the PAM showcase could be improved. So here’s some of our thoughts and changes we have done or will do regarding some of the PAM assets.
1: The wall texture had a lot of information and noise overall because it has a lot of smaller scale details. We wanted the eye to be able to get a break here and there, so overall basic wall textures have been simplified and have larger scale details that seem more painterly.
2: The plant had a lot of tiny little brushstrokes! For the style overall, we want to go for more bold brushstrokes rather than small ones to avoid visual noise. You’ll get to see what our vegetation looks like eventually!
3: The wood was once again, very detailed and didn’t really capture the artsy feel we wanted. As such, we have reworked woods so the wood grain looks more like it’s painted, rather than having something more realistic.
4: The jute rug and the chair honestly look fine as is with the style as it currently looks!
So overall, since the PAM showcase, I have been reworking things to lower the amount of visual noise. In the PAM video, the textures and all worked well and didn’t look all too noisy, but once applied to a house, it was another story and it was a bit of an eyesore… Since then, we have simplified the look of a few things, and made sure that we get a softer and painterly look instead!
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Zahlea:
[...]
Do you think it'll be possible to place windows between levels?
Jérémie:
In theory this should be possible. Windows could punch holes into walls of multiple levels, where I’m unsure is if there’s a floor in the way. That could give a very weird result and I’m not sure if there’s an elegant way to have a window intersect with a floor. We’ll have to test things out and see whether we want to allow it or not.
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Zahlea:
Are you considering foot accessories, like toe rings and ankle bracelets (or an ankle monitor)?
Léa:
We didn’t consider them so far but it’s a great idea, thank you! The ankle monitor would be hard to add because everything has its own place on our Paras texture and we just don’t have room for it! It could create conflicts with the shoes and we don’t want that. We’re gonna need to think about it and see if we can come up with good visuals for small feet/ankle jewelry!
Possible Assassin (Ny):
Are you guys able to give us an update on the "invisible" things you've been working on?
Meaning things doesn't really have anything visual to show but really helps out the game in the long run 😄
Anna:
Research and early design for very core features (animations and interactions)! It is necessary for the game but we can’t show you all that yet since we haven’t made a definite decision about the approach we will apply.
Andrei:
That’s basically all I do 😂 Although recently I’ve been working on some sounds and mostly on testing different music interactivity ideas we had. It’s pretty fun and I really liked the end results!
Chloé:
I’ve done a lot of work on shaders! A lot of them make work more efficient for us, and also some of them were for vegetation items which are still hidden for now, eheh.
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Zahlea:
In the roadmap, under Live Mode -> Done, there is a task called "Camera controls in live mode" and I'm wondering: among the properties that can be edited by modders, are camera move/zoom speed and key bindings included and/or will they be available as settings in a settings menu (as opposed to only available as a mod)?
Anna:
It’s actually a good question! I can see them being at both places. In the mod system, those values would be the default values, while in the settings they would be the full range of possibilities.
Bone Shells:
Overview: So I absolutely adore Halloween/creepy stuff and was super stoked when I saw your Halloween update a while back. With the inclusion of that holiday, I had a few questions regarding the occult aspect of the game if there would be one at all. Totally cool if not.
-Will there be any sort of occult themed gameplay, magic, spells, lol a witches shoppe that we can interact with (Im even okay with set-dressing/clutter)?
-If there is any occult stuff, can we get the chance to name them (people, places, things, activities)?
-When it comes to Halloween, is it possible to have event specific: (characters, gameplay actions, collectibles, general items) that only show up during those events? I know there is a townie pool for every game but I'd understand if that was too much.
Anna:
We don’t plan to have any “functional” occult things or gameplay in Paralives in the base game, sorry! We want to have related items and clothes though, including clutter, decorations and costumes. We can’t tell you which ones yet though!
Small note to clarify: we don’t want to recreate Halloween or any other existing holiday exactly but there might be holidays that look like it. If we do, it would definitely be cool to have some sort of a dress code or even decorations for townfolks and their houses!
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Possible Assassin (Ny):
How will you guys plan ahead for paras to be able to travel seamlessly between worlds similar to other simulation games if there will only be one world at launch?
I may just be thinking about it all wrong but it feels like if the other world (or possibly a dummy world) isn't there you wouldn't be able to test it in game so you'd end up with potentially the same mistake as the sims 3 when they added it in the player lost a lot of information when moving to a new world 🤔
Anna:
It’s quite hard to think ahead about it since we’re far from being at the state of development where we have characters completely saved (since a bunch of things are not even implemented yet). But we’ll keep that in mind for sure!
Hoopsie022:
Hey devs! Do you still plan on having above ground pools in the game?
Anna:
I think so, but we don’t have any updates on that front yet!
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SmallestPolarBear:
Can the current lighting system handle the complex light that a spinning disco ball causes?
Chloé:
Hi Bear!
There’s a lot of restrictions in terms of our lighting system. Heck, most lights added by a player can’t cast real shadows because of how heavy that is on the game! (we are working on a little cheat for that, though). So unfortunately, the complex light of a spinning disco ball would be really hard to do in the game. There’s a few cheats I can think of to fake the light of a stationary disco ball, though! But it’s a bit early to tell just yet if that will be conceivable for the final game.
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original dev chat: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Y242MnIYnAXRHu_QV9cNRKEYpisdXcoJI3mQX49ZLM0/edit?tab=t.0
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Everbough:
Regarding photo mode (which looks AMAZING and I cannot wait to use!!), would players be able to add poses or custom animations for photo mode? Using Sims 4 modded "pose packs" as a real-life game example.
Jérémie:
Hello, thank you! Yes it’ll be possible! With the tools and everything else we have right now, it’s already possible, in fact!
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||AmorFati||:
question from stewby; could you explain a bit more about how mirrors in game work?
Jérémie:
There are a bunch of methods to do mirrors in games, but so at the moment the method we use is to have another camera in the scene and do math to finally use that image in the mirror. The shaders we use to render characters don’t play super well with that, so this is why we have mirror bugs here and there. We’ll go back to the mirrors in the future!
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nokonuuka:
Adding your own images to the game is confirmed, how about adding your own music to be played from radio, or as BGM? Yes, no, or in consideration?
Anna:
I’d say somewhere between Yes and in consideration haha! Basically we plan to allow that and I don’t see why it wouldn’t work but it’s still too early to be 100% sure, the radio and background music are not figured out completely yet.
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Possible Assassin (Ny):
So last week I asked a question based on comments I've seen thrown around this week I'd like to do the same thing!
The questions this time is, some people were curious on how you guys plan on keeping up with the game financially, we know you may have paid DLC far and few in between and will mostly have free updates, but do you guys any ideas that you're comfortable sharing with how you'll stay afloat with supporting the game for years to come?
Anna:
The plan if everything goes well is that people buying the game will allow us to stay afloat. Usually in other game dev companies, the first game is paid with the money of publishers, until the game releases and then the studio can live on as long as the game is bought by players (minus the part of your benefits that will go to the publisher’s pocket since the game has been funded by them initially). The next game will be funded either by another round of publishing, or by counting on the last game’s sales (or both!).
Our game is a bit different since for now we don’t have to rely on publishers before the release thanks to our many patrons, which is quite a comfortable situation! Hopefully continuing to work on Paralives for updates and maintenance will keep the game interesting for new players and we will be able to thrive with that for a while! Of course, we also have plans if things go wrong! Nothing I can easily share without the presence of my lawyer Alex though.
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Possible Assassin (Ny):
I do apologize I'm not exactly sure how to word this question, but when going through the devs chats you guy tend to always say something along the lines of "with the mod tools the player could do this" how do you guys decide what's actually going to be an option in game vs the player having to use the mod tools? Especially since in the past its been said that the mod tools may be for all save files vs one (this also could've changed and I missed it, if so then I do apologize 😅 ) and sometimes as a player I may not want one save file to play the same way as another
Jérémie:
For me, mods and options are two very different things. Options would be like, screen resolution, volume, game speed, etc. The mod system will control most things in the game, like the items you can buy, the planets rotating around the earth, the distance walls snap to one another, etc. We haven’t gone that far with mod and save game management, so at the moment if you modded in a second moon orbiting around the earth, you would have it in all your saves. Ultimately maybe you could select which mods are used on a per-save basis if this makes sense. We’ll see!
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Dei🍀
Question from Amazing Star:
I noticed that they added a localization system for translators. I would like to ask how this system works. I would like to translate the game to my language, but I have no experience of translating games - so is it friendly to people like me?
Anna:
Yes we plan to have a user friendly translating system! For now you can translate directly from the game with the mod system, but you can also import and export a .csv (excel) file with all the texts and supplementary context information to translate into your language. It’s still in progress but I don’t think it will be much harder than that!
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Zahlea:
In the roadmap, under Modding Tools -> Done, there is a task called "Generate and load character model deformations from mods" - is this just another way of saying "Load a modded para from file" or is there more to it?
Jérémie:
This is not about loading Paras but rather about deformations themselves. If you want to make a new slider deformation to have a big nose, you’ll create a 3D model with a big nose and import it into the game, the game will then generate that slider and that deformation, then it’ll write that to a special file so it can be loaded without being generated every time you start the game. Hope that answers your question!
Zahlea:
In the roadmap, under Live Mode -> Done, there is a task called "Basic interactions and actions can be executed" that states
Modders can make their own custom interactions and animations.
Using my superpower of reading into things, that makes me wonder: Since there won't be script mod support (at least to start with), how much will this allow us to add new behaviour? Like:
👉 Not at all - we'll only be able to switch out existing animations for others
👉 Some - we'll be able to add interactions to objects but no new gameplay effects
👉 Duplicate features - we'll be able to add new objects with existing gameplay effects (just as an example - adding a new stove with custom cooking animations that still use the existing cooking gameplay)
👉 Something else?
Anna:
You can do all that, I think! Depends on what you call “gameplay effects”. The interaction/animation part of our system is the most generic possible to allow for maximum possibilities, but of course it’s still limited. The cooking interaction is probably one of the most complex one of the game, but here are the example of a step of what we do to integrate all this into the game with the mod system:
Add an action called “Cook in pan”
Link a new “cook in pan” animation to it (let’s say it’s an animation in which the character just shake the pan every 5s)
Change the settings of the animation: we want it to loop for 10s, we want the character to be in a standing pose (so we don’t have to change the pose between before/after the action, on the contrary to a “sitting on a chair” interaction in which we would transition from standing to sitting), procedural constraints settings,... There’s probably more that I forget
Change settings related to the objects: this action is feasible with all items with the “oven” tag (so if you want to mod in a new oven, you would just have to put the oven tag on), it requires the “pan” target on the oven to know where it should be placed (again, you can add that on your custom oven in the mod system), how the state of the item inside the pan will change over time (from a “uncooked” state to a “cook” one... or maybe a “burnt” one, who knows)
Add some sounds or other effects
Add what we call gameplay effects, which would be how the action affects the player. For example, it might speed up the decrease of the hunger effect (because when you cook you’re getting more and more hungry!) or the dirtiness (because of the oil stains!), add up some points to the cooking skill level or the para’s general jauge of fun. (Those are all non confirmed examples)
This would be only a step in the whole interaction, because it lacks the “Mix in bowl”, “put from fridge” or “find an empty counter” steps. Everything that was listed here is going to be how we use the mod system for, so that’s also how you will be able to add new interactions (with custom everything - animation, gameplay effects, items, …).
You will then be able to add this new “cooking” interaction to the list of interactions called by a chosen option in the recipe menu wherever it is.
Now, if by “cooking gameplay” you mean something completely different like “replace the usual cooking gameplay by Cooking Mama-like minigames“, then no it’s very unlikely that you will be able to do that with our modding tools.
I hope I answered your question? Feel free to clarify in the chat if I didn’t get it right.
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SmallestPolarBear:
Will paradimes have decimals?
Anna:
I feel like it is not really important to have those and it is way more simpler when there’s no decimals. It’s not 100% confirmed yet though!
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SmallestPolarBear:
Could paras get visual consequences to not filling needs ( before complete fail ) exemple : poche de yeux , slumped posture, messy hair , etc. ?
Anna:
I think it would be nice, the more indications about the Para’s state there is, the better for the player to know what’s going on! It also adds nice details and “liveliness” to the characters.
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Sarah The Duck:
What age groups are you thinking of having?
Anna:
There’s nothing new on that side, we can’t tell you precisely yet, sorry!
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Dei:
Hey team! We've talked about it before but I'd love to hear an update from you guys ❤️
How would you like sexuality and gender preference in romantic/sexual relationships to be handled? As in, do you want them to be absolutely unchanging or do you want a bit of fluidity to who the locals are attracted to?
Anna:
There’s no news on that front, the preference in relationships is still very much in progress. We still have to make a sandbox game, so I don’t think we want to lock everything. I think it would be nice to have a way to set a predefinite orientation to some of the locals, while others would be completely fluid to accommodate how the player wants to set up couples and relationships in their game. However, I think that you should be able to choose to date anyone whatever your Para’s set of preferences when you control them. I think the issue arises more when autonomy directs the interaction.
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Sebastian's Pool Dive:
If you decide to give school-aged Paras homework, are you considering adding an option to teleport all homework into the Parafolk's inventory? Sometimes sims leave their homework around the lot and they're hard to find
Jérémie:
We still have a lot of things to think about before I could answer that question, but we’ll try to make our homework - if its something we do - easier to find. For instance, does homework really need to be an item that you can lose?
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Entirago:
Y'know how even in some small towns, there's a public parking lot central to everything, and people park their cars there and then walk five or so blocks to what they need? I think I'd like to see something like that used if there's no parking space on the lot your para is intending to go to. But even more, I also think it'd be neat to have the same idea, but for horses… a place you can leave them to eat and drink and socialise while your para is conducting their business.
Anna:
That’s a nice observation! I’m not sure if we want to deal with the parking spaces in the game though. There’s a chance that we’re just going to deal with one car per parking spot in Para’s terrain like the Sims did, and just make cars appear and disappear magically when you travel to a place. I feel like we would need to “waste” too much space putting a lot of parking everywhere, without the insurance that your Para or a local will find a close-enough free parking lot. But we’ll see!
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ShadowRose:
What are your feelings on complicated relationships?
Things such as two people are in love but one of them already has a partner and the other also has a crush on someone else, or friends having a great relationship even if one of them is always mean to the other
Anna:
I think the complicated human nature should definitely be reflected somehow in the game! Relationships with depth is definitely something we want in our game, I hope we can make things like that that are really relatable. I also like your specific examples!
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Tinks:
[...] what ideas do you have or would LIKE to have regarding newspapers or bulletin boards etc? Say if we do have paras receiving the newspapers, will there be announcements of the weather forecast, or the events occurring in town, and information Regarding neighbours? Just like TS3. I’m intrigued by what you would like to introduce to the game for those kinds of cool things for passing on any news etc?
Anna:
[...] Sadly I can’t tell you much about the newspaper since it’s something we’ve been thinking about lately and might want to keep secret for now… I like all your ideas though!
Zahlea:
Ooohh, I'm really excited about this question from Little Dragon
I'm curious about how building on the coast will work and if I could build something on stilts on water or even build a house partially underwater with windows showing below the surface
Anna:
I’d love that so much!! I love coastal and underwater builds!
It’s in our goals but sadly right now I can’t give you much more details.
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Possible Assassin (Ny):
So I was going through all the videos on YouTube again, as one does, and it made me realize none of the furniture snaps together.
When making the bunk beds alex had to make it look like they were one bed, when it came to the chalet the couch was a lot of clicking around and putting pieces in the right place to make it look like a whole couch
My question for you guys this time around while we know you guys plan on having it where furniture can snap together for alignment and what not but what about snapping together to "group" together? that way when moving the bunk beds they both move as one piece or even the couch the player puts them together and then can move them all as one piece
Jérémie:
It’s something we’ll have to think about, yes, we would have to decide how items could be grouped together. If you snap a fridge next to a couch, would it make sense to move both at the same time automatically? Or would the player need to manually create “groups”? Would that be more or less annoying than having to move everything by hand? We’ll have to test things out!
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original dev chat: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xZEAVvWtx8cVKT3EgvQeTr9zkRRxhmhDLsLw7ajhq40/edit?tab=t.0
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Possible Assassin (Ny):
Ok it's time to ask about the fun balance again!
I've been going around reading comments, like I normally do and I've been seeing some people wonder how you guys plan on keeping the game fun when based in realism at the beginning?
When thinking back on when I was younger and played with dolls and action figures it was real to a certain extent after a while I started making my characters more fantasy based because it allowed even more for the imagination. We know that we may not get supernatural or fantasy elements at least not in the base game if ever, but what's the plan to make sure things aren't repetitive or become stale for the player?
Alex:
To me, supernatural elements do not make things less repetitive or stale in games or movies in general. There are so many games, tv shows and movies that do not have fantastical elements and they do not become repetitive. There are so many interesting events and stories that can happen in real life so our idea pool for making a life simulation game interesting without supernatural elements is endless! Also, it’s possible that we will do supernatural updates in the future, after the 1.0 launch of the game but I can’t confirm it yet
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Entirago:
Even in rabbit holes, do you think paras would have a chance to get to know teachers, colleagues, and maybe even frequent customers or service staff?
Jérémie:
I think so, yeah! There is great potential for storytelling even if we’re not able to show everything happening literally as it is! We still hope to use workplaces, schools and other rabbit holes as storytelling locations.
nokonuuka:
What games are the biggest inspirations to paralives? Besides Sims obviously, what other games have had something(anything) that has made you go "sweet i wonder if paralives could have something like this"? I have noticed roller coaster tycoon being mentioned a few times now.
Alex:
There are so many inspirations! I will name just a few. I am inspired by Life is Strange for the cozy and personal mood, Zelda Breath of the Wild of the wild and Tunic for the exploration aspect, Stardew Valley, Ooblets and Animal Crossing for many reasons related to life simulation, Cities Skyline and Planet Coaster for the build tools, Rollercoaster Tycoon because it was a very influential game for me in my childhood, just like The Sims.
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||AmorFati||:
What is something about the development of a game such as Paralives that you wish more people were aware of?
Chloé:
That the less constraints there are for the players, the more constraints there are for the dev! In terms of environments at least, we have to limit ourselves at times for what we want to do visually because we offer as much customization as possible, and that in turn makes what we can achieve limited at times.
Jérémie:
These games are usually made by teams 10x to 20x our size : )
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Domon:
Because it's impossible to include an in-depth representation of every culture at once, do you already know (more or less) what your approach to cultural representation is going to be like for the initial release and which cultures you'll prioritise? Will it be fewer cultures but done more in depth, or more cultures, but slightly more shallow?
Anna:
It’s a hard question to answer! I don’t know how “fewer” or “more” we will go since it depends on which reference point you’re talking about. It’s hard to go in depth on a culture, since even 10 items couldn’t represent the whole thing, but I think for starters we are going to include a few common ones and maybe items that will go with one of our character’s backstory or our town history (the town from Paralives, not my French birth town haha). But even “common ones” is not that precise of an answer because depending on where you are in the world, it might not be the same common ones… We also haven’t our final list of items we are aiming to put in the game, it is definitely something we have to think about!
I would love it if we could add some “package” free updates for different cultures in the future though!
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Zahlea:
I bet a lot of people are going to be super happy to know that the categories can be deleted, edited, moved and new ones added. My question is: will you have a way of resetting it to default in case we really mess up the organisation? 😅
Alex:
Yes! Modifications to these categories and any other parameters in the modding tools are saved in separate files so resetting something will be as simple as deleting a file. We will likely add a button somewhere in the modding tools so it can reset the parameters for you, without having to find the right file yourself.
Lemon:
This is basically a question for Andrei (I think)
What are your thoughts on; forming bands, battle of the bands, sing-offs, dance-offs, rap battles, mosh pits, mixing, talentshows etc? Are you thinking of implementing those things?
Andrei:
Hey Lemon! Great question there! We are considering having Paras play their own music of course and to also form music ensembles like in Sims 3 although there is still much to brainstorm on the subject still. I’d personally love if all these features would make it into the game as they would open so many doors to the music. However, musical interactions between Paras can get tricky on the technical aspect. So for the moment, I’m still studying what the Sims did on that matter, how they did it and trying to come up with more Live mode music ideas. Thanks for the question!
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Possible Assassin (Ny):
Are you guys considering having work from home jobs in game? I would love to have things like that!
Jérémie:
Yeah, we are certainly considering it, it would feel weird not to have it! There are some small design challenges related to working from home, but I hope we manage to work through them and have some neat gameplay related to that! Thank you!
