Well, romantic attraction is a different continuum from friendship, though I believe you can't have proper love without being near the top of the relationship meter, you can be strongly attracted to someone you hardly know. So you can't really do the whole thing with just one counter.

I don't necessarily want a romance or thirst need in the game, it was just an example of things I could see them innovate while still remaining as close to Sims as Cities:Skylines is to the Sim City series.

Something I'd *actually* would want to see would be electrical wiring in the walls. Like you'd have to buy and place the wiring and the outlets and...I don't know, maybe the electric appliances would have to be close enough to the outlets to function?
I think that would add a layer of realism.

While I like the idea of having to have an outlet to plug into, wiring as well is a bit OTT. Not even those house flipper games you see on Steam include that level of detail.

EDIT also what sort of plugs would they use? Europlug? BS 1363? NECMA?

My idea was inspired by the older Sim City games and Cities:Skylines, where you have to lay power-lines and sewers. I would genuinely like that additional layer in Sims/Paralives where you'd have to put wiring and pipes into the houses (maybe even with a water boiler and stuff like that). I think it might add a layer of complexity/challenge, since you'd have to pay for the wiring/pipes.
But I can understand that not everybody would like that, and that it has the potential to become busy work. Still, I think I'd like it.

The option of connecting the house/lot to an electric grid and/or to a sewage system is interesting in my opinion because it allows us the "of grid" gameplay. For example, Paras whose house is not connected to a sewage system would need to fetch water from a well and/or go to a nearby river or lake to do a number or activities (washing clothes, cleaning themselves, collect water for cooking and so on).

What interests me the most is that they think about good systems of social and family relationships, also the personality and that each character feels different. A really good core is what gives it the spark, the rest comes alone. A more developed system of jobs connected to the city and the characters would also be interesting, I fantasized a lot about the manifestations of sims 4 and the depth that politics could have, and in the end it was a fiasco. A system of norms, laws, privileges, obligations etc according to the job position would be great in schools, companies, groups ... Little things like being the principal of a school and choosing the uniform or being strict or lighter can give you a lot of fun, the same with other careers. I hope they program good reactions to events and give us more than in sims 2.

I really like this idea. But only if it somehow affects living costs. If they would go this route, I would also like to see utility costs (water, electricity, sewage).

But then without having to actually draw power lines to sockets and water pipes/ drains to plumbing. That would be a bit too much maybe for the Paralives developers. Maybe just applying for water/electricity/sewage for the plot. And then coming with costs based on amount of usage of plumbing/electricity objects. So that the extra hassle of living of the grid would be financially worth it as well.

EDIT: Now I want to create a poor artist, trying to make a living. Living in an of grid hippie community. Or some older surfer dude that lives very sober at the beach,washes himself in the ocean, and gives surfing lessons during the day.

I like this idea... Rules and regulations, and based on the personality traits they can like or dislike the rules. Maybe some will like or dislike different people based on their personality, make it harder or easier to make friends. They could even use the personalities eg ISTJ, ISTP etc as say, a template for the personality. Then randomly change a few things here and there. Or we could create a personality entirely by ourselves that follows no "template".

I dunno if it's a public patreon post or not, but they held a community wide survey on what people wanted from relationships and came to some interesting conclusions. Not going to like copy and paste or anything, but an idea I really liked were relationships built on different foundations. Like maybe one friendship is built entirely on the 'memories' of having a few classes together in school, meanwhile another friendship is built entirely on the fact that you've been neighbors playing together since you were three years old, and that these two type of relationships presents new options or interactions the para may have with them. Also the idea of relationships decaying at different rates depending on that relationship type, and some relationships being way faster to build back up again. (the example I remember was a 'going back to your hometown and contacting your childhood friend' scenario in which rekindling that relationship would be easier than a total stranger)

All that to say, they've certainly got interesting ideas on paper and it's been fun seeing how they plan to implement these ideas into actual code. They remind community members of that from time to time. When coming up with ideas, think about how this would ACTUALLY work in game, which I think has steered the brainstorming in the right direction. Most of the time.

