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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