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Lemon:
Will the paras get pixelated when going to the toilet and stuff? Or do you have another way to censor it?
Anna:
We have other ideas but we haven’t come up with a final decision yet!
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ShadowRose:
In honour of everyone who's had a birthday recently, have you thought more about aging in the game? What will the transition between life stages be like? If you can share anything of course :3
Anna:
Alex has thought a little more about it but we can’t share anything more for now, it’s still under wraps! 🤫
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GracePrince:
I was wondering if paras can write a will? So that I can specify which child will inherit, for example, the house or certain items?
Anna:
I can’t confirm anything right now but it’s definitely a cool idea! Especially if for example you play with your youngest generations who moved out and suddenly they get a surprise inheritance!
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GracePrince:
Will there be alarm clocks in the game? (which you can also set. e.g. that they should always ring at 6:00 on weekdays and not at all on weekends, or e.g. the alarm clock rings Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday at 5:30 because that corresponds to the working days of my para)
Anna:
I’m sure there will be “some kind” of way for your Para to get up on time for work or school, but I don’t know if it’s going to depend on the presence of an alarm clock or not yet! It would be funny if other mischievous Paras could set it up later so that they get late at work or school 😈
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GracePrince:
Will we be able to remove paras from a conversation with my current para if I don't want the other para to interfere with my conversation?
Anna:
That’s a good question! We’re still figuring out the details of our conversation system but it’s definitely a good idea to have more control of what is happening during these interactions, since sometimes the player has a really precise idea of what they want to happen and they don’t want any random Para interrupting it.
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LunaTaoimhe:
While testing animations have you ever attempted to play one on an obscenely tall para (talking like outside the normal height range just for the giggles)?
Alice:
Hii, not really! We can already get cursed results as it is haha.
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LunaTaoimhe:
Has there been any consideration to events that are mood-specific, such as a scared para having nightmares when they sleep, or an embarrassed para wanting to find a place to hide?
Anna:
Of course, it is part of our considerations when designing the mood/emotion system. The details have yet to be decided though, so I can’t tell you much more! Your ideas are really good though!
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LunaTaoimhe:
With polygamy not being considered (due to the potential for losing the Teen rating) will the marriage/dating system be made in such a way that it could support it, so that a modder would not have to rebuild the marriage system themselves if they wish to enable that?
Anna:
I’d say… Probably? The marriage/dating system is not implemented yet so it’s really hard to say how moddable it will be. We always have modders in mind when implementing something though so that might be something we will consider.
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Entirago:
If a para goes into a rabbit hole to do an activity, will the player know how long to expect them to be? Work/school might be fairly obvious due to schedules, but how long does going to a concert take? Going to the day spa? A skill class? Or fixing the high school's boiler?… actually, wait. Maybe we don't know how long it takes to fix the boiler, or it depends on the para's handiness skill.
Jérémie:
That totally depends on the rabbit hole and the activity. Sometimes it would make sense to have a set time that you’ll see - (this class runs from 10 am to 4 pm) but other things would make less sense (I don’t wanna go relax at the spa on a schedule), we’ll figure that out when we flesh out what is going to be and what is not going to be a rabbit hole, and how Paras will interact with those.
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Domon:
Are you still planning to include an indicator of how long default interaction is going to last? (without setting it, e.g. for 1h; till skill gained etc., just plain, unaltered duration of interaction)
Alex:
That is still being considered and we would like to test ideas related to that in the near-ish future! I think it would be really useful to fine tune your action scheduling with these options.
SmallestPolarBear:
I’m currently making an Indian restaurant in acnh, which as though me how hard it is to create the ambiance from that beautiful culture is to recreate specially without the items for it , do you think it will be easier in paralives?
Chloé:
Hi Bear! That’s a very good question! Anna has addressed this a bit in another question of this dev chat.
For sure, I think it would be great to have items from different cultures in the game (pretty sure the team agrees too, eheh). It is a bit early to say how many items and from what cultures will be included for the game’s launch, but we are considering having collections for different cultures some time down the line! Hopefully with these collections, it will be easier to achieve a build for a specific culture, like your Indian restaurant, in Paralives :)
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||AmorFati||:
I'm really hoping for a lot of "functional" clutter, such as power outlets, light switches, fans, radiators, etc., how likely are we to get items such as these and could they (at least some items) possibly even become actually functional (e.g. radiators giving off heat)? Even if they're not functional, I feel like these kinds of items could really help make builds feel more real.
Alex:
I totally agree that it’s really fun to have common objects even if they are not functional to make your house feel more complete and real. Things like power outlets, vent traps, and everything you mentioned. We can’t confirm the list of items that will make it into the game yet but having objects like that would be really great, even if we don’t find the time to make them completely or partly functional.
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Dei:
Question brought up by @Sha||amayne, earlier in one of the first building videos we can see a basic staircase tool. Are there still plans to work with this or has it been removed entirely for something different?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vm08XAI55Vk
Jérémie:
I don’t think stairs will work like that, although these seem like they would be a simple solution, they wouldn’t allow for enough customization. Our stair system is still a work in progress, and we’ll take a look at it when we are back to working on the build mode. Thank you for the question!
Zahlea:
For the presets - do the presets only contain slider values or would a preset also contain things like line details and shadowing (and is each preset only one slider value or can they be a collection of slider values)? I'm thinking about whether it'd be possible to get to any specific look no matter what preset is used, as opposed to if some of the presets include "hidden" effects - like line details and shadowing or larger slider ranges - in addition to the slider values, meaning it matters what preset you start from.
Sonia:
To answer your question, yes preset contains texture with line and shadow variation, so if you want some specific looks it will be easier to start from a preset. Most of the presets are made with a combination of sliders and textures but some also have very specific shapes that are only accessible through that preset. I’ll explain with some examples for the various scenarios:
Marvin’s mouth uses different sliders, a texture AND a hidden deformation in order to get the effect we wanted. There’s a few reasons why we don’t have that hidden deformation available in the sliders. Some of them are a bit too specific to be a slider and there may be other presets that are in that case so it may be overwhelming if there’s too much to choose from. But the result is that you’ll have a hard time recreating exactly Marvin’s mouth shape with the slider if you don’t use the preset.
We also have cases like Maggie’s nose, a combination of various nose sliders that are accessible in the nose section category of the PAM. So you could recreate Maggie’s nose without using her nose preset BUT you won't get the texture that’s associated with that nose. That texture is used to enhance some feature like the bump of her nose tip and some players may not want that texture or may want another texture associated with the shape! You could also do the opposite and from the nose preset create a totally different nose shape that will have that nose texture.
We’re using the combo slider+texture for presets in order to facilitate character creation for players that don’t want to spend too much time on it.
Zahlea:
From Little Dragon, this week's question:
I was wondering if colours could have an effect on the world or the world having an effect on them?
So one of the first examples I can think of is glow in the dark, obviously it gives off a small amount of light, which not only looks cool but could possibly work as a "night light" for kids
For how the world could have an effect on them, the easiest and most linked to the glow in the dark thing would be fluorescent colours reacting to a black light, it'd be interesting to see the colours get much brighter and almost glowing. Another example of the world having an effect on the colours could just be lights in general, (like from cars and such) so for instance bright neon colours would be more visible in the dark or in fog when headlights are aimed at them.
Chloé:
That would be really cool! Usually, having elements affecting one another visually in the world helps to tie them together.
For sure, we have a lot of constraints when it comes to color control. We can’t have, let’s say, a car with red paint, but make it that it is more glowy when it’s yellow! It would require work to tweak such a system behind the scenes to have some colours actually glow. But in general, light in game already behaves in such fashion; when you have lighter objects, light on them looks much harsher and vivid compared to a darker object, which ends up looking a bit like a glow. They tend to be more visible in the dark as well.
Other than that, we plan on having some elements that will emit light, such as neon signs (as you could see in Maggie's loft video), and these will be fun to add to your scene to add some subtle color glows here and there! Night lights for kids would fall in this category.
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||AmorFati||:
How are you guys planning on keeping the looks of assets consistent over time, and would you possibly go back (after release) and change items if at some point you notice that there's too much inconsistency?
Chloé:
Hello Amor!
We are building through time a document that keeps track of all our technical and artistic constraints, so we can always refer to it as we launch into more full-scale asset production. This way, we can ensure a consistency throughout the assets from an artistic and technical point of view for the game’s release.
However, it is hard to say for a more long term situation like new content from updates and DLCs. Afterall, if we provide long-term support for the game, the technology of computers and 3D keeps improving at the same time! It’s not rare to find assets from newer game packs be of higher quality than the assets from the game’s launch.
So realistically speaking, I think the quality might improve over time –but it will still stay in line with the artistic vision of the original release, as to not cause a jarring change in visuals with the older stuff. We will have to leave some of the older assets as is, since if we keep working on the same things over and over, we just end up going in circles and not creating anything new for the game! We’d just go back to the more problematic cases.
So, TLDR: We are ensuring that all assets follow artistic and technical constraints so they have a consistent look over time. Assets might have a higher quality much later on for post-release stuff, but the overall look shall remain the same regardless.
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original dev chat: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HylNEL677fahtcoU91-ZJvnG1Syuepm1QyxlDXsKJ-g/edit?tab=t.0
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Entirago:
I've noticed that in Sims (3 at least), it seems like the butler/babysitter/nanny/maid is omniscient. They know exactly where they need to be next. Now, not saying that Paralives will even have those roles, but if it did, it'd be neat if the service para did kind of a patrol, and if they spotted something in their job description, then they'd address it
Anna:
I agree it might be more realistic, but it’s a bit less sandbox-y. The challenge with these roles in the Sims is mostly to have enough money to hire them in order to get rid of the chores yourself, but if you add the challenge of having to wait for them to come and things like that, it might be more annoying than the bonus it provides to the gameplay. We’d have to think more about this balance!
Red27:
This might have already been asked, but if we have been part of the patreon long enough, and paid enough, will we still need to purchase the game on release? I'm not certain what kind of price range you are looking at, but it would feel just a little sad to have to pay another 60$. Not a deal breaker, but just curious if there is anything like that in the works.
Alex:
Hey there! We are looking into our options and we are considering the idea but can't confirm anything yet. Thank you for asking and for your generous support on Patreon!
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lanearoo:
Hi devs!! I'm so excited to have thought of a question this week, even if you're not able to answer it at this time lol. I'm wondering if you can share any thoughts you have on the "edge of the map." If I zoom as far out from the Paralives town as possible, and/or scroll all the way in one direction, what might I see? Might the land/water expand beyond the limits of my screen, like in The Sims 2, or might it be an isometric chunk of terrain floating in space, like in the original Rollercoaster Tycoon? Or something else entirely?
Alex:
Hi! Good question. We are planning to test the cropped terrain chunks like in Rollercoaster Tycoon so see how it would look in our game. It’s possible that it won’t work in the end but it’s something that we will be testing!
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Sebastian's Pool Dive:
What would you say is the most difficult/time-consuming portion of live mode development? And do you think once you get past that stage, things will be smooth sailing for live mode?
Alex:
The pathfinding system, the interaction system and the animation system are technically complex to develop. Once we have that, characters will be able to do all sorts of actions around the house which will be a huge milestone. Then, the other systems like skills, relationships, needs and jobs might be less complex on the technical side but will require a lot of game design, testing and tweaks to make sure that they are fun so it’s a different challenge!
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Domon:
What's your next focus after you're done with the interaction menu and queue?
Alex:
Studying if and how we can do multitasking, adding a feature to our animation system so that a different animation can be played for a given interaction depending on the height of the character, adapting the walk and run animations so that it works regardless of the height of the character and making the characters do little side steps if they need to turn around while standing in place.
Entirago:
To any dev, what's a mischievous interaction you'd love to see in the game?
Léa:
Being able to surprise someone when they are not looking. I saw a dog do it in a video, it was the cutest thing ever!
Alice:
Hi Ent! I’d love it if we could have the ability to do pranks to other Paras, and have a mischief skill to develop :o Like ringing at one’s door and going into hiding, opening someone’s mail, listening at the door, peeking at one’s window from outside… I have many ideas. 😂 Of course, getting caught would result in a malus in the relationships and a bad reputation! (If we ever have reputations hehe).
Zahlea:
This week, from Little dragon:
I know that kids are still on the to do list but I was curious if there would be accessibility and animations so that kids can essentially do/reach anything an adult para can.
-As an example, jumping up on a counter or using a step stool in order to reach overhead cupboards.
Furthermore, if it would be possible for us to make adult para that are extremely short would they be able to use those same animations?
Alice:
Yes, I think that’s the goal to have kids being able to interact with as many “adult size“ objects as possible, in addition to the ones that will only be usable by them. It will definitely be a challenge with our height slider. For your second question, we are thinking about that. Maybe some animations would be usable only by Parafolks a certain size, no matter the lifestage. But we will share more on that later. :)
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Possible Assassin (Ny):
👀 when should we start asking about genetics again cause I have QUESTIONS!
Anna:
Sadly we can’t say when we will be back on the genetics to continue its implementation yet. Feel free to ask your questions anyway though, who knows!
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BusiestPolarBear:
Have you gotten any thoughts on whether you'll add extreme weather (enormous hail , rain so high it floods the streets, tornados 🌪 etc.)to the game? definitely not based on yesterday’s doomsday weather
Anna:
The thing that might be hard with extreme weather is that it might imply more than what we’d expect from a life sim game. Having big floods or tornados destroying the environment for example might not be in our goals for the game. However, maybe we could still have lots of rain or snow barring the streets or making school close, it could be fun events to spice up the daily gameplay!
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buzz:
How much are you guys planning on letting the paras interact with the horse pets?
Alice:
Good question, I can't really address that because we aren't actively working on pets right now.
But I'm excited to get started, I hope we’ll be able to deliver fun and interesting game play (care, equipment, activities, relationships etc.).
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mamafrancine1:
Once you create a family in PAM, are you considering having an option where you can mark a para as deceased and then once you enter the lot the family will remember losing that para but the para will no longer take up a household slot?
Anna:
Yes, we considered it! I can’t confirm if we are going to do it yet but I agree it would be nice to build a more complex family tree and that would help the backstory feel more tangible.
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mamafrancine1:
Will there be things for our paras to collect?
Anna:
There might be! For now it’s not something I can reveal though but we’re thinking about it 👀
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ShadowRose:
I would love it if para kids could have desires to see certain people who they bonded with when they were young, or specifically grandparents if they don't live in the same household, or for kids to be able to ask when they can next see their grandparents and/or get excited when they visit
It's a wholesome idea and would just be nice if little Cindy asked her mom if they could go see grandpa and when they went she got super happy, especially if she got little non-specific treats from her grandparents. Or if edgy teen Carmine was reluctant but she seems sort of happier to be around the people she's known since she was born.
In other words, how many cute cross-generational interactions have you thought about?
Anna:
We haven’t thought a lot about specific interactions for now. We’re designing the relationships from the base gameplay mechanics and even if we have some ideas of interactions, we’re more focused on the very core of it. I agree that cross-generational interactions are very important though, we want our gameplay mechanics to mix to feel coherent and these ideas would definitely mix aging, family, relationships and emotions gameplay!
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GracePrince:
Can paras sing and make music together? e.g. form a band in which different instruments and vocals come together or sing in a duo, trio, quartet, choir, ….
Anna:
Not yet, but I’m hoping we can make it work!
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LokiTheShadySpirit:
And related to GracePrince's question above: are there other activities paras can do together (like cooking (like in the sims))
Anna:
We’re thinking about it during our current core live mode design! It’s not confirmed for now but we’re trying!
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Gui:
Question from Lily: Do you have any plans to how marriage will work in game? Can Paras elope? Choose who gets invited? Do a big Vs small wedding? Use it as a chance to show off their riches or make it simple? Not even want anything special and just do a normal civil marriage? Maybe even choose to not get married and just live together without wanting to ever get married. Perhaps even having wants and dreams for their wedding and talking to their partner about it. Like “have wedding talk, say you want to get married one day” and even say no without ruining the relationship “say you are not ready”.
Anna:
The wedding design is not complete yet so I can’t really give you a lot of details sadly. Your ideas are very good though, it would definitely mean a lot to be able to customize all of the celebration’s details!
Zahlea:
In the roadmap, under Build Mode -> Done, there is a task called "Wall length indicator" and the image shows 3.2m. Now I'm very happy with the metric system, but will there be an option for feet and inches too for people using the imperial system?
Anna:
Yes, a setting to switch between imperial and metric is confirmed!
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||AmorFati||:
All the rabbit hole questions this week:
-How are you currently planning for rabbit holes to work; e.g. will there be premade buildings for them or will you be able to design your own places?
-Are there community lots that may be open rather than a rabbit hole at launch, and which kind of lot(s) is this most likely the case for?
-If there are off-map rabbit holes, how would our paras get to them? (would they for example go to the edge of the map and then disappear, or could there maybe be a train station or some other building like that that they could disappear into)
Jérémie:
Hello! These are all good questions that we have not set in stone at the moment, so I can’t answer any of them with 100% certainty. It would make sense for the first town to have fixed rabbit holes, at least until players can create their own. I think it might take some time before you can demolish workplaces or schools and create buildings marked to take their place.
We might have some lots that are open when we launch in early access, and while I can’t say for sure which one they would be, I feel that social spots or places with a lot of different interactions that do not require extremely specific new mechanics could be open.
As for off-map rabbit holes, if we have them, all options are still on the table. I would personally love to have Paras just leave through public transit, but that’s just me. Thank you for the questions!
Zahlea:
In the roadmap, under Paramaker -> Done, there is a task called "Body and face slider interface" that states:
Modders can add their own sliders from existing deformations (part of the body that can change dynamically). They can also add or edit diagrams, change the style of icons and edit the properties of the sliders.
Would a modder have to copy the diagram and completely override it, or would they be able to add a slider icon at a certain place? What I'm thinking about is if a player wanted to add multiple slider mods, then would only one work, would only one show, or would it work out perfectly?
Anna:
A modder can add any slider with the appropriate icon at any place on the drawing of the body part. For example, you could keep all of the current nose sliders and add another one, all of the base + custom sliders will show up on the same diagram, on the same part of the UI (I hope it answers your question?)
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mamafrancine1:
Can paras have vitiligo? How about birthmarks/stretch marks?
Anna:
We’re considering it but we’re not at the time where we produce a lot of skin details right now, so I can’t confirm it yet!
Domon:
Would you say your idea of environment artstyle is final and what you're doing now is just adding more assets?
Chloé:
Hello Domon! For the most part, we are pretty much set on the art style–a few things might still get tweaked as we progress, though. However, not every aspect of it is final, as we have to see a few things, for example how the style is adapted to large furniture items vs small clutter items, how it will look on landscaping elements like water and vegetation, how the different types of materials will look, etc!
For instance, one of the biggest challenges we have is ensuring we have a consistent texturing style through different materials. We have to ensure that the style translates well from more organic materials like wood planks to more rectilinear materials like bricks, and that those fit well with fully organic materials like the leaves. To test those, we usually create different assets to apply different types of materials, so that way not only do we progress on tests, we also get new items that will be usable in game. Two birds, one stone!
We are doing and wrapping up some of the main tests for furniture items, clutter items and vegetation currently, but there will still be some stuff that will need to be determined down the line! But, after the main tests have concluded, tests will be fewer and farther between and we will be able to focus more on asset creation.
So TLDR; The vision and artstyle we have for the environments is pretty much validated, but we are not done with tests just yet. We are however still creating a lot of different assets to be used in game as part of our tests!
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original dev chat: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nds--nnt-cHtO9kWB-t5Q4alEDbpO2iEk5RTy02TMRs/edit?tab=t.0
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ShadowRose:
Will there be things to look out for in the sky, from birds to planes to shooting stars? (And despite the realistic aims… Maybe something more mysterious?)
Anna:
Oh, I think it would be nice to be able to “collect” or unlock shooting stars, constellations or planets as part of an astronomy skill or hobby! Nothing is confirmed yet but it’s definitely a good idea. Now for something more mysterious…. I can’t say…………..
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GracePrince:
Will paras react differently to their own pregnancy or that of another parafolk depending on whether they want children of their own? It would be nice to see different reactions here such as joy, neutral or dislike.
Anna:
On the contrary to real life, in Paralives you will choose if you want to have a child or not everytime, so I am not sure it would make sense to have a neutral or dislike reaction. However, I like the idea that Paras who dislike children feel a bit weirded out when their best friend announces they are pregnant!
Pinkvelvet98:
Will the gallery be available during early access?
