Making it Better: Improvements to Needs, Emotions and Social Interactions

I love the card system! it feels more handcrafted and original than a radial menu

I know this is a bit late to this post but I'm wondering, will there be a limit to how many paras are in a group conversing? With just 3 para the screen looks cluttered with all the cards. What if it's a group of six...how would that look? Will the cards be tiny to accommodate? I also love how the needs were displayed as wants before. Can that be a side option? I can do without a needs bar. I'm really looking forward to playing this!!!

i don't know if the icons are final, but i have to say it anyways: it feels a bit off to me, that the toilette paper and the shower head (not sure if thats the correct english word) do have a dark outline, while the others don't. they catch attention way more then the other two. besides that, i love that you only see the percentage on the interaction if you click on the arrow. would love the see stuff fail, without already beeing aware that will probably happen.

I love the little emotions icons, especially the happy one :)

This looks very cluttered, sadly

I really prefer the way needs were before. It was innovative and realistic. You only realize ur hungry or tired when it’s relevant. We don’t need to clutter the UI with a visual of all needs 24/7. Now it’s just like that other game. People are going to complain about anything that’s different from what they’re used to. You guys made the right decision initially. Don’t let peoples opinions stop u from doing what’s best for ur game. Together cards seem very limiting. The player can’t direct a conversation in how they want it to go. I have to wait until the game allows me to flirt. Or ask if someone is single. Or make a joke. What if I want to insult someone? I feel like there should be more control for the player instead of giving 3 very limited options for how they interact w other paras.

I really liked the card variation idea! It's such a clever and clean way of having more options without overloading us or the UI

Having another read through for funsies and noticed the hearts fill in a sort of quarter basis- on first glance I thought it was more like a loading bar. Then I noticed the hygiene need goes down by a full heart. Made me wonder, will needs ever deplete in quarter or only in a full heart? Maybe this is something you’re still figuring out

Question: what's the purpose of the little icon with the house on the lower left, next to Maggie's avatar? If you click it you go into Build Mode?

I really love the art for this game and the animated effects look really good. I appreciate how focused you are on clarity and making the game easy to pick up and read. I'm definitely enjoying this iteration of things and really like the "speech bubble" aspect of it. Being able to choose intent of the cards as well is a big step up. I'd be curious to see what other emotions/flavors of speech can be used. I know different vibes have different options, but I wonder if there's some way for different vibes can have different flavors of text to choose from. Really enjoying your work and really craving an early access right now (I know, I know, let it cook!), so I'm happy to see your work.

Do we know if we will be getting a young adult life stage

Amazing post! I am loving all the changes and tweaks. I have a couple of questions about emotions and together cards. I don't understand the need for different types of introductions (serious, overjoyed, neutral), especially when together cards appear after an hour of interactions and players can only choose one card per group. If we cannot pick introductions immediately, it makes sense that every para would introduce themselves based on their vibe automatically when interactions begin with new paras since we can not choose a card yet. Perhaps if a para has high social points or a special skill we could have more control over how a para presents themselves initially (players can choose from an automated selection of introduction right away). Automatic introductions (unless with certain traits) could also add in a mechanic of "first impressions" which can be a big deal in real life. (In this interpretation of introductions "introducing as new to town" is separate from "serious introduction" or "overjoyed introduction"). Next, I would like to know more about the role and effect of lesser emotions. I worry that once an emotion becomes dominant, the others are essentially forgotten about and don't matter. For example, if a para is angry, but once they get home and eat the happy emotion becomes dominant will the angry emotion still affect their wants/needs/actions/potential together cards. Like yes, the para is happy but would like to vent about what made them angry or watch their favorite movie to relax. Or vice versa if a para is happy, but something happens to make anger dominant would they be able to reflect on the good things that have happened or just be consumed by anger? Thanks again for the detail in the post! Can't wait to play

*Love* the ability to change the tone of an action. That is such a great idea and it allows so much variety! Kudos for this! I never would have thought of it in a million years, it's genius!

So for the romantic cards is there a way to determine the specific recipient of the romantic interaction or is it for everyone in the group? For example if I wanted a para to flirt with one other person in a group of several paras could I do that through the together cards for that entire group or would I have to start a new, separate conversation?

Liking the way things have been changed to be more clear. Thank you!

I guess card variants will not just be "friendly or flirtly" but also with other intentions, like antagonistic, sarcastic, angry, sympathetic, formal...

This is so very exciting!!! Thank you for sharing this awesome update! I can’t wait for early access this year!!!