Of the three pillars of a life simulation game (build, live, character creation), I feel they're making good progress in all three directions. We've even seen a bit of how life mode is going, of course it's the bare bones. I can't wait for them to get to alpha even if it's a buggy mess.

I don't think there is any live mode yet, I think the animations in the videos might have been created in blender or something. From questions in weekly devchat I don't think they have started on the object or social interactions yet and are still firming up the design of autonomy. Build mode is much further advanced, which suits me fine

They've started the basics of interaction animations, but they're at the very start, so there's not much to discuss - but they've shown the start of basic animations for the paras at least, like sitting etc. so they definitely are already thinking about it.

I do mean the bare bones. Like, sitting in chairs, eating, the combination of that. Stuff like that. Nothing too fancy, at least not publicly. Last we saw, I think they were still working out the best solution for procedural animating said interactions... Yes, it was a twitter thread where one of the devs explained the process. They can sit on chairs now, but if a para is too tall or too small, it looks kinda weird so they were messing with that. That was at least a month or more ago now though, so I wonder how much further they've gotten.

I already spend so much time decorating. This will make it even worse!

Paralives Housebuilding


I like it all.

The game is giving me strong Life Is Strange vibes. Not a bad art style, but not my favorite either. I find it interesting that the simulation keeps running while you're in Build Mode. I'm so used to everything pausing (even idle tree animations) while you're in Build Mode, I was just surprised to see the Paras moving in the background.

I'm just really curious to see the Paras interacting with their environment. Will they be able to sit and eat on those chairs that were placed diagonally to the table? Will they move the chair? How will they interact with that L-shaped sofa? What about that deco pillow they put on the bed? Will they move it to sleep? Won't it clip through them if they don't move it?

Hopefully we can at least pause the game while building.

Man, that build music is giving me serious TS1/TS2 vibes. I love it!

I think the paras were just idling while you build, so the game is essentially paused, but with some flavour. I like it.

I love how this is looking!

Even if it ends up only a building type game in the end, I would probably still buy it to let my inner decorator loose.
Still, I do hope there is a way to interact properly with all this flexibility in positioning, sizing, and overall off-gridness. While watching, I was reminded of the stupid Sims2 'watching the weather' interaction and wondered if the sim would actually pick a window that is low enough or if they would just pick any window including one that is too high and the sim couldn't possibly see out.

They intend for the paras actions to match the object. Here's one of the devs talking about it:
https://twitter.com/AnnaParalives/s...541637532979206
https://twitter.com/AnnaParalives/s...259511856205832
https://twitter.com/AnnaParalives/s...612755182739459

I hope there is a grid on option and a way to see it and snap items to grid when wanted. I do not want all to be freestyle. I may have missed something as just skipped through the video.

That video was beautiful! And it shows how they will not to have to provide that many basegame objects in the beginning for us to create varied furniture. And honestly, I would be perfectly fine if the first version of the game shipped with about the same amount of furniture as Sims 1.

Though part of me still wonders whether some of that fabulous customisation will have to be sacrificed when it comes to implement the proper live mode and Para/environment interaction. For instance, that chair that was placed askew in relation to the dining table...will Paras be able to adjust it so they can use it to eat dinner?

We didn't see much of it in the video, but the devs reconfirmed today that there's a grid and a snap feature.

Lemme just say a few things:
1. Idle animation are amazing, especially the one with mosquito when they are by the woods.
2. Love the artstyle
3. The whole build mode tempts me to play the game, with the music being so smoothy and calming
4. The interactive sign thing is awesome.

While I still want to see footage of just live mode, the rest of the game looks promising and would defiantly try it out

Dont forget round and askew walls!

I love the level of customization that this game will bring.
The picture tool? So much freedom!
Resizing windows? Wow!