Alex:
Yes, we are planning to make the Steam Workshop available on day one of Early Access! Players will be able to share houses, characters, mods and custom content there.
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Possible Assassin (Ny):
Have you guys thought about copyrighting any part PL? I've seen members of the community talking about it and wanted to hear your thoughts.
Typically they're always talking about how the objects can be stretched and pulled to almost any size, or the way yall do customization, etc. The different things that make yall unique and what not
Alex:
Game mechanics like resizing objects can not be copyrighted but they can be patented in some conditions. However, it’s a long and complicated process that we are not very interested in and we believe that game developers should be able to freely recreate features from other games.
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Sebastian's Pool Dive:
For the "create a townie" patron reward, I want to create my own fictional character. Since the game will be in early access, can we just send you our created Parafolk once the game is near full release?
Alex:
We are considering the idea of allowing Patrons to create the Legend tier reward character themselves in the game. We haven’t decided yet but we will keep everyone updated about that reward and the other ones when we get closer to the Early Access release!
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[...]
ShadowRose:
I know that creating a townie for the legendary patrons is a ways off and you have a lot more to add into the game before you even get there, but how accurate will you be going with the legend paras? Some are bound to be just descriptions of a character (either fictional or real but don't have a reference image) and some will be recreations of a reference you've been given, but if there's not something that is accurate enough then would you create a new asset to achieve the most accurate result? Or do you believe (or hope) that the options you intend to add will be enough so there will be no need to do that?
I'm mainly talking about the physical attributes, since clothes don't matter as much, but maybe when it comes to creating the legend paras you might be inspired by things you hadn't considered before which could lead to adding even more
Anna:
Creating new assets only for the legendary Paras is not planned. We hope that the options we’ll add will be enough! This is why we’ll wait until we have enough content to start making them. If we notice that we are missing very important facial features or clothing pieces that are quite common among the legendary Paras, we might get inspired to add it though, but that’s not something we can promise!
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Duckie:
For the Create a townie patron reward, could we create an item instead(like a stuffed duck?)
Alex:
That would be really cool! It’s an idea that we considered for a separate reward but we put it aside for now because creating whole new individual items for Patreon rewards would add a lot of work to our already long task list.
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QUINNS:
Para devs, when can we expect a gameplay mode showcase on YouTube?
Anna:
We don’t have an estimate for the release of such a video, sorry! When we do, you will very probably know about it on a Patreon post, so stay tuned!
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Possible Assassin (Ny):
Soooo looking back to what the plan was for the livemode focus marathon, it seems you guys are making good progress hitting the main points, but im curious what's the plan after this marathon?
If following the same pattern as PAM then we may get a wrap summary and a video, however when thinking about development I'm wondering are y'all going to break back up into teams, maybe have focus weeks/days, or even bring on interns to help flesh out the modes, etc
Any deeper view that your allowed to share would be great to kinda get an idea on how things will be! 😁
Alex:
We’ve split the work on the live mode into multiple marathons, or boosts, like we call them on the team. It’s very possible that we will do like we did in the past and make videos to showcase our work and it could coincide with the end of development boosts. We’re always thinking of smaller video ideas for in-between bigger ones though. As for the team aspect, we are not planning to recruit interns or more people and almost all programmers on the team usually focus together on the tasks of the current boost.
Possible Assassin (Ny):
👀 Random question but will paradimes be paper money or coins?
I know we'll probably barely see them unless like you have delivery and pay for it or maybe stores or so but I'm curious
Anna:
It has not been decided yet! You’re right that maybe we won’t even see it, for now we only have a little UI thing telling us how much money we made or lost. We’ll see!
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LunaTaoimhe:
Hi, been a bit but I finally have internet so got some good questions brewed up for you 🍾
With the focus on live mode, has there been any thought into how parafolk of different dispositions (good/evil) would interact with the world?
Anna:
There’s been thoughts for sure, but nothing to announce for now! The current live mode focus is mostly about the core systems like pathfinding etc, so the decisions about the “fun” parts of live mode gameplay like personality or evilness will likely be made afterwards.
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LunaTaoimhe:
I've asked this before but its very important personally & I feel I have to bring up again, have parafolk of different conditions been considered/tested further, things like mobility issues (affects gameplay) w/ the use of canes, crutches, wheelchairs, etc and cosmetic issues (does not effect gameplay to significant extent) like peglegs, eyepatches & prosthetics?
Anna:
Cosmetic items will be more looked into once we get to decide on the big list of items to integrate in the game. Items that affect mobility or communication are being considered while we’re doing the core systems, like with the current focus on pathfinding! Sadly we don’t have news to share yet!
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Hoopsie022:
Can I put in an official recommendation for a very alt-gothic townie? 😂
Anna:
Consider it officially recommended 😌🖤🦇
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Hoopsie022:
Will living off the grid be possible?
Anna:
Mmmmmaybe! I like the idea but I can’t confirm it just yet, sorry!
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ShadowRose:
We can make false steps and platforms using split levels, but is it possible that a para could use a platform that is too high to be a step as a seat? Like how we've seen Seb sit on a counter, but if the player was to try and make a window seat (in bay windows), or a seat in a shower (which could bring this question into multitasking), without using actual items. And furthermore, using a similar logic, would it be possible for a para to climb onto a platform that's not too high, but still higher than a step in order to get to the next level?
Anna:
We’re looking into it! When sitting on an item like a chair or a bed (or a cushion that could be on top of a window seat), it’s easier because there is already a “spot” with an orientation: the spot for the chair is composed of a “butt” target and a “feet” target for example. So the animation will adapt to these reference points nicely, since they are placed by hand in a position that makes sense. However, if your character wants to sit on a step, we would need to generate this spot dynamically, since you can build and modify your split levels and step on the go, and click everywhere on the said step so we can’t hand place them. We’d need to generate the butt target and the feet target perpendicularly to the step so the animation can adapt nicely. I don’t think that’s super hard to do technically but it’s still a bit different from what we already have so it needs more thinking!
About your second question, it’s also being looked into! That’s one of the things we need to figure out during the pathfinding design phase.
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LokiTheShadySpirit:
Will disciplining your child be part of the game?
And if so what things are you looking to include (things like grounding or time out etc.)
(or of course if you have not gotten to that stage of development yet. what things would you like to include)
Anna:
I’m not sure. I like the idea that we might have house rules (like a curfew or things like that) for children and I also like how the Sims manage the whole childhood lifestage, by influencing children to have or avoid a certain behavior to educate them. I’m personally not so fond of “punishments” like grounding, but I’m also far from knowing a lot about child education (yet!) so I might know more once I get into those researches.
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Domon:
Most of the animations we've seen so far revolve around one Para and no object, e.g. dancing, locomotion, exercise, emotional animations. However, there have been some more complex ones like pull ups from the latest bug or pancake flipping. Of course in game there will have to be a lot more of those like getting in a bed. I assume so far you've focused on the "simpler" animations that don't require anything but a Para, but what would you say your progress is with Paras interacting with the environment?
Anna:
You assumed right, we’re building the system up from the very basics! I’m currently working on integrating animations that need an object to be spawned (like the cooking ones) and other different animations that interact with an object that is already in the scene, like the pull up or the sitting ones. Those need target points to be specified on the item in the mod system, which work great for now. For now I am still thinking about how to adapt all these existing simple animations thanks to procedural animation and there’s a lot of work to do, since even if they use the same system, they still have to be adapted on a case by case basis. After this, I think my next big challenge will be to integrate target points on the Para itself, to allow interactions between Paras to work!
Alice is also working on making the base animations (“base” as in “before procedural animation is applied) and she already started making more complex interactions that require more steps, like the bed interactions!
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GracePrince:
If paras write books and publish them, can other paras buy that book in the bookstore?
Anna:
I can’t confirm it yet, but I think it would be a great thing! I think it would participate in the feeling of a living town a lot!
LunaTaoimhe:
With terrain, will it only be changed from a 2D perspective (no overhangs, cliffs, etc) or will it be 3D terrain editing (good example of this is in planet zoo/coaster)?
Alex:
We considered terrain tools that allow the player to create overhangs and caves like in Planet Coaster and Planet Zoo. I even made a prototype that worked. But in the end, we chose not to do that because it is very complex, it brings extra game design challenges in the build mode and for the pathfinding and it has limitations. For instance, in Planet Coaster, there cannot be more than 8 terrain textures that you can paint the terrain with.
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||AmorFati||:
Saw this on the reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Paralives/comments/v9s65q/a_drag_and_pull_stair_tool_ideas_for_build_mode/
I know you guys are currently not working on build mode, but how likely do you think it is that we'd get the option to drag stairs like that? making them more or less steep, curving them, etc.
Jérémie:
At first, I think we’ll try to have functional stairs that are intuitive to place and work well. Maybe that means we’ll have less options on the first iterations of the system. When we get that rolling, we might think about adding more bells and whistles, thank you for the question!
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Zahlea:
In the roadmap, under Build Mode -> Done, there is a task called "Delete a wall". The image shows two icons, one which looks like it's removing the bottom part of the wall (or is it the top part?) and one that's removing the full wall. Will it be possible to remove the top part of a wall to make a half wall, or is the half wall tool meant to be used for that?
Jérémie:
You’re pretty correct! One button only “hides” the selected part of a wall while the other “deletes” that part. This would allow for half-walls, invisible walls, walls that only extend from the ceiling, etc.
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Zahlea:
[...] I was wondering about exterior platforms and how they'd work with terrain. I was wondering, could you feather the terrain in order to have an essentially seamless transition between platforms and terrain? Would it be possible to have terrain intersect with platforms and essentially change the shape of the platform by raising terrain on one side maybe making a wavy edge on one side of the platforms?
(Image to illustrate the point, the top part being the above view and the bottom part the side view)
Alex:
When we will be working on the basement tools, we will be testing different things to see how the terrain can mix with a construction like a platform or wall so we will be able to share more details about that later, thank you!
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Entirago:
I was wondering if there'd be something like an offset tool, a way to make a wall parallel to another at a set distance. It might also work as a copy tool.
Jérémie:
An offset tool for items is something we have thought about, in addition to alignment tools we have at the moment, but nothing like that for walls (at least for now). If you create a perpendicular wall, you could get parallel walls, but that’s not exactly the same thing as what you’re asking. We’ll see in the future!
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Entirago:
I was also wondering if there'd be a way to force a wall to be parallel to lot boundary, and what would happen on a curved lot? Would we be able to set a tangent to be parallel to?
Maybe a good way of handling parallels is with a tool for sketching lines. The lines would only appear in build mode, or maybe even on a special layer. I picture them as blue, as a reference to blueprints.
Jérémie:
Having walls parallel to lot boundaries is something that makes sense, yes! We’ll look more into it when we think about the optional grid (because it would probably be aligned with the lots by default). As for curved lots, there are a few options we could use, like being able to set a line that the walls would be parallel to by default. Something to think about when we go back to the build mode, for sure.
Domon:
Since Sonia has reworked PAM hair creation flow, was any thoughts given to different masks of hair colour segments that was mentioned a couple of months ago. Basically you could change hair masks from A: roots, main hair, highlights, tips to B: left side, right ride etc. So one hairstyle, but different ways of segmenting colour assignment
Sonia:
Yes we thought about it! Maybe we'll have different mask options for some hairstyle but we can’t have mask variation for most of them because of the way we texture hair and it would take us time to create a mask variation for all hairstyles.
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Domon:
Does layering and tucking in work simultaneously? Like can I choose to have a jumper under a jacket, but then tuck that jumper out of the trousers?
Jérémie:
Yep! I can do that right now using Seb’s jacket!
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GracePrince:
Do paras get taller when they wear high heels?
Anna:
For now, yes they do!
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original dev chat: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ZSwJY7YuN18zL212yZ5zmUBFMoOtaOadPHbAKhdBK6Y/edit?tab=t.0════════════════════════════════════
Zahlea:
I had a thought: decoration items that are made to go on a hook. Then wall mounted coat hangers could be empty and we could fill the hooks ourselves with the items made to go on hooks. Like say there are a selection of coats, jackets, hats, scarves, dog leashes and/or harnesses, etc and we could pick from them ourselves and they would "snap" to the hooks on the wall mounted hook. For convenience the wall mounted hooks could also have a few default configurations with some of the stuff already applied in addition to an empty version we could fill ourselves. Is that something you think would be feasible at all and would you consider it?
Jérémie:
Hello Zahlea! This is a really neat idea, although I don’t know if we’re going to offer such a modular customization option - at least at first. It seems more plausible for me that coat hangers like this would have a few variations, but having a specialized system to manage hooks and items you can hang on them is probably too much for now. Even without such a specific system, players will be able to “fake” having items on hooks easily with the tools we have right now, the only thing that would be missing with that option is the automatic “snap”.
Pinkvelvet98:
If the para that looks like me is created, will I be able to play with her during alpha and early access? Also, will there be an option to make her not appear in other people’s game?
Alex:
We are not planning an alpha or beta phase at the moment but during the early access, you will be able to play with the character that we will create for you, yes! We will get back to you with all the details when we get closer to the release because we still need to add a lot more clothing options, hairstyles, etc before we are ready to create all the Parafolks. It’s still to be confirmed later but it’s very possible that we will ask each Patreon supporter if they want their Para to appear in other people’s game or not.
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GracePrince:
I have a question about the game settings. Are the game settings linked to a save game? e.g. in my Legacy save game I want to set the life duration to "long", but in my 100 Baby Challenge save game I want the life duration to be "normal".
I would love it if the settings can be customized for each save game.
Alex:
Right now, our settings system would make these kinds of settings global between all your save games. It’s true that some settings might be best changed for one specific save game only so we will have to see if we can improve that eventually. Thank you for the suggestions!
Possible Assassin (Ny):
A question from last week made me think of this one, have you guys had anymore thoughts on how youll censor the game? I remember y'all thinking about tasteful censorship like soap bubbles/steam when in the shower I also know yall could go cliché like black bars 🤔
Alex:
We still haven’t decided on that yet but black bars, soap, steam and blurry pixels will all have to be considered! I really like the soap option but it wouldn’t work for when characters are just using the toilet or are walking around naked. It might be simpler to find something that we can use in every case instead of having different visual tricks for different animations.
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Possible Assassin (Ny):
Not that it's a requirement, but after playing the sims, will there be a lot of locations paras can go for the adult tango? 👀
Anna:
That is oddly specific 👀 Sadly we don’t know yet how the adult tango locations ramifications in the game are, sorry!
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Domon:
Now that you've started working on pathfinding a bit, how are you planning to address Paras using the appropriate items around the house, e.g. the infamous washing up in the bathroom sink instead of the kitchen sink? How are you planning to make sure Paras would automatically go for locations/items that feel natural?
Jérémie:
Well, pathfinding work so far has focused much more on “getting characters to move around without going through walls”, and not much else. I’m actually not on pathfinding anymore because we have more pressing issues, but to answer your question it’s still something we talk about from time to time. The example of using a bathroom sink instead of a kitchen sink could be solved in a variety of ways. Maybe the sinks are differently tagged so one is has lower priority for washing dishes, maybe the rooms themselves will be tagged as “kitchen” and “bathroom” and thus this could dictate which actions make sense where. It’s still very much a question being thought about! Thank you!
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Riza:
Since you're working on menus for live mode, I was hoping that maybe we could have different categories of food to cook from the fridge. E.g., in Sims, with a vegetarian sim, you have to manually look through all available dishes to see which are vegetarian. Do you have any concepts for these situations?
Alex:
Good suggestion! We are not ready to start working on the cooking menu yet but having filters like that would make browsing that menu a lot easier, I totally agree! Great for vegetarians but also for when you want to browse desserts only, for instance. A filter will also be more and more useful as we add more recipes to the game.
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ShadowRose:
I've been ill for the past week and that's sparked a question about if you've thought any more about what illnesses you might include in the game that paras can get, and how they would work?
Anna:
Hi ShadowRose, hope you are a bit better now! We don’t know what illnesses we want exactly, but we are definitely keeping it simple and we don’t want to have things that could be too hard to deal with as a player. I’d say we consider diseases that are similar to a common cold or food poisoning, that could make your para take sick days from work or school, maybe go see a doctor or be more tired for these few days. It’s not confirmed though but I think it gives you an idea of where we’re at right now!
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GracePrince:
Another question I have is about work. Will it be possible to set the working hours for each job? So that I can specify if my para works full time or part time and when they start. So for example it could be specified that my para parents are at work at the same time as the kids are at school. Or to say one para works the night shift while another para works the day shift in the same job and with the same rank.
(Sorry for my bad English 🙈 )
Jérémie:
Hello! Don’t worry, I understood your question well! Our schools and careers are still being designed, but as things stand now, it probably would not be possible for players to customize the working schedule of their Paras. If you really really want your character to work specific hours, you might need to look for a job that offers this schedule. Getting a day/night shift version of the same job might be possible in certain cases, but not others. Maybe there could be jobs all around the clock for a security guard role, but perhaps not for a teacher? (Not confirming any jobs here, but these are good examples, I think.) Thank you!
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GracePrince:
Can paras dance together? Different couple dances (e.g. waltz, foxtrot, tango,…), group dances (e.g. square dance), but also single dances (e.g. breakdance)?
Alice:
Hi, I hope they will. :) Dances alone are pretty complicated to create animation-wise, so having 2 paras dancing together adds another layer of difficulty. Integration wise, I think it is pretty challenging as well. For now, this is not our priority, but I agree it would be great and we're keeping that in mind.
Zahlea:
In the May 20th Dev chat, Jérémie, you replied to me asking about wall properties that could be modded, saying:
So far the available options are related to default wall heights/thickness
[...]
Just wanting to confirm that it means that at the moment, walls can actually have different thickness, and whether changing the option will change all walls in the game (then how would that impact existing houses in the world 🤔 ) or if it'll be on a per wall basis, allowing for walls with different thicknesses?
Jérémie:
At the moment, walls can have different thicknesses on a per-wall basis. Players can edit a selected wall to make it thicker/thinner. We’re not sure if we’re going to keep it going forward - because it might cause issues with windows and might not be very useful. The options in the mod system are more related to minimum/maximum/default values.
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Hoopsie022:
I know you guys haven’t started working with the CAW tool yet but I’ll ask anyway 😂
Do you think it would be possible to create randomly generated terrain and morph it from there? 🤔 I’d want to build a world and a town but I’m not good with terrain
Alex:
Oh, I would love to have a feature like that in the game eventually! Sculpting the terrain is not something that I usually enjoy doing in games either so being able to randomize the terrain of a new world would be really cool. It’s not planned for now but maybe we can add various features like this eventually when we work on the world/town creation tool.
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Riza:
Jumping on the same train of thought: Modular furniture. We already saw the modular sofa, but that can be extended to e.g. wardrobes, desks etc. When moving these items or selling them, do they count as a unit or would we have to move each piece o the sofa / wardrobe / … individually?
What other ideas do you have for modular furniture? Or furniture consisting of multiple components, like e.g., a cat wall climbing parc that consists of multiple pieces.
Jérémie:
At the moment, you’d have to move and sell all pieces of the sofa independently, because technically you could just buy one and make it your whole sofa. Allowing players to ‘lock’ modular furniture together and move it as one bigger piece is an interesting idea that we might explore in the future.
As for ideas, we’ll go over that more in the future when we start production on furniture, but I’d love it if we had a modular kitchen, where countertops and appliances are locked with each other and you could buy various configurations to suit your needs.
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Zahlea:
The weekly question from Little Dragon 😊
Amor showed me a sims mod the other day and I wondered if you thought it might be possible in ParaLives.
Essentially what it did was it allowed you to change the colour pallet of an entire room as well or changing the colour pallet of the same item in a room (say you have 6 dining chairs, you can change the colours for all of those chairs at once) I think this would be a really cool thing to have in the game as it'd allow for people to switch between several colour pallets to see which they like most instead of having to change each individual item.
Link to said mod for reference: https://www.patreon.com/posts/carls-mod-v1-0-67051062
Jérémie:
That is really cool! But it’s not something we plan to have at the moment, there are many ways we could go to try and have that feature in the game, so it’s definitely possible, but I kinda see it as an extra nice to have! Thank you for the suggestion!
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Hoopsie022:
Kind of branching off Dragon’s question, what about being able to temporarily highlight multiple items that you can manipulate all at once? For example being able to highlight a chair, a table, a rug, and a lamp. Then being able to change the color, rotation, etc. of them all at one time.
Jérémie:
Making groups of items is something we thought about a little, but it’s not possible at the moment. It would definitely make things easier to move your furniture around without needing to move each piece individually. Another nice to have!