I'm so excited for this game. I just downloaded inzoi to play and the whole time I was playing it I kept thinking "I wonder what this mechanic will be like in paralives" and "I'm so excited for paralives!!!"

This is SO much better!!! Now the cards are way more clear, the only thing I would change is the pause while selecting the cards, I personally don't like to pause everytime I 'm selecting something, maybe it could be optional to pause or not while reading the cards. And one more little thing, perhaps the cards could "hide" a little one behind the other and appear completely while hovering over each card to use even less space on the screen.

Omg the Minecraft “it feels modded” effect! Those smiley faces are so new, it almost feels unofficial- but I love them ofc! I love these improvements posts so much, it’s so cool to see how feedback is taken and the existing systems are improved! Though what does the green smiley mean? I love when gifs are in the post, almost as good as a video, but that one was pretty quick I’m not sure I understood what happened

I like the idea of having different mood variants for the conversation cards. Anything that can help the player move the conversation the way they want it to.

Can the characters do things unprompted?

I really love the card variants!

What is the lightbulb button for?

As others have pointed out, I love the option to choose a variant of a card -- it's a clever addition that gives the player more freedom while not feeling overcrowded. I also really appreciate that your Para can satisfy their needs at work, and that there's a time limit showing for how long a specific action or reward will keep your Para in the emotion they're currently experiencing. Are those time limits different depending on the accomplishment? For example, if a Para makes a new friend, are they happy about that the whole day or for just a few hours? If they up their artist skills, are they pleased for an hour or just a few minutes? Or is it the same limit for all? If it's varying time limits, I think that's a neat feature. (It would be kinda interesting if the time limits for an achievement varied depending on the Para's personality, too. Perhaps a Para who tends to be more serious and depressed doesn't stay happy for as long if they complete a task, for example. I can imagine it would be a lot of extra work to implement such a feature, though. Just a thought.)

The icons for the Paras looks like Weezer haha!

I love the tweaks! I still feel like the cards take up a lot of space and while it's not a huge issue it got me thinking- in longer term gameplay, wouldn't this take up a lot of time and become a bit tedious? Not really looking at your paras but looking at the cards most of the time during a hangout? I'm sure there's gone be some tweaks to that as well but just wanted to point it out. I really like how everything else looks honestly.

Hi there! I’m wondering if it would be at all possible to make the size of the UI elements adjustable? Like I personally would prefer if they were smaller and took up less room, so that more of the game play itself is visible, but I could also see users with vision issues needing things to be quite large.

Wow I love the "card variants" addition 😍

I think it would be cool that instead of having just one pose portraits, we could have different portraits based on how the character is feeling. An embarrassed face, or a sad or an angry one. Also, maybe with a gradient to how positive their emotion is. Like it goes to red on the top, because they are angry or blue because they're sad

I love being able to choose between a romantic/casual option! One suggestion (that's probably already on your list of things to do) is to change the "time left" in the tooltip behind emotions to something that is more subtle, like making the font for the remaining time smaller, italicized, etc. Right now the reason for the emotion and the remaining time are both the same "importance" in terms of reading hierarchy. Also, I'm assuming this is a "fix later" thing, but the together cards aren't consistent in title/sentence case. I've noticed that a couple times in previous posts as well, but I can't off the top of my head recall if it was just in the together cards or elsewhere in the game. (Can you guess what I focus on a lot in my job? 😂)

Looks great, I love the updates to the together cards and the emotions! Really like the at a glance visual of the moods of the Paras being visible alongside the cards too.

I love these tweaks and direction. The card variants blew me away- such an elegant solution to a dilemma! I particularly love having platonic and flirty variants of some compliments. I'm assuming the icons for needs are placeholders, but in case not, I do want to mention that they seem out of place, particularly the food and sleep icons. I'm not sold yet on the whole needs UI but I think I could get used to the hearts. I am really really enjoying the UI for the together cards though.

Is it pronounced "live mode" or "live mode"?

Omg, I love the display of reasons that determine how your Para is feeling! It’s kind of like a memory system that makes them feel more alive since they have their own thoughts, and you can see what’s on their mind. It’s really cute to see what matters to them! It also feels a bit like a reward - when you do something for them, the effect stays for a while, making it more meaningful instead of just completing an interaction with no lasting impact. This definitely adds more depth to the game!

I really like the changes on the interface. It looks pretty good! I only have one question, as I don't remember if it's been talked about before, and the part about jobs reminded me that. Will jobs be active, at least some of them, or rabbit holes?

