Paralives is an upcoming indie life simulation game for Windows and macOS developed by Paralives Studio. The game is heavily inspired by The Sims franchise from Maxis and EA, with the game incorporating house building and management in a small open world town.[1] It is scheduled for release in early access in 2025.[2][3]
| Paralives | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Developer(s) | Paralives Studio |
| Designer(s) | Alex Massé |
| Programmer(s) |
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| Artist(s) |
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| Composer(s) | Andrei Castañon |
| Engine | Unity |
| Platform(s) | Microsoft Windows, macOS |
| Genre(s) | Life simulation |
| Mode(s) | Single-player |
As of March 2024, Paralives Studio employs a team of 12 people.
Gameplay edit
Paralives will take place in an open world environment with employment opportunities alongside events such as festivals.[4] Players can build houses, create characters and control their lives in a desired way.[5]
The character creator, titled as "Paramaker",[6] allows the customization of the appearance and personality of "Parafolk", the name of the in-game characters. Players are able to customize the physique and height of the Parafolk. The root and shade of hair, clothing and accessories can be toggled as intended using color swatches, color wheels and texture selection.[7][8]
A similar system is in place for objects and structures, allowing the player to adjust the size, placement, color and texture of walls, floors, windows doors, and furniture.[9]
The simulation aspect of the game features "together cards" that appear to players after a "together bar" is filled up during a character's conversation.[3]
Development edit
Paralives was created by independent game developer Alex Massé.[6] After working on several projects such as PewDiePie's Tuber Simulator and a number of demos for Project Tiny, Massé made a decision to quit his job and develop Paralives regularly.[1] Development of the game started in January 2019 and the development was officially announced in June 2019.[10]
Initially, Paralives was a solo project, but Massé hired people to work on the game: Léa Sorribès, Christine Gariépy, and Anna Thibert, forming Paralives Studio.[6] As of May 2021, the team consists of ten people in total after hiring a music composer. Massé thought that previous life simulation games did not have a tool that allowed easy and precise creation of any house in-game, which prompted him to design Paralives to offer a sense of endless customization.[1] He was inspired by the road tool found in Cities: Skylines, and tried to make it work in Paralives, thinking it would fit well for placing walls and building houses.[6] The developers incorporated the technique of procedural animation, which involves automatic reactions based on previously created animations, to avoid the need of animating every situation possible and save some developing time.
Considering the game is being funded through crowdfunding platform Patreon, the backers are invited to propose suggestions regarding what type of content they would like to see in the full release.[1] Massé was influenced by Ooblets's success on the service, and decided to join it as well, having admired the support it had just from the concept art and idea alone. He hoped the Patreon page would aid the development enough to hire another artist. As of November 2023, it contains close to 15,000 supporters and earns over $35,000 per month.[11] According to Massé, there is a document with 100 pages called the "Parabook", containing all the ideas collected so far. Massé's plan is to release the game in Early Access on Steam, then support the game with free updates and modding, where people would share their designs on the Steam Workshop.[1]
Awards and nominations edit
- 2020 Canadian Game Devs - Most Anticipated Canadian Game Winner[12]
References edit
- ^ a b c d e Welch-Murphy, Emma (2019-08-15). "Why Paralives Is Looking To Be The Sim's New Rival". Game Informer. Archived from the original on 2020-06-07. Retrieved 2020-04-12.
- ^ Valentine, Rebekah (2024-02-07). "The Sims-like Life Simulator Paralives Gets a 2025 Release Window". IGN. Archived from the original on 2024-02-07. Retrieved 2024-02-07.
- ^ a b Morton, Lauren (2024-02-07). "Paralives will enter early access in 2025 and will never have paid DLCs, only free expansions". PC Gamer. Archived from the original on 2024-02-07. Retrieved 2024-02-07.
- ^ Schermann, Natalie (2020-06-12). "Paralives ist das alternative Sims von Fans für Fans". GameStar (in German). Archived from the original on 2020-08-24. Retrieved 2020-08-12.
- ^ "'Paralives', un simulador de vida que recuerda a unos sims personalizados al máximo detalle". 20 minutos (in Spanish). 2020-06-08. Archived from the original on 2020-08-12. Retrieved 2020-08-12.
- ^ a b c d Bell, Alice (2020-07-06). "Interview: the art and inspiration of Paralives, the indie game set to take on The Sims". Rock Paper Shotgun. Archived from the original on 2020-08-14. Retrieved 2020-08-10.
- ^ Wald, Heather (2020-05-20). "Sims competitor Paralives shows off new character creator". GamesRadar+. Archived from the original on 2020-06-27. Retrieved 2020-08-10.
- ^ "Height Sliders Confirmed as Paralives Team Reveals Character Design | The Paralives Hub". 19 May 2020. Archived from the original on 2020-10-18. Retrieved 2020-10-13.
- ^ Plunkett, Luke (2020-05-19). "Paralives, A New Sims-Like Game, Looks Cool". Kotaku. Archived from the original on 2022-09-20. Retrieved 2022-09-17.
- ^ "Development". Paralives. Archived from the original on 2021-07-21. Retrieved 2021-07-21.
- ^ Watts, Rachel (2020-07-30). "How Paralives is using Patreon to compete with The Sims". PC Gamer. Archived from the original on 2020-08-11. Retrieved 2020-08-10.
- ^ "Our 2020 End of Year Poll Results!". Canadian Game Devs. 11 January 2021. Archived from the original on 2021-02-14. Retrieved 2021-02-06.