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||AmorFati||:
Question from Shallamayne:
In the build mode showcase we saw that flooring applies to an entire room and wallpaper etc. to a whole section of a wall. Have you found a way to only place these in specific areas by dragging (as you would in the Sims games, just without a grid)? If not, how easy will it be to have different floorings/wallpaper in the same room?
Jérémie:
It would be possible to have different floorings and wallpapers by splitting a room using invisible divider walls (or by splitting a wall into multiple sections), but we don’t plan to have a “drag around to paint walls or floors” feature.
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mamafrancine1:
Are you considering adding condos, flats, penthouses and apartments and if you do how detailed would the gameplay be?
Jérémie:
It’s something we are considering, yes! But it’s not something we have detailed specifically so I can’t answer about the specifics. There are many parameters that could be different between the various housing types; If you get an apartment, you don’t have to pay up front, but you have to pay every month, and you can’t change the structure of the building, as an example of thing that could be possible. Maybe getting into the nitty-gritty of these differences is not required (what’s a condo versus an apartment? You own the condo? But you still couldn’t do structural changes? Is this difference worth it?)
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||AmorFati||:
In Maggie's loft we've seen angled roofs; will we be able to place items on the angled part of the roof (on the inside)?
Jérémie:
That should be the case, but I’ll know more when we go back to working on the build mode and get our roofs in order!
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mamafrancine1:
How will it work if I want to place four or five town houses right next to each other and have different families live in them?
Jérémie:
The townhouses will be on different lots and will be played by different families, so that situation would work like any other type of house. Even if there are four or five townhouses next to each other, you won’t be able to play all the families at once, it would be the same thing as if they were five different, separate houses.
Domon:
Will some clothes change texture depending if they're tucked in or out? I'm thinking about the example of a shirt, which when tucked in has this little puffy area around the trousers line, but obviously when out it's all more smooth. I'm not necessarily talking about making those 3D wrinkles and puffy areas, but at least some 2D lines on the texture to indicate that it's wrinkly when it's tucked in
Sonia:
Probably not, it will require too much work just to make an adjustment for almost every top texture. Maybe later we’ll find a way to automate it but it’s not on our schedule
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LokiTheShadySpirit:
The above question from zah also made me think of this one.
I noticed how the sims doesn't really have outside jackets. And the ones they do have look really warm and wintery
Is paralives gonna have jackets you can put on when paras go outside.
(In the spirit of taking off shoes when going in)
And what are your thought on jackets you would feasibly wear in somewhat warmer weather
Anna:
Hi Loki!
In the Sims, weather outfits are considered as standalone full outfits, but this might be different from what we plan to do for our outfit system (it’s still in the works now!). I think (?) they need to have warm and wintery jackets to make sure the player understands which ones need to be worn for cold times, since it has an impact on the character. I think it would be nice that instead of a full outfit, you could choose only some clothes or accessories you want to put over or in place of your casual outfit! For example, a winter outfit could be just a winter jacket, or a summer outfit could just be a cap and sunglasses added to the casual outfits. It’s all talk though, we’ll see what we decide!
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mamafrancine1:
Can my character have rainbow hair in paralives?
Sonia:
Mhhh we didn’t thought about it but maybe there can be a special texture for a special hairstyle~ It probably won't be for every hairstyle because the recoloration system we have right now can’t support more than 3 colors for hairs, so you can have a 3 color rainbow 🌈
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Sebastian's Pool Dive:
Have you thought about how maternity wear will work? It would be nice if we had maternity variants for each outfit category, so that our Parafolks won't wear corsets in their 3rd trimester 💀 (and we won't have to keep changing their wardrobe back and forth whenever they get pregnant)
Léa:
It’s an interesting idea! As of today we don’t have a specific plan regarding maternity clothes since our Parafolks are built to be able to have very different body types and their clothes are adapting and stretching accordingly without issues.
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Sebastian's Pool Dive:
How tall are Maggie and Sebastian in their current versions? In the first video in 2020, Maggie was around 170 cm tall, and Sebastian looks like he's over a head taller than Maggie in recent side-by-side images.
Léa:
In the game, Maggie is 1,60m (5,2”) and Sebastian is 1,82m (around 6”) Maggie is shorter than she was in our first videos of her because the height slider wasn’t fully ready, but she was always going to be a small Parafolk!
Possible Assassin (Ny):
👀 Environment team, do you have an environment update you'd like to share with us?
Chloé:
Hi Ny!
I’ve been doing a bunch of tests to improve the artstyle of the environments for the past few months, mainly for the furniture items and building elements, and after many tests we think we are pretty set on the style we are going for! It was a lot of trial and error, but I believe we are happy with the direction we have taken.
Now that this is done, we are still building more furniture items and clutter items to validate a few points (Javiera is working on clutter items at the moment!), as well as to have a lil showcase house to show you all! –the one that was mentioned once ago in a Patreon post.
Other than that, Léa and I have been working on vegetation for the last month. We really like plants, and were very excited to start work on it. Vegetation is a big challenge to figure out since current games are quite limited on how they can represent vegetation without setting computers on fire. We are still cracking at the problem currently!
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Red27:
More specifically on the Enviromental question actually, is there a style of plants you going for, oh environment-maker? Will it be traditional default north hemisphere trees/bushes, or say..the Redwoods in California? The scrubland of southwest US/Australia? Birch forests, Jungle vines? Japanese cherry blossom trees? I guess I'm really asking how much variation in vegetation will there be?
Chloé:
Hi Red! That’s a tough one!
I think our final choice of plant may be influenced by the setting we chose for the game. That will dictate a lot of the base game content, including vegetation, because it may affect how we view the climate, or if we chose a setting that is inspired by a specific place, maybe we will chose specific plants to help reflect the region. Similar to how we have architecture styles that are more present in some countries than others, some plants and trees are more likely to be grown in certain places! Like you said, cherry blossom trees are very prominent in Japan; having tons of them bloom in spring would help set a game as taking place in Japan– even though we also have cherry trees in Canada and in other countries, too!
If we have a specific idea for the setting we want, then maybe the vegetation we offer would reflect that.
However, I am not sure we would limit ourselves to just that; not only do we want to offer variety for the player, but nowadays, we are able to grow a lot of plants pretty much anywhere!
So TLDR, we want to offer as much variety as possible, but it may be affected by the setting that we choose! However, it is still a bit too early for us to decide right now the exact vegetation items we will have in the game!
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original dev chat: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wxIcVnewyVLr8gX8UF82JMSMLyi2BAMyKcyAFwPFd3Y/edit?tab=t.0
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Zahlea:
So my weekly question from Little Dragon is a really interesting one (I think) 😊
I noticed a mention of elder para in the last dev chat and it gave me an idea. What are the chances that our para could get shorter/smaller when they transition from an adult/mature para to an elder para?
Alex:
That would be an interesting little detail to add! We have the tools to do it and I would be curious to do some tests on that side eventually. The posture could also be slightly different maybe.
ShadowRose:
Will we be able to access the modding tools from anywhere at anytime throughout the game (either using hotkeys, shortcuts, cheat console, menu), or will it only be available in specific places? What I mean by that is adding your own pictures to frames in-game uses the modding tools, right? But do we have to be editing something like that in order to access them or can we just bring them up in the middle of PAM, build, or live mode?
Alex:
Good question! The modding tools are accessible from the main menu or at any time while playing by using a keyboard shortcut. This will open the modding tool menus where you can edit any content and deep game settings. However, the picture frame feature is a bit different because we made a popup just for it so even though the pictures that you are are stored as mod, players can add new picture frame images using the popup, without using the real modding tool interfaces. To add new images for clothes, etc, it will not be done through that popup but through the real modding tool menus.
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Sebastian's Pool Dive:
What are your current thoughts so far on the number of lots/world size for early access? I was curious because Alex mentioned in the previous chat that the lack of transportation options during early access could be offset by having everything close by
Alex:
We will be able to give a more precise size when we’ll be making progress on our town later. It’s at that time that we will also be able to see what we can do about transportation if there’s an issue with characters taking too long to go to places around town.
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Pinkvelvet98:
If a para that looks like me is created, will there be an option to download the para as a playable character? If so, if I play as the para that looks like me, will the para appear again in the world as a townie?
Alex:
Yes, Patrons on the Legend tier will be able to choose to play with the character that we will create for them! If a player chooses to do that, we will make sure that the character can not also appear in town as a townie!
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Pinkvelvet98:
Can I unsubscribe from the legend tier after 3 months and still get the poster, para that looks like me, and get to name an item?
Anna:
Yes, you can! In Patreon, we see how many months you’ve been subscribed and to what tier, so you can stop your legend tier pledge and we’ll still know you have pledged enough for those rewards.
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Lucie250:
Hi! Are you about to move on to the next development milestone for the live mode?
Alex:
Hi there! The interaction and animation basics are getting into shape and it’s quite exciting to see! Characters are able to do basic interactions around the house and we aim to show more and more of that soon! Regarding interactions and animations, we still have quite a bit of improvements and tweaks to do like making characters hold objects in their hand while performing animations or two Paras being able to do synchronized animations like a hug, for example so that is the next live mode milestone for us!
Possible Assassin (Ny):
I've been thinking, I get the game is gonna be based in realism, but that doesnt mean everything has to but one to one.
Have you guys thought about things such as being able to bring paras back from the dead? Not like zombies or anything like that just simply like how the sims has the book of life or ambrosia (not like this since ghost won't be a things).
I know for me personally there have been times where a sim of mine has died by accident and the last time I saved was hours ago so I can't exactly go back to my last save without losing basically my whole play session 😅
Anna:
I think we don’t want to have any direct occult or paranormal thing happening in the game, but it doesn’t mean that death has to be 100% inevitable. We could have a small time frame in which maybe a neighbor could see us “die” and call an ambulance for example, or maybe just a random townie passing by. Maybe chances for this to happen could depend on randomness but also things like how “good” you were to the town? (Just a random idea!) I agree that having your character die in an accident can be frustrating anyway!
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Possible Assassin (Ny):
Keeping up with the theme of my questions things time around, Let's talk about death 😌
What are some ideas you guys have for when paras die?
I've seen many ideas such as paramedics coming to get the body, being able to have actual funerals or celebrations of life(big fan of this), the body just fading away (not the biggest fan but I can respect it), ect. I get it can't be too dark im not asking for some traumatic trip to the hospital waiting around to see if your para lives or dies but at the same time I don't think it should be something that's glossed over death is just as important as any other part of life imo so it would be cool to have some type of system even if it's not extremely detailed and just a para dies, we get tombstone/urn, the player can throw a special kind of party to celebrate life/have funeral.
Anna:
We’ve have some ideas about death but sadly, that’s all secrets 👀
However I agree that it would be nice to have a celebration for the funeral and some ways to remember the poor dead Para. That’s part of what brings emotions into the game!
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Possible Assassin (Ny):
Now the opposite of death, 👀 I know babies aren't ready to our knowledge but what's the brainstorms on how they'll come to the world?
We thinking just spinning and poof baby in arms, Going to the hospital and sims 3ing it going in the rabbit hole and coming out with a baby, Maybe having babies in tubs, A giant censor at home then poof baby, etc.
Anna:
There’s no news on baby poofing yet, sorry!
(I still hope they will get made Power Puff styles with the X ingredient)
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Entirago:
Do you think paras will get stir-crazy from being at home too long, to encourage players to get them out into the world?
Anna:
It’s a good question! I think we want to allow players to have the most freedom possible for their gameplay so we’re trying to think about both outgoing Paras and those who like to be comfortable at home. If you want to make the latest and your Para gets crazy and you have to go outside just to replenish their mood, I feel like that might be quite frustrating. Of course, we might have something like that because it’s still a realistic aspect of human beings, but it wouldn’t be that forced. There are a multitude of ways to encourage players to explore the world though and we’re thinking a lot about it! In the Sims 3 for example, there were a lot of little quests that were non mandatory which made you visit the different parts of the town. Having stores in which you need to go to find rare items could be another way to engage the player to explore the town without it being a “punishment”, or special festivities in town.
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ShadowRose:
Will we get some cute couple interactions? Like during the night one of them steals all the blankets and in the morning the other one has a "Blanket thief" moodlet, and both of them have the option to "Talk about stealing the blankets" as a passive interaction, but if they talk about it while one of them has the moodlet then it grants the thief a "Blanket hoarder" moodlet.
It's just some kinda wholesome couple things that don't have to actually have an effect but still make them feel more alive, like snuggling
Alice:
I hope so, yes! People and relationships will also play a big part in the cozy feeling we’d like for Paralives. I’d love it if we could push all these interactions and have cute details like the one you mentioned. I also hope that personalities will allow us to have different types of romantic relationships. ✨
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Hoopsie022:
Opinions on pet snakes in the game sometime after release? 👀
Anna:
I have no strong opinion for or against it, I don’t know a lot about them, but if it gets asked a lot, maybe we’ll consider it! I’m not sure if they would be fully fledged pets or just chill in their terrarium though? I’d love it if they could roam freely in a giant room-scaled terrarium full of fake trees and plants but that would probably be too much! (Maybe we’d need a filter for snake phobia too haha)
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Lucie250:
If ever transportation means will be added after the initial release I think it would be a good idea to integrate tickets and passes so that the parafolks don't have to pay tickets every time they take a transportation means.
Anna:
I feel like it’s not a major problem to pay a ticket in the game since it would likely just automatically retrieve the $ amount needed for a ride. However maybe a pass could go with a discount to save on the cost per ride, in any case it would be a nice detail indeed!
AmorFati:
Hey devs, it's been a while 👋 something I was wondering about this morning: so far we've seen floors being laid inside a house (within rooms), so how would it work outside of the house, e.g. if I want to lay a path from the street to the front door, or build a patio? Would we have to create a room with no walls, or could we just place a floor and drag it, or some other method altogether?
Jérémie:
So, a path from the street to the door probably won’t be a “floor” (and it will most probably be a path of some sort that you can draw on the grass), but as for the patio, it might be needed to create invisible walls in order to have a room appear. Maybe at some point we’ll have the ability to get floors without walls, but that’s not the case at the moment. Thank you for the question!
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Kubi:
Do you think eventually there could be a thing like wall/floor thickness? Me and my mom constantly have small quarrels because her room is directly under mine and when I walk around at night she isn't exactly pleased because she has to sleep. So maybe there could be different floors and walls which each have different advantages and disadvantages (and of course different prices)? I think it would be funny if a parent could call their child to dinner through several rooms because the walls are so thin. Or a para that quickly gets overstimulated and is extra content in their room with especially thick walls.
Jérémie:
Hello! Thank you for the question! At the moment we have the option to change wall thickness, but floors are paper thin - this might change in the future of course! Having gameplay features impacted by the thickness of floors and walls is interesting, but - just brainstorming here - I feel like having thin walls and floors wouldn’t be very fun. People would always build with the thickest available option if it would mean getting “This Para is annoyed because they can hear another Para snore from two rooms away” constantly. I fail to see positive effects to thinner floors and walls, so it’s not much of a choice. Price could be a factor, but I want players to have fun making the house they want - not being forced to make something smaller or different because they have to pay extra for thick walls everywhere.
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Zahlea:
In the roadmap, under Build Mode -> Done, there is a task called "Place objects on walls". How does that work on curved walls, especially posters, flags or other objects that one would expect to bend with the wall?
Jérémie:
I think that having objects dynamically curve to follow curved walls would be a lot of work, so at the moment they just don’t. They instead get placed in a way that kinda makes sense, like this. Curved walls are pretty fun, but they also are very tricky to deal with in many ways.
Kubi:
In the PAM, will we be able to go into "extremes" with the sliders. In sims, for example, I often can't make the nose as big as i'd like to because of the limitations. Would there be an option to turn off "realistic" sizes? I know CSP has an option for their 3d models to turn off realistic movement limitations so you can go crazy with the pose. So kind of like that but with size and anatomy instead of movements?
Sonia:
Right now it’s possible to turn off limitations and even increase the sliders intensity by 1000%!
So this feature can be available in the game but we still need to figure out how “easy” you can turn off limitation because it will absolutely create some issues with other sliders and animation 😬
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Sebastian's Pool Dive:
This was inspired by a post I saw, and I checked the road map to see if it was mentioned. What are your thoughts so far on copying accessories and makeup across outfits? I think it's a popular request, and it would be nice if we could group accessories and makeup into "sets" that we can selectively apply to certain outfit categories/individual outfits. Like if a Para wears a watch and necklace for most occasions, so we apply that accessory group to everyday and gym wear
Étienne:
That is a very good idea! I love Quality of Life features that allow to save time, like copy pasting between outfits and/or using “sets”. Because otherwise you would have to go to each outfit and apply the pieces manually, and if you want to add a piece then you have to go apply it in all the outfits and it can become annoying quickly. We’re gonna consider this good idea, thanks! :D
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original dev chat: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tgiPoNQqqJOskOgfnvWD6TO47bL6dp8TSlSjat2g1EQ/edit?tab=t.0════════════════════════════════════
Possible Assassin (Ny):
Out of curiosity, how come at least one form of transportation such as cars or bikes aren't planned for before early access? With it being an open world game it'd be kinda weird to have to run/walk everywhere unless like taxis or something are planned then at least there would be a way to get around 🤔
Alex:
Good question! The town will be somewhat big but not that big either so everything should be from walking distance. It’s true that if one of you Para walks slower for some reason, it could take forever to get somewhere! If it becomes a real issue while testing the game, we will probably have to find a workaround like adding taxis or something else, like you suggest!
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Sebastian's Pool Dive:
I feel like this has been asked before, but what are your thoughts on having higher education early in the game's lifespan, even if it's just a rabbit hole in the beginning?
It feels weird that in early Sims games, the medical career is available in the base without any form of higher education, and when a university expansion comes out, they can't retroactively lock the career behind a degree. So you need a degree to be in showbiz, but not to be a doctor
Jérémie:
Hello! Schools and careers are being brainstormed so I can’t confirm the direction we’ll go, but I think higher education being in the game at launch would be really nice. Being a rabbithole isn’t an issue - this is our plan for now - but we still have to think long and hard about the pros and cons of locking certain careers behind degrees. If we do, are players going to be annoyed at having to spend more time before they can start working? If we don’t, what is the point of school beyond preparing a character for a career? A lot to think about. Thanks for the question!
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Zahlea:
In the roadmap, under Build Mode -> Done, there is a task called "Straight wall placement" that states:
Modders can edit some walls properties.
Can you elaborate on what properties modders can edit and does it include having non-flat wall surfaces? 👀
Jérémie:
Nothing as interesting as non-flat wall surfaces, I’m afraid! So far the available options are related to default wall heights/thickness, enabling/disabling debug options, things like that. Nothing to write home about :)
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Entirago:
If a para writes a book, can that book appear in an in-game bookstore shortly after? Can people talk about the book, and the auth-para feels proud of their achievement when hearing it?
Alex:
That is definitely an interesting idea that I had in the past as well. It would be really cool! In Animal Crossing, you can design a shirt and then, you may stumble upon a villager with that shirt on which creates a really nice feeling for the player. We are not yet ready to work on these parts of the game but we will definitely consider those ideas when we get there!
Possible Assassin (Ny):
Random question, What's you guys method of making sure everything is scaled correctly? You have a lot of people working on different parts of the game so like most game developers you have to have a system of some kind
Léa:
We are using real life scaling for the furniture and parafolks, that way we can have very precise and accurate measurement, it’s pretty easy to find online. On top of that, when we are creating objects, we usually keep a parafolk in the Blender scene in order to check if the proportions are looking good.
Chloé:
I also always carry around a measuring tape to measure stuff around my house/office/anywhere I am to double-check the measurements that we find online!
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Possible Assassin (Ny):
So, we know a lot of the early videos are counted as prototypes. My question for you would be at what point of the videos can we say everything after it was no longer prototypes? a lot of the things shown in videos have kinda be assumed to be confirmed but now sometimes its a bit hard to know what video is real and which ones are just prototypes
Alex:
Every video is real and showcases real game code but there have been static elements for which we don't have build tools yet, even recently like stairs and roofs. At the beginning, more elements were static so that's why I used the word prototype but they were still showcasing a small part of what would become the whole game.
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QUINNS:
Will you share any updates on the world / town(s) in the game?
Alex:
I’m really looking forward to working on the town more and more in the future! However, for now, we are focusing on the live mode systems like interactions, the action queue, the character animations and eventually needs, skills, careers, etc. When we’ll have made good progress on that, we will be able to make more progress on the design of the town to be included at launch and we will update you on that for sure!
Hoopsie022:
What are your opinions on declawing cats in the game?