Hi Jérémie, thank you so much for this new Paratreon post ! This is really fantastic work, and I'm glad the tests are going well so that you have tons of productive feedback :) Here's additionally some of mine... First of all, I want to say that the highlight of this round of tweaks for me is the Together Card Variants. I read this, looked at the gif, and spent a solid 3min having a braingasm in front of my computer. The way this takes into account some of the criticism about Together Cards, without diminishing the constraints that make it such a great strategic mechanics, is just... BOOM ! mindblowing. I really like that we still don't initiate specific actions, and that we still rely on randomized Together Cards dependant on context, relationships, skills and so on, but we get additional flexibility. Whoever had this brilliant idea deserves a day off. Wait, no, we need you to have more great ideas like that. Ok we'll pay you a pizza, then, how does double cheese sound ? How are the Together Card Variants determined, is that automated (via the same calculations that spawn the Together Cards in the first place, depending on context), or is this something we'll have to keep in mind when modding ? The tooltip is also still a nice idea. I like the idea of having access to in-depth information to base my decisions on. The more the better ! "You can see all the reasons your Para has an emotion if you mouse over it" How does that work for the emotions behind it ? Is there a max to the number of emotion cards one Para can have at the same time ? Why are there different cards with the same color, shouldn't they combine ? I might not have fully understood these mechanics... Maybe I'd prefer a way to see all emotions at one glance, or even an average, rather than the dominating emotion. When you have your needs/emotions diplayed, doesn't that take a lot of space and even gets worse if you're also in a conversation ? I like how big the UI is (some of us have bad eyesight u_u ), but I'm starting to wonder when it becomes too much XD Regarding the needs, I still have issues with the hearts, mostly because they're red. Red in UI means urgent ! However when the 3 hearts are red here, it means that everything is fine... It's confusing for no reason. Could we please do something about the color ? I'd rather the needs in the negative had some pop of color instead, so that I don't ignore them for blending in. Similarly, I like that emotions are displayed (...as emojis !) on the portrait of the playable Paras. My only issue is the location of that emoji. It's already obstructing part of the "e" in Maggie, and I can't imagine what it must be for Sebastian. Long names will never appear in full with that system ; may I suggest putting the emoji in a top corner of the portrait ? And while I'm talking about the UI, I *really* love the bubble effect you added to the bottom Together Card. That's a great idea. I also like seeing the effects for each Para in the conversation. ...And, that's it ^_^; That's all I had to say. See you next week !

one question: when the romantic option is played in a group conversation will it affect everyone?

The changes all look great! I especially love the idea of having variations of together cards that we can choose. Personally I think it'd be really cool if the top "variation" automatically shown was influenced by your para's personality, relationships and current emotion. So for example maybe a para that is already feeling flirty would have the flirty variation at the top of the pile, whilst a grumpy para or a para who dislikes another para might have the "mean" version at the top. This would give the sense of what a para might autonomously choose whilst giving the player complete freedom to make their own choice. I do have a question about emotions though. In the screenshot, there seem to be other emotions under the "happy" card, with happiness being Maggie's dominant emotion. How do these other "lesser" emotions interact with the dominant emotion, or otherwise impact the gameplay? And is it possible to have a situation where a para is experiencing two emotions of equal dominance?

I love the direction you are all taking with the conversation cards and the need breakdown numbering

Thanks, it is now much clearer "who says what" with the Together Cards. I like that you don't come back home from work absolutely starving like my Sims used to, ha ha. I still don't like the little hearts and I'm not super keen on the smiley faces, but they seem to appear only when you click on the "!" icon so I guess they won't bother me much.

I like the option of choosing different moods for the same together card and also that needs will be filled at work which is how it should be! I was wondering though if the conversation is between three or more paras and we choose for example the together card "compliment outfit" will the para compliment all paras in the conversation or can a specific para be chosen? Sorry if this has been asked or explained before

I really do like the direction of this. Though I do have a question on how would the together cards work when you have a large family and your paying attention to other parafolk. Will they just pick at random? or would it just not really progress?

Oooo fantastic updates! The together cards look so fun to play with in a group!

