Education Brainstorm Recap + New Brainstorming Theme (Patreon)

🏫 Education Brainstorm Recap  (For Patrons only! Please don't share)

Hello everyone, Christine here! As we approach the end of the month, I’m here reporting for my usual duty, which is the recap of our latest community brainstorming. This brainstorming was all about education and, let me tell you, there are a lot of different school systems so thank you to everyone who pitched in whether it was here on Patreon, Discord or Reddit.

Education can be seen as a relatively simple topic when compared to previous brainstorming sessions that touched on so many different aspects. As a team, education presents some challenges so it was a very important brainstorming topic to delve into nonetheless. Here are two of those challenges.

1. As with careers, schools will not be active at launch. This can be a two-edged sword on our end. Of course, we can implement quite a bit of anything at launch because most of the school interactions will take place in a rabbithole. However, if we decide to go towards active schools in a future update (not confirmed and, if implemented, would most likely be optional), we have to make sure that these “invisible” elements can be honoured and turned into fully-fledged gameplay.

2. There are also so many ways to approach education around the world. We want to implement an educational system that everyone will be able to relate to in one way or another. Some countries have homework, others do not. Some countries have school clubs, others do not. The list can go on and on. Our goal is to find the right balance between all of these elements to create fun and meaningful gameplay opportunities.

With that being said, I’m happy to share with you today some the highlights for this brainstorming session. These are not confirmed features, they are simply ideas to look into at the moment.

• Prior education choices and natural inclinations making it easier for a Para to continue their studies in specific fields
• Level of education being a requirement for certain careers and jobs
• Certain field of studies unlocking specific interactions (discuss about X topic, brag about knowledge)
• Different levels of education (early childhood education, primary education, secondary education, higher education) each with different requirements (homework, admission process, choice of courses)
• Different types of school systems: public, private, maybe home / online school or even boarding school? As well as university and trade / specialized schools for higher education
• Breaks and day offs from school
• School events that can help in the boosting of skills and / or friendships
• Some active elements to homework (for example purposes: going to the museum to write a report, building a robot or doing science experiments in the kitchen, inviting classmates over to prepare for presentation)
• After-school clubs / activities allowing Parafolks to socialize and make friends with similar interests
• Ability to hire a tutor or become one
• Having access to information pamphlets when choosing a school (information such as school hours, uniform or dress code, price, quality of education, types of clubs). Also, being able to edit these elements as a player
• Setting a goal / aspiration for your education journey
• Taking a community class to improve a specific skill (for example purposes: a Para wants to improve cooking skills so they take a cooking class in the evening at the local school)
• Field trips, scholarships, internships and a lot more!

Once again, thank you for all your help in these brainstorming sessions! We are now on to the next one ✨🧠

💍 New Community Brainstorming : Important Life Events  (For Patrons only! Please don't share)

Paralives is a life simulation game. A big part of what defines our lives are major events that we go through: birth, first day of school, graduation, first love, marriage, promotions, death and so on. Let's brainstorm about these events and how they will affect our Parafolks!

• Which major life events would you like to see in the game?
• How should they unfold?
• How should these events impact the life of your Paras?

Please share your ideas in the comment section of this Patreon post! This new monthly brainstorming session theme will be publicly revealed next week and then everyone will be able to join the brainstorm on Discord and Reddit for the coming month.

📊 Poll : Important Life Events  (For Patrons only! Please don't share)

Regarding our latest community brainstorming theme, we were curious to know what you think about something. One of the features that a lot of people have been requesting is in-game cutscenes that would play when something important happens like a Para's first kiss or a young adult leaving the family nest. These could help highlight emotional moments. Of course, these cutscenes would be skippable for those who are less interested.

We can't confirm if we'll have cutscenes yet because they are a lot of work to create. But today, we'd like to know: would you like to have cutscenes in Paralives? Please vote in the below poll and tell us what you think in the comments.

Thank you!

Alex