Anna:
I don’t think it’s necessary in real life and it’s even illegal in some places. I don’t see why it would be necessary in the game either so we won’t have that feature!
Alice:
100% against it.
Andrei:
Nope
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Lucie250:
Hello to the whole team! I think that parafolks who are clumsy, stupid, or inexperienced in certain things would be more likely to make accidents like breaking something or getting hurt for example. I think the personality of parafolks can also affect how they learn a skill.
Anna:
It’s a good idea! I don’t know if we’re going to have a system that breaks objects or hurts Paras though!
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Lucie250:
I would also like mules like slippers or flip flops to have a realistic movement when the parafolks walk in them, if the shoe doesn't always stick to their heels while walking.
Alice:
Hi Lucie! I agree that’d be a satisfying little detail to see haha. However it may appear simple but not so much technically. It would require additional bones and animations just for this type of shoe. So it is maybe too much work for a smol detail like that right now? I’ll keep that in mind anyway, I like flip flops too. ⛱️
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BusiestPolarBear:
Do you think you’ll add manipulation in paralives? Ex: seducing another para for their money but without getting emotionally attached
Anna:
I feel like most of this example would be more on the player storytelling side than on the gameplay side: you could make your para seduce a rich one and make them, and just imagine that the character is actually manipulating them. I’m not sure if we want to have that as a direct possibility in the game, however it would definitely add some plot twist to relationships, like if a Para autonomously seduces yours and breaks up after taking your money!
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BusiestPolarBear:
What is the things about the pets that will be added to the game is the cutest/most important?
Anna:
We are very, very early in pet development so I don’t think I can give you any answer for now, sorry!
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ShadowRose:
I have a follow-up to something that was answered in the previous Dev chat, Ent asked about how pathfinding between buildings would work and Jérémie replied saying that you were unsure because of how different routes could work, Jaywalking was mentioned and it sort of sparked a question as soon as I read it.
Jaywalking isn't a thing here in the UK we just cross over wherever we can unless there's actual need to use a crossing like in high traffic flow, and now I want to ask if there would be any actual consequences to a para simply walking over the road at any point?
I'm sort of thinking about how it could be similar to how Sims 3 had curfew (another thing that has never crossed my mind living here in the UK), and if your teen sim stayed out past curfew the police would have a chance to apprehend them and escort them home where their parents would reprimand them, it was existent at all times for any town and every household and there wasn't really a way I know of to turn that off, so what I'm asking is: will police para have a possibility to arrest your para for crossing the road without a crossing? Or would there even be potential for an accident of sorts? Or will the pathfinding simply just not map a road as a entity they can walk over and thus make it so every para uses crossings because the pathfinding specifically maps it?
Jérémie:
Heya ShadowRose, good question! It’s too early to answer with certainty, sadly. But I can certainly brainstorm a bit here! The way we walk around is certainly informed by what we have been taught as kids and cultural norms. Crossing the streets at intersections by following all traffic laws is certainly safer, this is also why people don’t trample through their neighbor’s garden to get to their own back yards faster.
Having gameplay implications tied to pathfinding is a bit tricky. I’m not sure we would want the police or accidents to be consequences of something you have no control over, because usually if you tell your character “walk here”, you have no control over the path that the system will take. There could be something interesting in a “walk here with no regards for anything else other than the distance” which would make your Para ignore certain norms and safety practices. Doing so would be a choice, so maybe the consequences would be warranted. Same thing if you pathfind through your neighbor’s lot to get home faster instead of using the sidewalk, maybe this would dampen your relationship with your neighbor?
Long story short, I don’t think that the default pathfinding we plan to have will take risky or unusual paths and will try to focus entirely on staying on the sidewalks and crossing at the designated spots. There could be options to go faster that could have consequences, but this is still a discussion to be had.
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BusiestPolarBear:
Do you think along with mental and physical development paras will also have moral development? https://www.britannica.com/science/Lawrence-Kohlbergs-stages-of-moral-development (in case you don’t know the stages)
Anna:
We might use these theories for inspiration but the education and development of children is still on the design table so I can’t share more details!
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Riza:
Do you have any insights to share about the trait/personality system? Will there be traits/personalities for pets using a similar system?
Anna:
Not yet, it’s under wraps for now since we’re focusing on the core systems for live mode and the rest of our ideas are secret (at least until we have something more developed). I think the traits system should be shared by humans and pets, even if it might be simplified a bit and adapted to animals obviously.
Zahlea:
In the roadmap, under Build Mode -> Done, there is a task called "Molding placement and customization". If I'm seeing the small image correctly, the full wall has both a bottom and a top molding - how many moldings can one wall have and how tall can the moldings be? Like if we could have one or multipe moldings that mimic the appearance of horizontal logs and put it on a regular wall to get the log cabin look instead of a flat wall.
Adding the image for reference what I mean:
Jérémie:
Heya Zahlea! At the moment, walls can have two moldings, one at the top and one at the bottom. There are no limits on the molding’s height, so you could probably do something funky like a log wall, but we have only tested a small number of options and I can’t answer if it would work with huge, wall-covering moldings.
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Zahlea:
[...] We know we are going to be able to import our own images for artwork and picture frames and such. If we share our houses would those pictures carry over, or would they revert to a state with a placeholder image?
Also I'd like to extend that question to other custom content.
Jérémie:
When a player shares a house or character on the Steam Workshop, it will not include custom content, such as custom images for picture frames, so other players downloading your house would see empty frames. You would have to upload a separate mod with your custom content (picture frame images) and people would have to install it.
It’s possible that in the future we add the ability to bundle custom content along with your house or character when sharing them on the Steam Workshop! Thank you for the question!
Hoopsie022:
Last time it was mentioned, the minimum height for a para was 4’9 and the maximum height was 6’4. Has this changed at all?
Léa:
No, it hasn't changed for now! We might change it in the future depending on our tests for the live mode.
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Hoopsie022:
Will Vitiligo be possible to create?
Alex:
It has been requested a lot and we will be looking into it! There are some considerations to take into account and it has to be done well.
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nokonuuka:
How much can we customize the voices of paras? Can I make a soundless para (not necessarily mute in gameplay, just not having a voice when they speak)? How about robotic distortion?
Andrei:
The level of voice customization will depend in the most part on the level of complexity of the Paras’ interactions. Say for example, changing the pitch of a Para’s voice would complicate things when they do singing interactions because of many musical reasons concerning tonality and melody. Therefore, we need to first try to anticipate the many possible scenarios before confirming the many customization features we could do for voices.
As for having a completely mute Para, that’s actually a good idea! I don’t know how much it would complicate things in a conversation context (maybe the Para will express themselves with more gestures instead) but it’d be a “nice to have” for sure!
As for distortion or other effects, it wouldn’t be a good idea to include them in voice customization since they easily make the human voice sound unnatural and that’s not really the mood we are aiming for (unless you’re making an alien 👽)
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LokiTheShadySpirit:
[...] On the roadmap it says
"Create skin textures for children and elders"
When you do this will eli be recreated with the new skin textures? (Or since as far as i understood he's currently just a mini adult with some changes. Will he be remade once you have the child tools in place
And my 2nd question. Once elder skin textures are complete. Might we get to see an elder character?
Sonia:
Eli already has a skin texture for children, but we may rework it and we need to create variation for the different weights.
When the elder skin textures are created maybe we’ll simply show them like we did for the various skin texture based sliders or we’ll introduce them with an elder character! Ultimately, it’s a matter of time and what are our priorities at the moment. It requires more work to create a full character because we’ll need to think about their design, personality and story AND create their clothes, hairstyle, specific facial texture,…. It’s all very enjoyable to do but time consuming!
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original dev chat: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HOGrIUI5nL3Zd6SIaPfRT9bX2EwZZjz0nNxq023EDsM/edit?tab=t.0════════════════════════════════════
One thing that recently came to mind are one-sided relationships! E.g., one para is in love with another, but their love is unanswered. One Para dislikes another para, but they have no idea and think they are friends. Have you considered such one-directional relationships?
Anna:
Yes this is one of the things we’re considering! I agree it could add a lot of depth to relationships and could lead to multiple different stories! Nothing is confirmed right now though sadly.
Hoopsie022:
I feel like the vision for the game has definitely changed a bit overtime (as does any game in development). My question related to this is, do you guys still plan on having some darker or more mature (even on the light side instead of dark!) elements in the game?
Alex:
We definitely do not want the world to be an utopia filled with rainbows. We want the game, the characters, the lore, the interactions and the situations to be personal and filled with emotions of all kinds. There will be some drama and some darker or mature situations without going into extremes either.
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ShadowRose:
Will there be any options where we might get to help you decide what to go with? Such as the para equivalent of a plumbob? Or will all those kinds of decisions be made solely within your team?
Alex:
It’s possible that we will survey the community for some design elements like that in the future. We did it in the past to choose the name of the characters (Parafolks), money (Paradimes), etc. However, there are some elements that are harder to decide through a survey or poll because they need to be connected with other aspects of the game that are secrets or still being worked on. In order to make a coherent world and branding, we sometimes need to design them thoroughly as a whole so that’s why we can’t always survey the community for a decision. I hope that makes sense!
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Zahlea:
In the roadmap, under Build Mode -> Done, there is a task called "Generate grass 3D models on the terrain". I get that everything is still a work in progress - especially terrain tools, I imagine - but in the image the grass 3D models aren't super noticeable except in the shadow. Will the lighting model eventually allow the grass to self shadow, making each strand of grass be more visible?
Alex:
At the moment, Léa is doing some tests to improve the art style of the grass. The look will be tweaked a lot since we were not satisfied with the previous look seen in the Chalet video. Making each grass strand more visible by casting a shadow is something that we are probably not going to do though because it adds a lot of details that make the grass and scenery look noisy and farther from the cozy and painty mood that we are aiming for. Maybe I could share a comparison with/without shadows when we have made further progress!
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Kubi:
Would you consider putting really good mods, cc or script , into the game (with consent from the creator of course) as an official part of the base game?
And if, maybe with a little editing to make it more compatible with the base game?
Alex:
That is surely an interesting idea to consider! I know that some game development studios do that sometimes. We will have to see what we can do and what it would imply but it could definitely be a great thing to partner up with some modders eventually.
☆ honeytea ☆:
For schooling, will there be options like private school or homeschooling? Or instead of university, community college or trade schools?
Jérémie:
Hello! We are still brainstorming how school is gonna work in Paralives, so I cannot say specifically what kind of options will be available at the moment. I can say however that we have thought a bit about homeschooling and it’s a pretty complex game design puzzle, so that might not make the cut.
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☆ honeytea ☆:
Bouncing off of Riza, potentially developing a crush on someone? It’d be funny to have awkward interactions because of the crush and it’ll either go well cause they like you back or they reject you
Anna:
I agree, it’s a nice idea ! It would add a nice balance of cute and hard things to go through as a Para.
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Lucie250:
Hello ! Paras with vision problems can also wear contact lenses. Monocles or binoculars would be a good idea to integrate into the game too.
Anna:
I don’t know if we’re going to have vision problems in the game, we still need to think about it. Blindness was something that has been considered after the disability survey, but it’s not confirmed yet. I’m not sure about contact lenses, since it’s not a visible accessory, and having contact lenses affect the vision of the Para could feel a little too micro-managey (also, what would happen for the Para who forgot their contact lenses or glasses?) Glasses, monocles and binoculars could definitely be a PAM accessory though!
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LunaTaoimhe:
Any chance we can see personality quirks more common in autistic people, such as stimming (random actions to satisfy an urge, such as cuddling or mouth pops) or hyperfixations?
Anna:
Stimming could be there as idle variations and we’re considering hyperfocus (nothing confirmed yet!). However, it won’t be attached to a diagnosis or a checkbox, it would be accessible to all Paras (maybe as a personality trait customization or an idle customization).
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LunaTaoimhe:
How do you intend for modding to work with pets / other para types like occults. Will it be modular in that modders can add whatever breed/para-base they wish?
Anna:
Hopefully, yes! I’m pretty sure adding new breeds for existing pet species will be easy to do, however I’m not sure about occults. The character side of the mod system is quite modular, you would be able to have a custom species of character with a custom 3D model, animations or even genetics, but if you want specific occult gameplay like they do in the Sims, I’m not sure it would be that easy, since there won’t be existing occult at initial release. I could be wrong though, modders find super creative ways to realize their ideas!
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Hoopsie022:
Hey devs! The roadmap shows “Households have a money account balance” under livemode. The symbol is $, is that temporary or finished? What I mean is, do you plan on making an official symbol for paradimes? (Picture for reference/less confusion)
Alex:
Hi Hoopsie! We are probably going to have our own custom symbol for money but it’s not entirely sure yet!
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Hoopsie022:
My friend suggested that two teens could ask each other out to their school prom for a romantic interaction. What do you think of this? ❤️
Jérémie:
That’s cute :) I don’t know if we’ll have school proms, but if we do we kinda need that kind of interaction to go with it, don’t we? Haha.
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Riza:
Have you had any thoughts on skill restrictions for kids? As in certain skills that kids (or also teens) might not be able to learn? If so, what would that be and why?
Jérémie:
Not yet, because our “skill” brainstorm isn’t close to being completed. Spitting random ideas - just thinking out loud, not confirming or deciding anything - I feel that it probably should be the case to have some limitations on skills for younger characters. First, some skills (like driving) just wouldn’t make sense for kids, secondly because it gives the player something to look forward to when growing up - being able to do all skills as a kid would mean that you don’t unlock anything on that front as your Para ages - thirdly because kids are still in development and it wouldn’t make sense for them to get as good as adults in many things. There are exceptions, but I think that’s how it could go!
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☆ honeytea ☆:
Can households have separate funds or like a piggy bank of some sort? Like for a teen saving up money for something or households that are roommates
Alex:
At the moment, we are not planning to have separate funds for each member of the household. I totally agree that it would be really cool but it brings game design challenges like: who pays when purchasing furniture or placing a new wall in build mode? How do you solve the problem of having to always transfer money between your Paras without having it become repetitive and tiresome? The concept of a child or teen saving money for something is interesting however! Maybe it could be a separate feature without necessarily having separate funds for each Para.
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Possible Assassin (Ny):
I noticed this was in the done section, even though it's just the preliminary research i have to ask,
👀 what details about this can you share at this point?
Andrei:
Hey Ny! I’m glad you brought up this question! These tests were basically our first attempts to put spoken gibberish language into specific Para animations. The way we proceeded was first, to determine what would be the spoken language approach (we went with minimalistic gibberish combined with many onomatopoeia expressions). Then, I did many tests to determine the approach of the gibberish (inverted words, anagrams, etc). Finally, we try out different procedures to combine these voice overs with animations (Alice will be able to tell you more about these). Then again, like you said, this was all preliminary and many decisions taken during these tests might be susceptible to change in the future once we push forward the brainstorming!
Alice:
Andrei pretty much said everything we can share. We did a few tests to see if we liked the result or not. After a bit of brainstorm, Andrei recorded some tracks that I used to animate on top and it was a very fun thing to do!
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Tinks:
Hey wonderful Devs! Sending all the good vibes your way as always ✨ - I was wondering how interactions with other paras in the world will play out ? So could we as the player view and see any interests that paras would have with each other? (E.g could we view maggie’s relationship or thoughts on Sebastian through a little panel if we saw that they met etc?) Or may it be implemented later in the game. Keep up the amazing work!!
Alex:
Hi Tinks! Thank you! I hope you are doing well. Interfaces to see the relationships between two or multiple Parafolks are definitely things that we will be looking into as we work more and more on relationships. Seeing the links between two Paras, what they think of each other, where they met, etc would be really nice. Maybe we could also have a big graph showing all the relationship links between a given Para and the other characters in the world, that would be cool!
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Kubi:
Hello! Regarding the personalities. In sims I always had the problem that I couldn't really immerse in the story I wanted to tell because the personality of each sim is basically the same. You can't really make a serious and stoic sim because their interactions and movements are always so… Happy and energetic? I'd like a Para that isn't smiling when they're happy. A para that's constantly bitter or aggressive in all their interactions. So will the personality of the Para influence their overall behaviour or will it just be the current emotion the para feels that influences it?
Anna:
For now I think it will be a mix of both! It’s hard to say for now but theoretically, I would love to have the different emotions affect Paras differently. I can’t promise it but that’s definitely something we keep in mind! Also, we aim for a realistic vision for the animations so whatever the importance of the emotions might be, it might be enough to convey that feeling of personality since it will take less space in the visual effects.
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joe_sturr:
Not sure if this has been asked or discussed as of yet but are there any plans to implement fast forwarding and interaction queuing to where time can be fast forwarded until the current task is complete and/or tell a para to do a certain interaction until x happened? For example: clean the house until 3pm or build this skill until the next skill level is achieved
Alex:
These would definitely be useful and it’s the kind of thing that we will be investigating for sure to see what we can do!
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Entirago:
I'm kind of wondering how pathfinding between lots will work… will the para always go from the 'front' of public lot A to the 'front' of public lot B, even if it's not the most direct route, or if there's an option to cross the street from lot A and end up at the back door of lot B which is a lot faster, will they take that?
Would the player be able to set an arrival point for their paras on a destination lot? Say, for example my para leaves school and goes to the library to do her homework, and the default pathfinding takes her to the front door of the library, but I notice it's much faster to cross the back parking lot of the library and go in that door, can I say that Stephanie always goes through the back door?
Jérémie:
Hello Ent! Good question! For now it’s not certain whether there would be multiple doors to enter a specific lot, nor that you would see your Para walk around from school to the library in a “physical sense”. Besides that point, it’s a good question if autonomy-controlled Paras would always go through the quickest route or if they would go through the route that makes most sense. Jaywalking, for example, is bad, going through someone else’s garden is also bad, even if these are the “fastest” paths, it probably would be good to avoid them. Much to think about!
ShadowRose:
I saw a video about flooring pro tips for the Sims 4 and it got me thinking about how flooring will work in paralives, we know we can change the direction of the pattern, however I don't think we've seen it be done diagonally, which brings me to something that stood out to me from the video, the second tip involves being able to make the square into a triangular quarter which then allows for diagonal flooring placement, paralives seems to have a more grid-less effect of placement so I'm incredibly curious if anything like this is possible? even if it is by use of a hotkey, if you can change the direction in general using a hotkey, or a combination of keys to quickly do so, or if it'll be a solid option in a menu… But beyond being able to create diagonals the main part that really sparked this curiosity was the fifth tip, this shows how to create a "wraparound porch" utilising the ability to change the direction of the flooring and use the quarter tiles to match it together and create a seemless corner, so I would like to know if this is at all possible to do in paralives?
Thank you <3
(Video linked for reference:
https://youtube.com/shorts/jZUyPUj_3hw?feature=share)
Jérémie:
Hello ShadowRose! As things stand out in the game at the moment, you can rotate the flooring in all directions. Because we don’t have a grid, it is aligned with the walls you place. Creating diagonals is then not very difficult. As for “wraparound” patterns like the one in that video, I think it’s pretty doable as well. (Here you can see diagonal flooring in the top left, and the wraparound effect in the bottom right)
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Zahlea:
In the roadmap, under Build Mode -> Done, there is a task called "Basic lake and pond tool". How is the water level determined? Is it always at the same height in every "hole" in the world and in any ocean, or can each hole have a different water level, allowing for a mountain lake etc?
Alex:
It’s a lot like in Planet Coaster and like the pond tool that was added to The Sims 4 last year. You can define the water level for each hole in the terrain allowing for many different lakes and ponds in the world at different levels. I can’t demo it right now because the water tool has some bugs and the water is not pretty yet but watch this video of Planet Coaster at 15:19 to see how it works: https://youtu.be/FqP07NNoyKI?t=919
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Entirago:
Maybe this is a little bit of a silly suggestion, but what would you think (as a game feature or as a mod) of being able to name any old object? Maggie names Youri's cat-condo Vostok, for example, or a rather short Para names his heirloom ring 'Precious'. Maybe it signifies that the character has an attachment to something (or just likes to name inanimate objects).
Jérémie:
That’s an interesting idea, but I’m not 100% sure how it would work. Objects would already have their “real” names, like a fridge being called the “Refrigeratron” or whatever - I am not confirming the refrigeratron :D - we might also have Patron-given names to some objects as well. Adding a third name on top of that might be a bit much - would every Para see that item with the different name? Is it just something in the head of the Para naming things, so when you select another Para the name would revert? Could an item have multiple names? Para A really loves a table but Para B really hates them so they both gave it a wildly different nickname?