Thank you so much for the informative post! You all are doing such great work, and it's always wonderful to hear about play testing and the adjustments you make as a result. I have a much better understanding of the together cards now (I love the animations when they pop up, and for the results!!) and it's amazing how many different directions they can lead the conversation! Am I understanding correctly that whichever card you select will be directed toward all people in the conversation? In the example in this post, Maggie, Seb and Marvin are all talking together. Selecting "Talk about piano" means that Maggie is the one taking that action, thus helping improve Seb and Marvin's piano skills, as they are both part of the conversation. So if you had selected a flirty "Compliment hairstyle", would that mean that Seb flirts with both Maggie and Marvin? Or would we then be given a choice as to whom the compliment is directed? Thank you again!!!

these changes look amazing, congrats on your great work! one thing still bothering me is the hunger and sleep need icons looking weird, i love the scribbly other two! and i'd love to see some symbols for the other emotions - everyone is happy here ☺️

Fantastic 🥹 the together cards and being able to click through some to change the intent is so good and gives us more choice without it being overwhelming. It's very clear now too who the cards belong to. I can't believe I'm going to say this, but I'm not sure how I feel about the emojis and hearts! They're very cute. But their style is a little different from the rest of the interface and graphics and they make things look slightly busy to me. For the hearts personally i would prefer if the approach and olours match the tool tip. The smileys could be paired down a bit. Just a personal preference! Can't wait to play.

I can't wait for these parafolk to become part of this home. You are all doing beautiful work

I love the refinement in the Together Cards and the introduction of the "mood switch" functionality. I think this is a great idea to allow this extra level of storytelling that some people were missing, since I guess it could also be translated to negative interactions quite easily (?) Such great job and originality from them team, honestly!! I have to say, though, that the needs being represented with big hearts is still so painful for me to see. I understand this is the decision the team has made on how to integrate the needs, which is something important for us to respect, but I just can't with it... I guess it will be my first mod u.u'

LOVE the card variants! Such a intuitive way to change how the conversation goes! I like the fact that it's the same action, "Compliment outfit" but with a flirty tone and intent!🥳

For the 100000000 times, WE CANT WAIT!!! It looks great, and I want that egg rug. Happy weekend!

I really like the little arrow for the conversation cards! It's a really elegant solution, better than what I suggested haha. These little improvements make me really excited, it's the last 10% of polish that takes the biggest effort. Keep it up!

I didn't read the double-cards as multiple cards, at first. I thought it had a special border

I love the tooltip displaying the numbers…providing information to the player in an elegant solution!

Thanks for the update! One small thing is it’s a little hard (at least in the images) to read some of the text. In the together cards, for example the pink background with the dark yellow text feels hard to read. Similarly, the blue on blue in the tooltip isn’t the easiest to read either.

Since we're going for a card system anyways, it'd be cool to see card variants look a bit more distinct than just a different color--for instance, a flirty variant might have hearts on two opposite corners, similar to a heart suit? Nothing too intrusive, but I think adding solid-color icons on special cards might go a long way on tone indicators.

Amazing

Aaaaaaaah I love all your systems, you're all so smart, can't wait to try it out ❤️❤️❤️

Woww it's a wonderful post and upgrades! I love it!🔥🔥🔥 Still, making petition for option to make cards straight without mods... I can't believe there's no other perfectionist. 😅😅😅

Amazing work! I hope to see more additions and updates in the future!

Hi Jérémie! Thank you for another amazing post this week. I'm loving the updates to these systems. I like how organized the together cards are now and the option to go from a friendly compliment to a flirty one looks so well implemented to me. And seeing which Para has the different cards is great! Looking forward to exploring that aspect of the game more. Having the numerical system for emotions is going to be so useful and I'm happy we'll get to see what's making our Para's happy. And I love the sun to show happiness 😊

Looks soooo good!!❤️❤️❤️

This is so awesome! I love all the little new tweaks! I so cant wait to play the game

Ughh, I love these improvements!! Especially those of the together cards lol, had my struggles there too! Overall it's more and more polished hehe

This is awesome! I love the detail of the card varieties and getting to decide if the compliment is friendly or flirty. I can't wait to play this game!

Really love the post - as always thanks a lot! One minor thing: in the first picture it seems that the needs and the other menu on the left don't align in height. I think it would look a little bit nicer if they were starting at the same height. Just a note! But I trust that you will continue to make great design choices! :)

Another Friday, another update yay!! \o/ I love the multi-use together cards - it reflects real-life conversations so well because we might say the same things very differently depending on the person we're talking to.

These tweaks make all the systems seem so much more intuitive, I’m very impressed. Well done team and thank you Jérémie!

Amazing Jeremie, I love the different variety and meanings with the compliment too!! Like the intentions behind it, I’m so excited 🥰 👏🏻