Our Design Process + Relationship Brainstorming Highlights (Patreon)

Hi!

It's Friday and we're back for another Patreon post! Here's an overview of what we are working on at the moment :

• Improving the build mode, adding more user-friendly features and fixing bugs
• Adding body and face shape customization from the improved adult model
• Testing more character and clothes textures
• Designing and implementing the animation system and its mod support
• More animations
• Brainstorming and designing different aspects of the game
• Preparing the missing features and the scenario for the Canadian Chalet house building video (please keep this between Patrons for now!)
  

Relationship Brainstorming: Ideas From the Community  (For Patrons only. Please don't share)

Thanks so much to everyone who shared ideas for our relationship brainstorming here on Patreon and also on Discord and Reddit. There was a ton, maybe even two tons of good ideas so it took Christine a long time to summarize them but it was worth it!

Today, we wanted to share a few of the top suggestions from the community. We can't confirm that they will end up in the game but we will be studying them closely to see if and how we can integrate them to our relationship system!

• Asymmetrical relationships, such as teacher/student or one sided love interests
• Open relationships: the partners would have to talk about it to unlock that possibility, otherwise it would be considered as cheating
• Ability to set existing relationships between household members that you create
• Relationships have to be maintained but it could be possible to revive them without starting from scratch
• Personalities will influence relationships in different ways
• Having a first impression when Paras meet
• Having an indicator of tension: the relationship could still be strong, but the tension indicator could indicate possible decay if it continues for a long period
• Online dating could allow you to quickly find a Para with similar interests to you
• It is easier and quicker to make friends (and lose them) at a younger age, but it becomes harder to do so as you become older
• Long distance relationships and virtual friends
• Love at first sight: if compatibility is very very high
• The ability to ask people for help or services if sufficient level of relationship
• Ask someone you trust to babysit instead of hiring a nanny
• Shared custody of children
• Sleepovers for children (or adults!)
• Cats and dogs seeking out a sad or tense Para to be there for them
• Pets recognizing Paras that come over a lot

These are just some of the ideas on our list and we are looking to add many interesting features related to relationships. We will share more about that as we start working on these systems in the future.

Our Design Process  (For Patrons only. Please don't share)

I thought it could be interesting to tell you about the process we go through when designing each part of the game. Paralives is a complex game made of many different modules and features. Here's an overview of the main core systems that will be part of the game:

Yellow boxes are systems that are already in the game (but still being improved) while black boxes represent systems that are not in the game yet

For each of these systems, we go through an extensive design process to make sure everything is well thought out. Since we're all big fans of life simulation games, we already had a lot of ideas at the start of the project. Mixing ideas from the community, making a lot of research and brainstorming sessions and identifying our design pillars help us build what we think will be a solid game. Finally, iterating on each feature and system as we test them allows us to be flexible and make improvements to our design as we go.

That's it for this week!

Have a good weekend and take care,

Alex