It’s true that denoting attachment to items could be neat! Not sure if it’ll work using names, but thanks for the suggestion!
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Zahlea:
In the roadmap, under Build Mode -> Done, there is a task called "Offset an object to place it above or into the ground". Is there (or will there be) a minimum height we can place the object at so that we can't put objects underneath the terrain or how will you handle objects that are underneath the terrain and not visible, hence very hard to remove?
Jérémie:
It’s actually an issue we had in our PAM showcase video where we had put some item - I don’t remember which one - underground and forgot it there. We could prevent people from offsetting items to the point where they are 100% hidden by the ground, but maybe sometimes you’d still want to do that - like if an item makes noise and you just want that noise somewhere without the item being visible? It might be less of an issue when we get basements done and you can just go down as much as you need and remove them easily! Maybe there could be an option to remove all hidden items as well. Thanks for raising that concern! :)
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original dev chat: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1s46hGb0iUILTbwEegxZSLlpJzBehqPBvM3cJ-CE294k/edit?tab=t.0════════════════════════════════════
Possible Assassin (Ny):
[...] Every year we tend to get some video that basically shows a good chunk of the progress that's been made so I'm wondering If yall at least are planning on that 🤔
Alex:
Right now, we are planning to showcase some small bits of the live mode but it’s very possible that we will then prepare a bigger showcase video since it worked well for us in the past and it’s always fun to share something bigger and with some surprises!
ShadowRose:
Since videos like the loft reveal, Maggie's reveal, and the build mode showcase have been up almost a year or even up over 2 years ago, do you ever intend to "recreate" those videos with all the updated details you've introduced since then?
I think it would be a perfect way to express the difference and the improvements that you've made throughout all this time with an almost direct comparison to the older material, however I also understand if you don't want to do that since I can see how the comparison might not be as well received… I won't lie I kinda just want to see Maggie's loft again but more up to date because that video was and still is so breathtakingly beautiful
Jérémie:
We have done a bunch of videos through the last few years, but at the moment we do not have the intent to recreate them, for a multitude of reasons. Some of these videos were prototypes or were meant to show the idea of something we want to have in the game, but things change greatly between these times and now. Maybe the “jump from roof into pool” interaction from Sebastian’s Summer won’t make it into the game, for instance, or maybe some parts of Maggie’s loft won’t be completely possible to create once everything is said and done.
Another reason, like you mention, is that comparisons could be perceived negatively. If people like the “before” more than the “after” in any way, it’s a bad look and it’s hard on morale. Maybe we tried a specific look for materials in a previous video that is not really doable now with the new artstyle, but having people comment that they liked the old one better would be difficult to manage because it wouldn’t really be possible to go back to, for instance.
I’m sure people might do comparison videos themselves in the future, but providing side-by-side “before”/”after” for whole videos isn’t in our plans. Making videos takes a lot of time as well, so we’d rather focus on new stuff :D
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nokonuuka:
Medieval custom content is very popular in sims, replacing all modern items with older ones. Have you considered making medieval/fantastic alternatives? Or even enabling different playstyles, like disabling electricity and motor vehicles altogether?
Anna:
No, we’re not planning on doing medieval or fantastic items yet (unless costumes count!). We are focusing on realistic items first. Enabling different playstyles would be nice in our future Create-a-Town tool though I agree, but such a setting is not planned yet either!
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nokonuuka:
When deciding on making Paralives, were you considering between that and some other types of games? What made Paralives win?
Alex:
At first, after quitting my job, I was actually working on another idea which was some kind of city building and management game. After a few months, I had made good progress but I kept thinking about doing a life simulation game and about the fact that it would be really great since there is a hole in the market there and I have always been a big fan of The Sims.
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Zahlea:
I have a question from Little Dragon:
So in the roadmap I noticed the "Search and filter clothes and accessories in the Paramaker"
I'd like to know your thoughts on custom tagging for not just Paramaker items but also items in general. I personally think that being able to add your own tags on things would enable players to name styles, create custom favourites lists and it might also be useful in Create-A-Town when it's being worked on in order to customise the general style of the population.
Alex:
I really like your idea of players being able to tag items and clothes as they wish! It would be a great thing to have for people who like organising things as they see fit like me… Right now, players who are willing to use the modding tools would be able to do that without too much difficulty but adding buttons so that players could do that directly from the build mode catalog or clothing catalog could be a cool thing to have one day!
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BusiestPolarBear:
It says the camera controls are done in the roadmap but what are those controls ? (Like with the walls and stuff)
Alex:
Camera controls include moving the view with WASD or the arrow keys, rotating the view with right click, zooming with the mouse wheel and stuff like that!
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BusiestPolarBear:
Can we see the main menu that is apparently done ? 😏
Alex:
It is functional but not very impressive so that’s why we haven’t shown it before! Its look will change eventually but here it is:
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Possible Assassin (Ny):
This is small, but when the roadmap is updated will it be announced like the development page or is it one of those things that as we go back to it every so often we may notice the changes?
Anna:
We don’t plan on announcing every small change in the roadmap. We might if something is big, but otherwise you can rely on the monthly development update to know what we’ve been working on.
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Entirago:
A friend of mine was asking about the legendary para patron perk. Is there going to be a cut-off date on the legendary para? And kind of a piggy-back question, if there was a cut-off for the legendary para, would it be handled with advance notice?
Alex:
It’s possible that some rewards will no longer be available when we get very close to the release but we will definitely warn people in advance if we choose to do that!
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Possible Assassin (Ny):
What changes (that you're allowed to talk about at least) have you guys made that you haven't been able to show us yet?
Chloé:
Well, you’ve maybe heard of the Render Target that serves to improve the art style of the environments if you’ve seen the Patreon Posts that mentioned it! I’ve done a lot of work on it since we started it, and Léa has joined me to work on it, so we are hard at work on it and we are seeing a lot of tangible progress! We can’t show our work just yet though, but all of it is exciting for us!
Étienne:
I’m finishing implementing the randomness for the Paramaker. Right now you can randomize each category, support asymmetry, swatches, and more. We haven’t designed full body randomization yet, that will come later in development.
Zahlea:
[...] Speaking of music, I'd love to see the music change throughout the seasons or weather in-game to set the vibe of that season or weather. Like a sunny summer day could have some cheerier tunes while a rainy day might have some calmer music.
Or just some more upbeat music during the day that transitions into some calmer music as the sun begins to set. Is that something you've considered or even planned?
Andrei:
Hey Zah! Yes yes and yes!! We are considering very much having different music for different contexts whether that is time of day, weather, seasons, places and even social contexts too! I’ve actually already done some tests for one of these and I could say that it went pretty neat 😁However, as you can guess, all of these ideas are still in flux and can’t be determined before their corresponding gameplay features are designed especially for the Live mode since it can become so complex context-wise. So in the meantime, I can come up with more ideas, do some tests, concretize the musical style of the general soundtrack and plan for when it’ll be time to make a decision. I’m constantly noting down new music system ideas I get so it’d be really cool to note down this idea from Fern and any other ideas you have as crazy and far-fetched as they can get!
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Lucie250:
Hello! I think it would be nice to allow paras to make contests like fashion shows or cooking contests.
Anna:
I agree! It would be a cool event organised in the town’s restaurant or in clothing shops. It’s not planned yet but I’m noting the idea!
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Lucie250:
I would like you to add an option to enable or disable the degradation of the parafolks relationship in the future.
Jérémie:
Hello! Thank you for the suggestion! Our relationship system isn’t set in stone at the moment, but an option such as this one is something we’ll think about for sure, although I cannot say if it would be a cheat or what form it would take.
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Sebastian's Pool Dive:
I know pets are still far off, but have you thought of using something similar to the height slider and procedural animations for dog sizes? Ever since Sims 2, dogs came in two sizes, but in reality we have a spectrum
Anna:
Sadly, we haven’t started on pets yet so I can’t tell you if it is going to happen. There’s already a lot of procedural animations to figure out on humans, but we’ll get to the pets and think about it eventually!
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Riza:
Do you have any plans yet about how realistic certain events in the lives of Paras should be? Example: Pregnancies. Are there any plans towards courses or similar?
Anna:
We don’t have a definitive plan for pregnancies yet, sadly. I don’t think we would like to go too much into details, but it would be nice to go to prenatal classes (if that’s what you meant), possibly with the other parent, it’s a good idea!
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ShadowRose:
We know para will have emotions but I wonder how complex it will be to implement given all the things it could affect and be influenced by, is there any insight you can tell us about how emotions will display themselves or affect interactions? Even if it's just an estimation about how difficult you think it'll be to create, but of course if you cannot give an answer that is entirely understandable :3
Anna:
Sadly I can’t tell you how the emotions are coming along yet, since we’re still thinking about it and we’re a bit far from having made the necessary tests to come up with a final decision for their design. So for now the details are still a secret, sorry!
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CatchyVirus:
Another question, this time from Lance, is about generational gameplay. Will there be elements within the game that assist with it? For example, you begin the game and the TV is in black and white and then over time it’ll be in colour?
Jérémie:
For the more global question on generational gameplay and mechanics that will improve that style of play, I’d say we have brainstormed a few ideas that are really promising and could work to give multiple layers to this kind of gameplay. Because they are still at the design stage - and mostly secrets! - I can’t really elaborate on them.
As for the example of technologies evolving, that’s not the plan at the moment. Managing different generations of technological advancement is a bit out of scope for the game and we want to focus on the current era - at least for now. Being able to choose which year you start in would be neat, but would bring a ton of design conundrums that would take a lot of extra work to go through, in addition to all the research to be done on various technologies through the ages, and all that!
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Entirago:
I was wondering recently if there might be little 'fluff' pop-ups while a para is in a rabbit hole. Nothing that requires the player's involvement and certainly nothing that pauses the game until dealt with, just more of a hint at what they're doing. "Simon has learned a fun fact about the periodic table" for a para in high school or "Jane needs a quick break from the spreadsheets she's been staring at today" for just about any job.
Jérémie:
Hello Ent! I’ve been working on the school and job system lately, and I can’t talk much about it, but as things are going the plan is to have more meaningful flavor for jobs and schools, so it might be a bit more than fluff. We’ll see, I hope in not too long :D
Lucie250:
I hope you will also find a better user interface for the paramaker too and also add an option to allow players and modders to customize the user interface of each part of the game.
Alex:
We are working on improving and tweaking the style of the interface. Modders will be able to change some icons and some interface elements but unfortunately, the interface is one of the few things that won’t be very moddable because it would require us to create complex interface editing tools and we prefer to focus on other elements.
CatchyVirus:
Hey there! It’s been a while! I have a question from Regenerated Witch. Their question is if auto roofing will be an option?
Jérémie:
Hello, thanks for the question! It’s one we get from time to time :D We haven’t started work on roofs yet (you can see that on the roadmap!) so that means we haven’t started designing how roofs will work in any capacity. I think having auto-roofing would be useful when you just want something over your house, but it’s also probably non-trivial for us to add in the game. That’ll depend on how things shake up when we test that possibility in the future!
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Zahlea:
In the roadmap, under Build Mode -> Done, there is a task called "Molding placement and customization". The image shows both half walls with a top trim and full walls. Does this mean half walls will be able to have different top trims and while the one we see in the image is aligned with the wall end - will we be able to have half wall trims that extend further than the half wall?
Jérémie:
Hello Zahlea! Half walls will have the same trims as “regular” walls. After all, the only difference they have is their height and at the moment there is no difference in moldings between one or another. As for having trims that extend further than the wall, I don’t think that’s going to be an option. Maybe you could somehow make an invisible separator wall with a top molding to pretend that the molding is extending into thin air, but even about that I’m not entirely sure. Thanks for the questions!
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original dev chat: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-ehf3NFW5XDe1J4QYUXOwtpUC2buVCraQc0FFa3ECaY/edit?tab=t.0
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Real Indi:
Will there be different sleeping positions in the game?
For example: back, side curl, stomach, sprawled out over the whole bed rather than one side, etc.
Alice:
Hello Indi! This is something we are considering, as sleeping is one of the actions you Parafolk will do the most. At first we will focus on creating as many different animations/actions, then add variations to them. Even though we'd love to give you as many options as possible, as the only animator, I have to prioritise my tasks. :)
Sebastian's Pool Dive:
What are your plans for the Patreon once Paralives enters early access? Do you think the revenue from sales could sustain remaining development? :0
Alex:
We still haven’t decided how the launch of the game will impact the Patreon. Patreon is a great tool to communicate with the community so it’s possible that we will keep it active even after launch. Maybe we could have special in-game items just for Patrons or some extra rewards like that for people who want to keep pledging even after the release. On the other hand, it’s also possible that we will close the Patreon because its goal was to support the development team during the development and revenues from sales should be able to sustain us financially. In short, we will be able to decide between these options when we get closer to the release!
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Efoekfo:
Might be a no-brainer, but with mac support i assume M1 is fully optimized for? Would like to make use of that sweet M1 Pro i've got running here…
Alex:
We are using Unity as the game engine and I know they are supporting M1 chips and are doing more work to optimize even more for it so I think everything should be good on that side of things!
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ShadowRose:
Do you intend to include an alternative for the "cheats" system or not?
For example: you could use a money cheat or get "loans" from a bank as a way to get extra money quickly without using cheats
Jérémie:
Howdy ShadowRose! That’s a good question! At the moment, our cheat system covers a lot of things and I bet it’ll cover even more when we’re completely done. You might be able to do pretty much everything and anything with the cheats, from filling your needs to improving your relationships - not confirming these, but they are quite good examples - and these all be things that you can do normally, slowly, using game mechanics, so it’s a bit difficult to say if these would be “alternatives” for the cheats.
As for money specifically, it is its own question. Getting loans at a bank would mean you have to give the money back and that would imply a more complex economy with interest rates and consequences if you don’t pay - because banks just wouldn’t give free money, haha - so it’s not really an alternative to a cheat, but a completely different system, that while being interesting is not something planned or confirmed at the moment. Thank you for the question, and have a nice day!
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ShadowRose:
I'm wondering what the extent of the modding console is… Can we change Everything? Or are there some things we aren't able to, which aside from core parts would make some sense to provide some restrictions, but the question still stands if we are able to change anything that looks like it can be changed like names of things or colours of UI, maybe even icons… Where does it end? o.o
Alex:
Good question, thanks for asking! The modding console will allow modders to change pretty much anything. However, there is one thing that won’t be moddable which is the layout of the interface and its colors. To make this moddable, we would have had to create a tool for modders to edit user interfaces which is complex so we preferred not to do it. Icons for the Paramaker categories and other similar icons will be replaceable through the modding console though.
Aside from that, pretty much anything can be changed like the name of furniture and items, the texts in the interface, the furniture included into the game, the duration of days, the interactions in live mode, the gameplay parameters, etc. Here’s a screenshot showcasing the sections we currently have in the modding tools and more are still to come. Each section contains many many parameters that can be tweaked or content that can be added.
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Zahlea:
In the roadmap, under Paramaker -> Done, there is a task called "Create and improve the base adult character 3D model" that states:
Modders can integrate their own custom 3D model into the game.
I'm curious what that means in practice. It sounds like a modder would be able to override the base model Charlie which to me sounds like they could make paras look completely different. But then I'm not sure how the deformations would work. I don't know if they're defined by coded values or by models of the extreme and interpolated between the extreme values 3D models based on the slider value. In short it sounds like a modder could possibly change the whole para art style by changing the model.
So to make my ramblings into a question: What does that sentence mean for a modder exactly, i.e. how much could they really change the way the paras look - could they potentially change the whole character art style even?
Alex:
A modder could change the base character model but yes, it would break all the sliders and clothing items that are made to work on that model. The modder would have to create new sliders and new clothing items which would be a colossal job but would be possible. That’s for the 3D model of the characters but for textures like the skin textures for example, changing them would have a lot less impact on the rest so it would be an easier thing to do for modders. They could change the skin textures and clothing textures, change the shader and remove the outline to get a whole new artstyle, without changing the 3D model of the character.
“Modders can integrate their own custom 3D model into the game.” also means that modders could create new animals like a deer for example. They could then integrate different sliders for deers, different textures and maybe even clothing items for deers if they want!
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Possible Assassin (Ny):
👀 If there's a way to mod the speed of time would the animations and everything else that depends on time be modified with it or would that be something youd have to do manually?
I saw a question some time ago one reddit asking about if they would be able to mod the game to have a much slower time than you all plan and now I'm wondering just how much work would have to go into that 🤔
Alex:
You mean like instead of each in-game minute corresponding to 1.5 real life seconds, changing it so that the in-game time increases more slowly making the days last longer? Yes, modders will be able to change that setting very easily. Doing so would mean that your characters would be able to do a lot more interactions in a single day because days would be longer. Modders could then adjust the duration of individual interactions like the time that Paras will spend in the shower, if they want.
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Possible Assassin (Ny):
This is more a ui design type question so I'm wondering what are some ideas for changes to the ui (specifically PAM since that's the biggest one we've been seeing lately) you have planned for example:
possible dark mode
different fonts
maybe a bit more transparent
different shapes for the buttons
Etc.
I've noticed a lot of people seem to like how the old UI had a bit more cozy feel that fit with the overall feel of the game and seems to think that the newer ui looks more like a mobile game or a bit colder
Alex:
The style of the UI evolved a lot and will still evolve a lot. I’m still testing many color patterns, layouts, shapes, sizes, icon styles, etc. The goal is to get a cozy feeling from it but it also needs to be clean and easy to read. The font probably won’t change because it is easier to read than the previous one and that’s the primary goal. The overall layout and style of the UI will stay simple so it has a modern and simple look that doesn’t get noticed so that the eye can focus on what’s going on in the house and in-game world rather than the UI. I’m working on testing some colors and patterns to make everything feel a bit more comfy and warm though.
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Possible Assassin (Ny):
What's gonna be the iconic symbol of paralives?
I know it may not be thought about much especially right now but a lot of well known companies and products have that iconic symbol when you see a plumbob you think the sims, when you see the red white and blue planet you think Pepsi, when you see a red target you think you guessed it target. So what is gonna be paralives symbol?
At first you'd think a house since that's something that's been around since the beginning or even doggo but I'm not sure that's what you all want. Even if you dont have a final answer it would be cool to hear you guy's ideas!
Alex:
Doggo will definitely be one of our symbols and we aim to have more and more of them as we develop the lore of our world, our Paras and our first town. Having stronger branding elements is an important goal to us.
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DerShayan:
Your new roadmap is great! ❤️ While browsing, I discovered two optimization features in the category of character creation, in which the individual parts of the mesh of the para are merged and the same with the textures. I study media informatics and work on small Unity projects during my studies. It would be cool if you could briefly describe how exactly these optimizations work and what steps you need to take to achieve them. My study group and I believe that it is either a shader or a very complicated system that adds the individual sprites in runtime. Thank you for this opportunity 😊
Jérémie:
Both these systems aren’t that complicated, so I’ll try to explain what they do in broad terms. The mesh merging system takes everything your character has equipped and creates the full character mesh, so we end up with only one instead of a bunch of smaller ones. There are some subtleties, like needing to cut our clothing meshes in specific ways in order to assemble them properly - think boots and pants needing to be assembled properly to avoid clipping - but it’s otherwise pretty straightforward.
As for textures, we create planes using all the textures of the equipped character and place them according to the z-order of the textures, then we merge them all by “taking a picture” with a camera, thus getting a single texture that can be used on the combined mesh. All of this is hidden from the player, but that’s how it works! Hope I managed to somehow explain it!
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Sebastian's Pool Dive:
Will animals be retroactively introduced into early access save files as they're released? I just realized that save files in the first versions won't have Doggo in them
Alex:
Haha, Doggo will come, don’t worry! Yes, we will work hard to make sure that save files won’t break at any point and that dogs, cats and horses which will be added during the development can be added to existing save files!
BusiestPolarBear:
In your roadmap there is mention of a story progression, what does that mean to you?
Alex:
Non played characters from the town can progress in their career and relationships, get children, etc. We want the town to feel alive and the townies to feel like real people and story progression should go in that direction. There will be a setting to disable story progression for your other households that you are not currently playing with if you don’t want them to evolve on their own.
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Real Indi:
Do you guys have a plan (or internal plan) for how to decide on the name for “woohoo?” What I mean is do you plan to just have an internal meeting, a brainstorm, a poll, etc? 🤔
Anna:
No, we don't have anything planned yet. We need to think more about how the tone of interactions will be to decide on that (but having a poll would not be completely out of the question).
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Real Indi:
(For any devs) Not confirming anything of course! ❤️ But is there a name/term/phrase for “woohoo” that you are rooting for? 👀
Jérémie:
“Doing the sinful kangaroo”
Alice:
👀 (yes, just that)
Étienne:
“The No Pants Dance” 🕺
Andrei:
As we say in spanish “El baile de la quebradita” 🙈
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LunaTaoimhe:
this weeks round of questions is all about birds!
Will there be geese, ie geese as agents of mischief and it would be funny to randomly have geese pulling mischievous tricks?
Will more exotic pets/animals be considered at any point, things like chickens, ducks, pigeons, budgies, parrots, etc - with the option to raise them from an egg?
Anna:
None of these animals are planned for now, sorry! It might be considered at some point, but we’ll be focusing on cats, dogs and horses until release. Sorry! 🦆
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nokonuuka:
You have mentioned different animations for sitting down, would you like to make more different animations for different things, like sleeping, walking, eating etc?
Alice:
Yes I’d love to! But as I said above this is a lot of work, and I'll have to prioritise creating a base for each animation before adding variations. All of your examples, however, are recurring animations, which are also a priority and may receive variations sooner. :)
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Sebastian's Pool Dive:
Now that you're in the middle of live mode development, have you looked into psychology sources for ideas on the AI and personality? What makes a Parafolk a Parafolk?
Anna:
Yes I’ve been looking into psychology sources and came up with some ideas! Sadly I can’t give you any update just yet since we’ll be exploring the ideas after the core systems (moving around, doing simple interactions, etc) are here.
ShadowRose:
This has most likely been asked and answered before but can we save custom colours to the list of already available preset colours? So if I wanted a specific shade of blue shirt and customized the colour to be that specific blue could I then access that same exact colour option in another save file/while editing another para in the same file, or would I have to re-customise it?
I'd have to assume that at some point there would be a limit to how many swatches you can have which is one reason I could see why this wouldn't be possible 🤔
Jérémie:
That’s a good question! We have to do a bit of work on swatches in the near future and it’s something we’re going to think about. I think that it would make sense for swatches to be shared across files - they’re definitely going to be shared between characters in the same file - but then we would have a few issues with sharing saves. If I created a blue swatch for the shirt, but you created a red one, and you give me your save file, what would happen with the red and blue swatches? If it lives in the save file, I’ll only have the red one; if it lives globally on my game, how would I transfer it to you? It’s not that simple!
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BusiestPolarBear:
you know how calicos are always female ( unless they are xxy or whatever mutation) , do you think youd like to add this kind of gender/skin color/occult specific epigenetic
Anna:
I haven’t started the research on pet genetics yet so I don’t know. I hope it could be a thing though!
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nokonuuka:
Can we affect how tall/short the paras are going to be when they're still kids, or is it up to genetics? I'm sure we can change it with mods, but by default?
Anna:
Yes you should be able to set the height of your kids Paras in the Paramaker!
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Zahlea:
Last Dev Chat, Léa replied to a question from ShadowRose, mentioning that we'll be able to add a new texture for the eyes through the mod system, like if we wanted to make a split pupil or change the size of it. My question is: would modding the pupil texture change the pupil for all paras at the same time, or will it be possible to pick one out of multiple pupil textures for the para we're currently editing?
Léa:
In the game you will be able to choose between multiple pupil textures in the PAM, you could then add a new one to the list, a custom one, through the mod system, and use it on the para you’re currently editing.
If you want to change the basic eyes equipment for every Parafolk, you could modify it and replace the texture for example.
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Entirago:
We were discussing the preset thumbnail generation (here) and Anna said "You cannot edit the dummy character, it's something that is 'behind the scenes' so you don't have access to it. I think modders can customize its pose, the zoom and angle and camera and whatnot for every type of thumbnail, but I'm not 100% sure that this tool will be accessible to them actually" and then suggested I ask Jérémie. So, Jérémie, what could a modder do with this?
Jérémie:
Well, it’s not going to be impossible to edit the dummy character used for thumbnails because they ultimately are a character like others, so you could decide that Handsome Squidward is used for all thumbnails, but it won’t be something you’ll stumble upon by mistake and break everything. As for poses, zooms and angles, I think they’ll be accessible to modders because you’ll be able to create custom item categories for the PAM, so it would only be natural that you’re able to setup how the thumbnails would be taken for that category as well! Hope this answers your question!
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Lucie250:
Hello ! I wish you could make the lines softer on Maggie legs because they look too pronounced.
Sonia:
We’re currently reworking our skin texture so I’ll take that into consideration :)
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Zahlea:
In the roadmap, under Paramaker -> Done, there is a task called "Create a child or other relatives using genetics" and the image for it mentions "Child", "Sibling", "Half-sibling", "Twin", "Mother", "Father". Are these examples or are they all confirmed, i.e. the game differentiates between them? For some, like "Mother", "Father" and "Child", it's pretty self explanatory, but it's not a given that the game will recognise the difference between a "Twin" and a "Sibling", or even "Half-sibling". And by "recognising the difference", it could be as simple as a label in their relationship panel and/or family tree.
Anna:
Yes these examples are as confirmed as they could be. I still have an hesitation about “half sibling” in the UX process, since it might be easier to just make a child from one parent (shared by another child) and an unknown parent, than having to choose first the child you want to make a half-sibling from, and then, the parent that is shared by both. In both case, it doesn’t change anything to the genetics system, since every “make a sibling” genetics is computed from one or more parents.
The difference between twins and siblings would be that twins would be identical twins, which share all their genes and most of their visual characteristics (some being similar but not exactly the same), while siblings might be a little different (they might get really different hair colors, different eye colors, different heights… etc).
Half-siblings would entail sharing a parent, so half of the DNA of the half-siblings will come from the same parent. It might not change a lot visually when you don’t know about it (they would just have more chance to be less similar to each other than regular siblings), but the genetic system would compute the resulting child differently.
Also, yes, the difference would show in the family tree. I hope it all makes sense!
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Riza:
[...] I was thinking about the presets: do the presets only contain slider values - and is it only one slider value per preset or are they a collection of slider values - or would a preset also contain things like line details, shadowing and/or tints? I'm thinking about whether it'd be possible to get to any specific look no matter what preset is used or if the presets include "hidden" effects outside of the slider values.
Jérémie:
At the moment, presets contain slider values (one or more) and they can also add specific equipment to your character, such as a nose model or particular eyelashes. They can’t change visual details like colors or anything else you’ve mentioned. If we need to add more functionalities to presets, we’ll keep that in mind to make sure that they don’t entirely change your character and only modify the bits you’re currently working on. Thank you!
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original dev chat: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1G2dXVrrzeqH1kmxT7dBLaHySlLE6tVH_J_2v_XUZQuc/edit?tab=t.0
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ShadowRose:
Is there anything you can tell us about how the family tree will look or how detailed you intend to make the family relations;
To use an example, will there be the option to set relationships in PAM to something like "Half sibling" or step family and would that be accurately translated into the family tree if there is to be one?
Alex:
It’s hard to confirm anything regarding the family tree right now because it is something that we will work on when we will be further down the road. What I can say is that I would like the family tree to be as flexible and as complete as possible but it’s possible that we run into some challenges while developing it so I can’t promise much yet other than that there will be a family tree! Having half siblings or a step family that are visible on the family tree would definitely be a great thing to have.
Possible Assassin (Ny):
Kinda a difficult question
Where do you all stand/what's your plan when it potentially comes to future modders charging people money to play with mods for your game?
There has always been a problem within a few game communities where they'll make mods for the game but will keep them behind a paywall of some form essentially kinda mooching off of the actual game.
Alex:
If I’m being honest, I haven’t put much thought into the question yet. It is definitely something that we will have to think about further. One thing for sure is that nothing will block people from selling their mods on their own Patreon page or elsewhere because there’s nothing we can do to prevent that, even if we wanted to.
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LokiTheShadySpirit:
I was reading through the dev chat from last week and read the question about smiles from "possible assassin (ny)"
You said you use the same "patient zero" for all animations. (Wich I did already know). But it made me wonder. Since children are so much smaller then adults, To me it makes sense there'd be a child patient zero as well.
Is this the case? (and if you haven't done any work on child paras. Will it be the case?) (I'm just fascinated by how animations work so I probably find this question more interesting then I should)
Alice:
Hello Loki! Yes, you're right; in a way I will need a different patient zero to animate children. I'll need to use the right "child medium height" rig. We will, however, use the same rig setup/skeleton, which will only be reduced in height but will otherwise be identical. This way, animations will still be able to be transferred across rigs if necessary. In addition, on my side it doesn’t really matter what 3D models are used with the rig, as only the skeleton animation is exported to the game. For now, babies and toddlers will have their own meshes for a more realistic result, and other life stage characters will use the adult mesh as a base. I hope it was clear enough. :)
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LunaTaoimhe:
Has there been any super crazy animations that have come out of working with procedural animations that have gotten you to laugh?
Alice:
Hi Luna! No, not yet, on my side. But since we are now working on the Live Mode and Animation System, I am pretty sure that we will have crazy results in no time. 😂
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Possible Assassin (Ny):
Random thought, besides the push and pull feature have there been any other things you're allowed to share that you guys had to change for legal reasons or general concerns?
Anna:
Nope, I think that’s the only thing for now! When we create a character we try to be careful to not make something that is too similar to another famous character, but I don’t think there’s anything else we changed radically because of something like that.
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Entirago:
I also had a thought earlier about how nice it would be for paras to be able to sit in different ways versus the amount of work to make all the animations… and then I started wondering what the steps would be for a player to mod another sitting pose in. Can you give us a rough idea of what it would take?
Alice:
Hi Ent! Yes, even though I really want to have as many variation animations as possible, I am pretty sure I won’t be able to create as much as I’d like. So letting all of you be able to add or even replace animations is one of our goals with the mod system, and I cannot wait to see what you will create!!! (★‿★)
hannah!!:
Hi there! I’m new to the group so if this is a repeat question i apologize. Will furniture be customizable? For example could i have a couch and add a pillow or throw to it? Or separated beds like molders have made in the sims where you can pick the bed frame and then the sheets?
Jérémie:
Some pieces of furniture we have at the moment, like counters and some couches, can be customized by adding or removing elements to them - I think you can see it in the chalet video - and we are thinking about more ways to make furniture interesting and that might be through customization. Having bed frames and sheets being customization elements for a bed could be interesting, but it would also mean that we would have less beds in the catalogue and people might not understand that they can customize everything. We’ll need to ponder about it some more!
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Zahlea:
Last Dev Chat, there was an answer stating that Having electronics - especially cheap one - last for only a short while before short circuiting can make sense and it’s a big event when your TV randomly breaks, but having other furniture like sofas, chairs and various sitting implements that have some kind of durability would be a bit weird.
To me it's actually even more weird to have a TV or even sofa that lives like new for say 5 generations or more 😳 so my question is: do you have any other ideas for… encouraging the player to switch out their furniture every now and then, or do you feel like it's ok to have the same furniture 5 generations later; maybe you're not even looking at many generational gameplay?
Not only am I thinking that it's weird that the furniture lasts many generations, but I also really like furniture breaking as one use for the handiness skill (my favourite in TS3, that I'm really hoping for in Paralives, maybe even split up!! :doggoSparkles: ) and I also see it as a really good way of combating one of my biggest dislikes in The Sims - how easy it is to make money - by making the para need to spend money at intervals instead of just piling it up. Hahaha, I'm really trying to make a case for it here, huh? 😅 Really interested in hearing what you think!
Jérémie:
Time is strange in life simulation games. It’s true that me having a functioning television my great-great-great-great-grandparents owned, in real life, would be quite weird. Maybe a table or some other piece of furniture, like a big old wooden chest would make more sense, like a family memento, or something. Metals oxide, connectors corrode, wood rots, a bunch of other processes occur and make keeping furniture and electronics working through a long period of time really difficult.
In games like Paralives, a lot of these factors are completely unaccounted for because this is not generally what people enjoy doing and they would rather work towards making their dream house. If I really love this green couch and I play the same game for ten thousand hours, I don’t want my green couch to rot every hundred hours or the springs to randomly pop out after someone sat on it for too long. Time is also frozen on the technological advancement scale; you’ll start with all the TVs you can get, and we currently don’t plan for a newer, better TV to get developed ten years of in-game time after you start playing, forcing you to upgrade to a better one - although that could be interesting.
Having skills to tinker with your appliances can still be possible even if they don’t break down constantly - upgrading them, customizing them, etc. Finally, it’s true that having too much money and nothing to spend it on can be an issue, but I’m not sure if furniture is the best lever to counteract that; this would probably make balance difficult and make the game a bit of a grind for people who do not have that much ease at making money and would need to find a way to replace all these chairs that keep breaking at the slightest touch! :V
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Rae:
What are your thoughts on vivaland? It's a similar game to Sims and paralives but multiplayer and coming out next year. The graphics look sick! (That means good in Gen z speak I think. I don't know, I'm a millennial)
Jérémie:
Howdy Rae! It’s always interesting to see new games pop out in the life simulation space and I’m curious to see what ideas they’ll bring to the genre! These things can take quite a lot of time to make - it’s almost two years since I’ve started working on Paralives - and making games is a constantly evolving puzzle where no-one knows the answers in advance, so I wish them the best of luck and will follow development closely :)
Zahlea:
Have you considered having support for allowing certain clothes to have animation overrides? One specific situation where this might be relevant is to allow modders to create a huge Victorian style dress with the poofy skirt (or any poofy skirt) where the sit animation could be overridden to look like the para is collecting their skirt before sitting down, or even add a deformation to the clothes to minimize clipping in favour for "squishing".
Alice:
Yes, I can see how that would be useful! Unfortunately, this is not something we have planned for now. Modders will indeed be able to replace or add variations to existing actions/animations, and it may be possible depending on what the Para is wearing but we can’t confirm that yet. For deformations specifically, additional bones in our skeleton would probably be required, as would each piece of clothing being skinned differently on those to allow for pertinent deformations. Finally, each action that needs it would have to be tweaked to work with each outfit. This might be too much work at this stage for us taking all of this in consideration.
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hannah!!:
what are the life stages going to be like? will it be like the sims with set stages or is there a way to get to grow up with the paras almost. like more stages because as we all know the jump from kid to teen overnight is brutal it would be cool to watch them grow. i don’t know how difficult that would be though!
i hope that made sense :))
Anna:
I can’t say in detail how the life stages are going to be like for now, sorry! It might be a mix of set stages and more gradual aging but we’re still figuring it out.
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Entirago:
Hi everyone! Hope you're all doing well!
Was thinking a little lately about other applications for the 'Seb taking his shoes off at the door' mechanic, and a couple that come to mind are paras could have slippers in the house but take them off while getting into bed, paras could wear flippers in a pool but take them off when they're walking around on a beach, and paras could have flip flops with their swimwear outfit, but not while they swim. Do you think any of these are likely? Do you have other thoughts along these lines?
Jérémie:
I think that wearing shoes or not inside houses is a big cultural item that has a more significant impact than the physicality of having shoes or not. It could be interesting to have a more complex system where different types of footwear would be valid or not for different situations, but it's not one of our priorities at the moment. Maybe when we’ll attack the functionality of being able to set if people can or cannot keep their shoes on in a house we’ll see if it is easy to replicate to other situations and scenarios! Thank you for the question! :D
ShadowRose:
You've mentioned we can change the colour of the sclera, we've seen you can change the colour of either iris, now I need to know; what about the pupil itself? Will we be able to change its shape and size? Can I have eyes with a slit pupil?
Léa:
Oh you want me to really spoil the surprise, don’t you? You won’t be able to change the size of the pupil with a slider BUT you will be able to add a new texture for the Eyes through the mod system. For example one with a slit pupil, or you could choose to have a really small or a really big pupil. Since you’re only changing the texture, it’s really easy to add to the game. I honestly can’t wait to see what people will create with those tools!
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Zahlea:
I have a question from Little Dragon 😄
We've seen that we're going to be able to import images to fill picture frames (and canvases and other art displays, hopefully) But I'd like to know the likelihood of us being able to import patterns for things like wallpapers, clothing, and other buy mode objects. As well as if you think we'd be able to do the same for clothing to make graphic T's and Hoodies (I'd love to be able to do this in a printing shop or something like that in game, though that's not part of the question)
I think the most powerful thing from this question would be the patterns as it would essentially give us an endless choice for design beyond just the object models.
Jérémie:
I think that importing pictures like you have seen in the original frame video is a very interesting feature, but it has to be used parsimoniously.
Square pictures work well for square frames and other vaguely-square-shaped objects, but the second you get into more complex 3D items, they might not show properly because of how 3D works.
Secondly, for things like wallpapers and floorings, it would be better to just add a new wallpaper or floor via the mod system because then you would have more options as to how things will tile, what kind of lightning effects they will use, swatches, etc. Patterns - like you’ve seen on Marvin’s shirt in the reveal video - have special rules to make them recolorable, so going through the mod system will also be required here.
There are still tests to be done about the performance aspect of importing pictures directly into the game as well; Do we need to limit file size and picture dimensions, for instance? These kinds of tests will help us decide what we can and cannot do going forward.
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Lucie250:
Hello to you will there be the possibility to put nail polish on the feets nails of the paras? I think it would be a good idea to allow players to put patterns on the nail polish.
Léa:
I think it’s a good idea too! At this moment you can put nail polish of colors on the hands and toes of the Paras. The nail zone on the texture is really small so adding a pattern is not easy, we’re looking into it!
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ShadowRose:
I'm unsure if you've already addressed this idea, but do you intend to add the ability to "draw" on para to give them things such as unique birthmarks or is that something you would say comes with the modding console?
I'm curious because I've seen a lot of suggestions that seem to involve directly "painting" designs, it could be a way to implement vitiligo (unless you already have a way to include it) in truly unique patterns across the body
Jérémie:
Howdy! We do not plan to add the ability to directly draw on characters at the moment. I feel that the tattoo/decal system we have is powerful enough to do a lot of things, such as vitiligo, because it still allows you to move birthmarks / tattoos / other skin details around on multiple parts of a Para’s body!
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Sebastian's Pool Dive:
Is the layering system limited to tops? What if we wanted a 2000s aesthetic and have our Para wear a skirt or dress over pants? 👀👗👖
Anna:
No it’s not limited to tops! I don’t know if we will allow this specific combination but it could definitely be possible technically yes!
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JayLevin_ART:
When adding clothes or hairstyles to your Paras, will you be able to choose the side on asymmetrical designs? (Example: There’s a hairstyle with bangs that sweep to the right, but you want them swept to the left. Or you have an off the shoulder top, but you want to change the shoulder that’s exposed.)
Jérémie:
For technical reasons, this is not planned at the moment. If there’s a piece of equipment that has some distinct feature on the left side, it will not be possible to flip it on the right side instead. Of course, that might change in the future. Thanks!
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JayLevin_ART:
How difficult was it to make a child Para model in comparison to the adult Para model?
Léa:
Eli was created in the Paramaker, he’s using the same model of the other Paras. The only difficult thing was to figure out how to make him look like a child and not like a really small adult. But it’s actually quite simple: it’s all about the proportions. For example, the head needs to be smaller, but the eyes should remain the same size as an adult (our eyes don’t grow) After that, Sonia created a new texture for kids bodies and Eli was ready!
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original dev chat: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1iQml1aHkXfxT78y7RO5MqIWoRSm4HftAn5rtU2B7SyU/edit?tab=t.0
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Hoopsie022:
Question about layering accessories 😂 Will we be able to add more than one necklace on a para, or even a scarf over a necklace?
Alex:
We have yet to test if scarves can be standalone items that you can place over any outfit. It might be possible to wear a scarf and a necklace at the same time but we will have to see how it goes when we test scarves! Right now, it’s not planned to allow players to wear multiple necklaces at the same time because they might clip with each other, making the result not as pretty. Also, because of some optimization that we do when loading the clothing and accessory textures in memory, our systems can’t allow characters to wear multiple necklaces at the same time unfortunately! Might be possible eventually but it would affect performance a bit.
Lucie250:
Hello ! During the initial release of the game, will we be limited to creating only one household or will we have the opportunity to implement many created households in the city?
Alex:
Hi there! You will have the opportunity to play with all the different existing prebuilt households in the city and also create whole new households to move them into an empty house or build a new house for them.
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QUINNS:
Is it possible to have robots in game?
Jérémie:
Hello QUINNS! We might have items that look like robots, such as toys or other decorations, but we do not plan to have “functional” robots at the moment, nor do we plan to include an option for you to play a robot. I have to say that having artificial intelligence as a skill for your programming Para could be neat, and the idea to program robots to do things would open a lot of possibilities, so it’s very interesting! Thanks for the question!
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RipRap:
[...] While you guys are still working on the UI of the game, what would be the dominant colour you devs will be using for the game??
Alex:
Hi RipRap! For now it’s white, black, bright blue and bright red/orange. But I am still playing with color schemes and testing variations so it might change!
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ShadowRose:
I know it may be perhaps too early for this, but do you plan on making tutorials for the various aspects like Build, buy, and live, as well as for the modding console? And maybe Additionally allow for tutorials to be turned off or revisited at will so they're not just there every time you start a new game
Alex:
Yes! There will be tutorials for the build mode, Paramaker and live mode. Regarding the modding console, there will be tutorials as well but probably in the form of written guides.
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LunaTaoimhe:
Is the plan to make the process of creating mods fairly straightforward, or will there still need to be at least some coding knowledge needed to make basic mods (like clothes or furniture)?
Anna:
We plan to make the mod system the most user friendly as possible! We don’t plan to support script modding officially for now. We really want motivated players to try to mod the game if they want to, and we want creators of clothes and furniture to integrate their art as easily as possible, without any coding knowledge. We also want to provide in-game help for modders to easily find their way through the mod system.
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ShadowRose:
How will landscaping work? Both in premade towns and when we eventually get to make towns of our own, and will we have the same freedom in both or will there be a restriction to what we can do Vs what you can do
Alex:
The same tools will be available whether you are landscaping your lot or a whole new town (when we make that possible, after the release). Landscaping tools include: painting textures and grass on the terrain, sculpting the terrain, creating lakes and ponds and placing all sorts of objects like bushes, trees, plants, rocks, etc.
ShadowRose:
When it comes to a limit on the amount of floors in a building (as you answered last time) do you think that counts things like the split-levels and possibly basements? Or will something like basements be a separate but equal limit? Like for example 10 level limit being 5 up and 5 down (4up 6down etc), or more like 10 up 10 down (I don't remember if you even plan on having basements o.O)
Jérémie:
I think that if we have a limit it will be informed by everything you can build, both split levels, basements and full floors. Because such a limit would exist for performance reasons, having a ton of split levels in a single floor would be as bad as having a ton of floors, but no split levels… Maybe? We do plan to have basements tho! It’s too early to say whether it would be one single limit for all floors or if we’ll have separate limits going up and down!
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Zahlea:
I'm wondering if you've brainstormed whether furniture will have stats yet: if you haven't made a decision (that you can share), then what pros and cons do you see with giving stats to furniture?
Jérémie:
We have thought about it, but not to a point where I can share anything. That being said, having stats on furniture can give the player reasons to upgrade and change things around to suit different needs. On the other hand, if the “best” fridge is really ugly, it can be annoying, maybe this is why most MMORPGs have a feature where you can change the appearance of your gear to something else while keeping your current stats, huh?
Riza:
(Sandrine gave me the idea to ask this question) Since town services were already a brainstorm topic, I was wondering about things like concerts, movie theaters, musical venues… and related jobs. I liked how in TS3, there were venues that had recurring events like showing movies, but you could also have your musical career sim give a concert. What do you think about cinemas and concert venues? Or potentially also about the possibility of having a band gig at a local bar?
Anna:
I like the idea of having cinemas and concert venues, yes! I’d love to have this local bar feeling too. It’s not confirmed yet but that’s definitely something we consider to bring life into the town.
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Possible Assassin (Ny):
Without giving specifics would you say you guys are close to giving us a glimpse of livemode? Maybe like a week with the dev again that way you can also bring up how much a WIP everything we see is 👀
Anna:
It’s hard to say just yes or no without specifics haha, I’d yes we are close to giving you some news about the live mode on Patreon, but not “live mode milestone video” close yet. The week with the dev thing would be rad but for now we’re focused on the design and the decision part of making live mode. We’ll see when we have more things to show!
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Possible Assassin (Ny):
This question is actually about one of the few negative feedbacks I have about the game. I've noticed a few others talking about it a few days ago so I figured I should ask about it 😂
When you think of a human smile typically the corners of the mouth will go out and then up, however when it comes to the paras or at least sebastian since he's the one we've seen smiling the most it looks like the corners only go up and his beard seems to just stay in place instead of moving with the mouth (this one might be harder to actually address now that I think about it) which gives him a very tiny mouth look that kinda throws off everything.
Will this like that for every para or is this a special case?
I know you guys are looking to be a bit more realistic when it comes to proportions so I'm not suggesting we get mouths that take up the whole face like the smiling titan but at the same time I do think they need to be a bit wider or maybe when animating the smiling you guys go a bit further out with the corners
Alice:
Hello Ny! That’s a good point, this is something that may happen frequently.. When I animate, I use our patient zero, Charlie. This means that no deformation is being applied to him with the sliders or anything else in the PAM. However, every new Para will eventually have additive deformations.
For example, if I animate a generic smile that works as it should on Charlie and then play it on another Para like Sebastian, the original animation will not look the same. Sebastian's mouth is smaller than Charlie's, and his mouth corners, as well as several other sliders, have been tweaked.
We won't be able to do animations for every slider adjustment because there are endless possibilities (thanks to our amazing PAM). At the same time, I can't overdo the smile because, for the same reasons, it would look bad if another Para had a bigger and broader mouth. I always attempt to make the most generic animations possible and test them on a range of characters to ensure that they will look well in most circumstances, but as the only animator on the team, I can't be too picky. I hope that was clear! :)) Here is an example of the same animation on Charlie (Left) and Sebastian (right):
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Gui:
Question from Lily: "I was playing the Sims 3 and the sink broke making the water leak. The more time that went by without fixing it, the more the puddle grew. Will Paralives have things like that that if they aren't fixes they will keep growing?"
Jérémie:
That could be the case for certain things, like puddles caused by clogged sinks or toilets and the bigger puddles could have more impactful negative effects, but in any case they wouldn’t grow forever, you will not be able to flood your whole home by letting the sink leak. I’m trying to think of more issues like that that could grow as problems, hmm…
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BusiestPolarBear:
Will things break in paras houses , more specifically sitting 🪑 furniture (I have a war with those)?
Jérémie:
Heya Bear! It really depends on items, some make sense, others less. Having electronics - especially cheap one - last for only a short while before short circuiting can make sense and it’s a big event when your TV randomly breaks, but having other furniture like sofas, chairs and various sitting implements that have some kind of durability would be a bit weird. I think natural wear and tear will only be an issue on a very small number of items because doing otherwise would be a lot of micromanagement that we don’t even do in real life!
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Zahlea:
[...] Do you think it would be possible to open windows and doors and leave them like that? I'd love to be able to have my para open the sliding door on the back of the house during the summer times. Or just leave doors ajar when walking back and forth through them.
Similarly with skylights in the loft. Usually it gets pretty hot, at least in our attic so being able to open the windows up there makes it much more refreshing.
Alex:
It’s still unsure if we will be able to do that. I think it would be a really nice detail for sure. I would totally see myself opening the windows of my Paras’ house in the summer. Maybe there could be a fresh breeze making the curtains move in the wind. This would create a pretty nice mood.
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indi.a:
As you work on the design of livemode, do you plan to tell us (either publicly or in Patreon posts) some/many of the decisions you’re making, or will they be fun surprised to discover when the game releases? For example, little things like what you might name alcohol or “woohoo”, or the specific differences between similar lifestages such as preteen and teen? Basically, what sort of tidbits might we expect to learn between the design stage and the implementation/development stage of livemode?
Alex:
There’s a lot of things that we will be able to share and tell you about but true, there are also some elements that we will keep secret until the release so that players can discover some features themselves and have some “woah” moments when first playing the game! Some mechanics and some of the lore of the town will be shared as we make progress on the live mode but others will be left for you to discover.
Sebastian's Pool Dive:
How does the layering combination system scale as more clothing items are added? Are items tagged with a few categories, and the categories determine which items can be combined? IIRC, you stated that some items can work as either the top or the bottom layer depending on the combination
Anna:
The layering system does not involve the categories of items. Secondary layer items are hand picked for each layerable primary item. If more clothing items are added and we want to add them as a layering option (for example if we make a new shirt that we want to layer under Seb’s jacket), we’ll have to manually add it in the settings.
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Possible Assassin (Ny):
With the addition of clothing layers, How will yall make it so NPCs or randomly generated characters don't look like they just walked out of a Picasso painting?
Anna:
The options for clothing layers will already be curated to look good with each other, so I don’t think there’s anything specific to do regarding this option for randomly generated characters. If the game chooses a piece of layered clothing randomly, it will already choose amongst the options we included, so it shouldn’t be weird.
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ReGi(レジ):
Hi there. I want to ask will player be able to change paras' sclera color separately in game or by modding?
Léa:
It’s possible directly in the game, no modding required! We made sure to add an advanced setting for the eyes recoloration where you will be able to change the sclera color if you want to.
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LunaTaoimhe:
With pets being in the game, has there been any work into the PAM for Pets. ie, will pets have a height-like slider for their size?
Anna:
We are strictly focusing on humans right now so there’s no news on the pets side of the Paramaker, sorry! I can’t answer about the height slider right now.
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JayLevin_ART:
Now that you have a better sense of the Paramaker, what kind of physics do you want to add to clothes, hair, etc?
Alex:
We’ve already added physics simulation to hair and some clothes like dresses. You can see it in action here on Maggie’s hair here: https://twitter.com/paralivesgame/status/1466475024831897601
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JayLevin_ART:
Will layers apply for clothing even if it’s not the same type? An example could be a fitted black dress with a denim jacket over the top- two different kinds of clothing that overlap (a fullbody outfit and a top/jacket).
Anna:
Technically yes, it could be different types. On the clothing layering video, you can see that Maggie’s dress (in the Full Body section) has options for shirt and sweater layers, which are in the Top category.
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JayLevin_ART:
In the Paramaker, will we be able to add custom patterns to change the colors of, or will those be locked in choices? I noticed in some clothing options there were preset patterns like stripes and dots, then you could change the colors of those patterns. Are those going to be a set kind, or can we also mod in our own patterns?
Jérémie:
Howdy! Because the patterns are managed via the Mod System, everything will be moddable. There are some rules regarding patterns, but they’re just image files that the game converts into recolorable patterns for your clothes. It will be quite easy to do :) Thanks for the questionnnnnnnnnn
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tey711:
In regard to layering of clothing which looks awesome, btw, will layering expand to include putting on items such as shoulder/crossbody handbags, backpacks, shawls, jewelry, (etc.), and hats, head gear, head scarves, and hair accessories to any hairstyle without changing the hairstyle? Please. ✨
Alex:
Thank you! Handbags and backpacks are not possible at the moment in our current system because they are not clothing items and we would need to do some tweaking on the technical side to support them. We plan to try it eventually and if we have handbags and backpacks, it would be possible to wear them over most clothing items, yes. As for hats, hairstyles and so on, we can confirm that any hat will be wearable over any hairstyle. However, we still have to test how hair/head accessories would combine with scarves, hairstyles and hats. Can’t give a straight answer until we do that but it’s definitely something we will try!
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original dev chat: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-Qh_-Jy0TPZOnMWSwhhL_oVtSpQIvJ9ivNIAybLRHpk/edit?tab=t.0
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LokiTheShadySpirit: [...] I'm a big fan of having intricate family gameplay/interaction. And I noticed how the sims have an interaction for Children to ask their parents to tuck them in. However I have never seen it happen autonomously. Which I find odd. Because when i was a Child my parents always tucked me in. So i would like to see these kinds of interactions happen autonomously depending on "closeness" to other paras
However this also got me thinking.
It would be fun to build certain routines (not just bedtime but just in general). And paras (especially children) might get upset if routines are broken. Is this something we could get in paralives?
Jérémie:
Howdy! Thanks for the question, it’s indeed pretty interesting to think about! While I’m not sure for the “ask to tuck me in” interaction specifically, I think we would love to have more autonomous interactions happen between characters. We still have to think about the sandbox aspect of the game, however, so these autonomous requests do not get in the way of the storytelling the player wants to have and they do feel like busywork. Like if you manage a family and the kid autonomously asks to be read a story before bed and gets sad or angry if you don’t do it, that might go against the player’s wishes - maybe they just wanted the kid to go to bed and that’s it.
As for routines, we love the idea! Being able to build a list of activities and have them run every day (or some days) would be useful if you just want to take a shower, eat breakfast, go to the bathroom and then leave for work - although would you really need to go to the bathroom everyday? Haha - but in my mind this is more of a tool that the player would be able to use for convenience rather than something in-universe that the characters would notice and get attached to. We want to give options to the player for storytelling and having negative consequences loom over their use wouldn’t feel great for some people, we’ll see!
ShadowRose:
There are a lot of different aesthetics in existence and it would be impossible to incorporate all of them into objects and clothing, so I want to ask how many different styles you aim to achieve with the intent that enough people can find something that appeals to them?
Anna:
That’s a good question! We haven’t decided on the final list of styles and items yet so it’s hard to answer precisely. As you said, we cannot possibly include every style since our resources are limited. It’s a hard balance: we need enough styles to fit most players, but also…. We need enough different items to make sure we don’t spend too much time on similar items that are unnecessary, we need to take our customization options into account (maybe a single item can fit different styles thanks to the variation or the layering option, so it would be a more profitable item to produce than something really specific that cannot be reused), we need our options to be original but not too close to recent trends so the game can age well, we need a few “niche” items that may not be for everyone’s taste to keep the game interesting, we need our game design decisions to match our items (for example, if we want to have 10 levels of comfort tied to beds, we need to plan at least 10 beds that make sense for those levels), we also need to make clothes and objects fit any planned scenario that will be in game (wedding clothes and furniture if we have wedding parties, swimsuit and pool furniture, winter jackets if we have a temperature system, etc). We also need to work on world building to know which things will fit in our lore and our town design. That’s a lot of things to consider that are not necessarily tied to the player's taste or culture! However, we also plan on doing free updates after the initial release, so there could definitely be item updates in the future if we see that something is lacking.
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ShadowRose:
A lot of people here often put together awesome fan concepts of various features, how much would you say this influences some of your own ideas? And since you wouldn't want to seem like you're taking their idea I'm curious if that means a fan concept is most likely to cause you to avoid making something too similar.
Anna:
Usually we don’t really have to avoid making eye contact with concepts just to make sure we don’t make something similar, because there are a lot of things in the background that make most of the fan concepts and ideas incomplete. I agree that some of our fans are really talented and make very good concepts! Some might inspire us but I feel like it’s more of a “hey we didn’t think about that” or a “what I like in this concept is that it has these pros: […] but it has these cons […]” type of situations than a direct inspiration. It can definitely fuel some of our discussions! We’re definitely inspired by things the community do and want but it’s more of a collective hive effort, like no single person came up for the whole game or UI or features exactly like we want it yet, so there’s no need to avoid anything.
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Cyan:
Heyo devs!
I was wondering: do you currently have a specific person from the team assigned to designing and creating the visual aspects of the UI or is it a team effort?
Alex:
Hi Cyan! I am the one who works on the style and layout of the UI. It’s something I really enjoy and that I have done in past jobs and personal projects. Right now, our UI is a big work in progress but we’re getting somewhere!
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Possible Assassin (Ny):
So I've been wondering, you guys are in the livemode boost however you've also been touching up on some paramaker features coding wise will there be a time where all the programmers will be focused on live mode or will at least one still be helping the artist out when it comes to PAM or is it more so due to the fact you've been in the design portion all of your attention isnt needed on live mode yet?
Alex:
I’ve been on the live mode for a few months already and Anna and Jérémie as well but they were still splitting their time between the live mode and finishing some important features and fixes for the Paramaker. Now that the clothing layering system is working and many things have been improved, Anna and Jérémie will almost fully be on the live mode. They might still do a Paramaker task here and there if there’s an important issue to fix regarding one of their features. However, Étienne will stay on the Paramaker for a while to fix bugs and do various improvements.
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LunaTaoimhe:
Time for the toughest question of them all; Is the paradoggo a good pupper (is it based on a real dog, or is it just a virtual dog)?
Alex:
The paradoggo is an extremely good pupper and is based on a Bernese mountain dog I had as a child!
LunaTaoimhe:
Has there been any thought as to how stories are going to work, will there be a limit to how many stories a building can have, or will there be a system in place to allow "chunks" in tall buildings like skyscrapers?
Jérémie:
There is certainly going to be a limit on the number of stories you can have for performance reasons, but we haven’t settled down on a number just yet - this will require more testing - as for skyscrapers and using different techniques to be able to have very tall buildings, this is not something we are considering at the moment, but it could be a possible way to do it in the future!
BusiestPolarBear:
Will there be a system for paras to recognize the colors that surround them? (Like if the room as their favorite colors or woods that don’t match😡 or too much eye burning yellow)
Anna:
It’s not planned now but it could be possible! I already have an algorithm for recognizing any color from the color wheel with a label system so it could be possible to apply in a favorite color system (it’s easy for humans to recognize that any shade of yellow is yellow but not so trivial for a computer). I don’t think there’s going to be anything about not matching colors or bright colors though because I feel like those things are too specific for a system to be built around and might be part of everyone’s taste so not really subject to a specific rule.
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King of Wheat:
I’ve got 3 questions about possible features!
-Is there any plans for ghosts? If so, to what extent would paranormal activity occur/be accessible?
Anna:
There is no plan for ghosts or any type of paranormal activity yet! Our vision for the game is more on the realistic side, even if some things could still be a little bit out of the ordinary.
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King of Wheat:
-To what extent is lore planned to be in the game? There is a lore-seeker role, but I’m curious to what level that will apply to gameplay.
Anna:
There are several things that we can express our lore into, like the object's description, the history of the town (through characters and items), the neighborhood stories, the interactions and more. We don’t plan to have big quests with dialogues to discover a big linear story, but there could be some hidden things to unlock (let’s say, a special secret zone in the world that would require a key to get in that you can only get from a level 10 career or something like that). I hope these examples answer your question!
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King of Wheat:
-Will more mature themes (violence, criminal activity in general, darker stories and backstories) be in the game at all, or will it be almost completely censored like in sims?
Anna:
The game will follow teen ratings so anything too dark will not make it. There will be no real violence and criminal activity in the game. It’s possible that there could be light fighting or maybe stealing for example, but it won’t be too explicit, quite similar to the Sims.
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Entirago:
Thinking along the lines of the video where Seb removes his shoes at the door, could a para remove a jacket layer when entering a house, or would it be player direction only? Similarly, could a para have a 'sweater tied around waist' alternate outfit for if it gets warm later in the day? In this case, I'd definitely be fine with the player choosing which outfit the para wears when.
Anna:
We haven’t decided yet! It’s true that it could be nice to remove or add a layer when possible, or even remove your hat and sunglasses when entering inside, things like that. It’s a considered idea but the final decision has not come yet! A “sweater tied around waist” option would be nice, I agree!
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LunaTaoimhe:
With live mode being worked on, are there any ideas on how relationships work that you can share, like will paras have preferences on who they would like to befriend/date or will it be simply unlocked?
Anna:
Sadly the main idea we have about how relationships will work is a secret for now. A preference system has not been decided, but I can tell you that nothing will be locked though, when you’re controlling your Para (it might for autonomous Paras). I like the idea of a preferences system working a bit like the crush system from the Sims 2, affecting how easy it is to romance (or befriend) someone based on preferences but without locking any possibility.
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Zahlea:
[...] ParaNormals are confirmed not to be appearing in base game, but what are the thoughts of ghost and folklore stories within paralives? could we hear about how the neighbours kids saw drifting fires in the woods? could Willy the local fisherman tell us about how he spotted something big beneath the water that definitely wasn't a fish?
Could we possibly get customs related to folklore, like hanging garlic over the front door or possibly leaving out some food for your garden gnome.
Anna:
These types of things could definitely be possible! I can’t say anything specifically but it would definitely fit in our realistic vision for the game, since in real life some people can have a local myth or weird stories to tell too.
ShadowRose:
For me, when it comes to creating a unique character their hair is one of the most important aspects, while I don't expect any crazy anime hair I would love if we could have some super long options, could you please give us some idea about the plans for hair options? How far do you think you can go with it?
Sonia:
I’d say we can confidently have a hairstyle with a 50cm length for now (approximately ends at the scapula in the back). Longer hairs aren’t out of the question, but they require more work on the UVs and skinning part to make sure the texture quality is good and they don’t clip inside the character or objects too often 😁
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original dev chat: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1lt-2vm19rRscI-RF57aKeKZCwH5-wcx1sM4THh8w1H8/edit?tab=t.0
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