Togetherness: Make your Parafolks do Anything as a Group in Paralives
Hi, Alex here!
One big design goal for us with Paralives is to support many different playstyles. That’s why the game lets you play with a single character, with a big and busy household or anything in-between. When we were thinking of gameplay styles based around multiple characters and making them socialize, one key element was very important to us: We want a feeling of togetherness in the game so it should be very easy for players to make their characters do almost any interaction as a group.
How it Works
At the start of this animated GIF, only Sebastian is selected. Then, I simply click and drag my mouse cursor to create a selection rectangle and select everybody.
In the interface at the bottom, you can also shift+click characters to choose those you want selected. The white circles under each character indicate those who are selected but this might still be changed.
Doing a group interaction is super simple and quick: just select your characters and click on an object to perform any interaction, just like you would with only one character selected.
⚠️ Note: In today’s Patreon post, you might see characters turn around too suddenly and walk through each other. We will be working on making these movements more fluid!
More Examples
Our goal is to make every interaction in the game doable as a solo character or as a group. We might not be able to do it for 100% of the interactions but so far, we haven’t seen many cases where won’t be able to support it.
Walk somewhere as a group.
Do push-ups as a group.
Use the toilet as a group. In that case, as you can see in this GIF where I accelerated the time, they will take turns using the toilet while the rest hangout together while waiting. If there are multiple toilets nearby, they will each use a different one.
Or simply chat as a group.
More examples that are planned:
🍝 Making a family eat dinner together at the same time will be very easy with the system.
🌱 Selecting multiple characters and asking them to water the plants will make each Para find different plants to water, completing the task faster than doing it solo.
🛌 Clicking on a bed and selecting the Sleep interaction while having multiple Paras selected will make each Para go sleep in their own bed so you don’t need to order every Para individually.
🎮 Play a game together as a group.
💦 Go swim in the pool together as a group.
➕ And much much more!
Interacting with Townies
Everything explained in this Patreon post also works to interact with other characters from the town that are not in your household and that you do not control. You can use the selection tool to select them along with your own character and choose an interaction to perform. It’s possible that these characters refuse though because they have their own life and their own autonomy.
On the left are the two characters from my own household and on the right, we have two townie characters that I do not control. Don’t ask a very hungry Townie Parafolk to dance though, they will probably refuse!
Props to Richard for all his work on the features showcased today! We’re really confident this will allow players to easily perform interactions as a group in Paralives, strengthening the feeling of togetherness that is really important in our vision of a life simulation game. 🤼✨
Have a great rest of the day!
Alex
Edit - February 7, 2024: This post is now public, feel free to share it!
Comments (127)
Love this. I can already imagine romantically interested paras holding hands while walking together in part of a group or refuse to do so at times for some reasons part of their character trait and situation or other reasons.
Love this! In the sims people would walk in the bathroom while I'm using it!
I love this so much! 👏
my jaw actually dropped at the toilet thing. such a small detail but i adore it
This is brilliant, never considered something like this to be the solution to the problem!
My heart! I love this. LOVE THIS.
This is so awesome! It seems like such a simple idea but it changes so much for gameplay. Not having to click each individual person to do the same command is a huge help!
This is so simple yet genius. I love everything about it!
I’m so impressed by the intelligence and love you guys put into this game 😍 it’s going to be the dream game ever !!
I love this what a brilliant idea.
ESSENTIAL, thanks for adding this! Although I’m not the biggest fan of the white circles. Maybe just something on their portraits instead?
Thank you! The white circle is a placeholder marker and will be reworked or changed for something else
This is absolutely wonderful and essential. I always avoid playing weddings, parties and group events in The Sims 4 due to the all the insanity occuring as soon as you try to control more than 2-3 sims at a time. Wedding ceremonies with guests suddenly getting up to "troll teh forums", movie hang-outs with no sims actually sitting down to watch the film and so on. Thank you for focusing on the AI in general and flow of gameplay, thank you for all your work Para-team, you give us hope.
That's amazing! I think it would be nice if we could also choose if the interaction has to be executed now or later. For example, I could tell my parafolks to eat together right now, or simply add this action to their list so that everyone would finish what they are doing first. Same thing for solo actions.
such a good idea!
c'est dingue <3
Holy Cow. This is so simple and obvious and perfect.
it's the simplest task on earth to us mere humans, but having Parafolk ✨wait✨ in LINE to use the bathroom?!?!?! And whilst waiting, they were just shootin' the breeze?!?! Take ALL MY MONEY.
It's this attention to detail that makes me so excited about the game!!! Love seeing the progress!!
Beautiful to see team!!
Amazing, really. Such a simple concept that is present in many other games, but I never thought about it implemented in life simulation games. It works great and the possibilities really make me want to play it soon. Great job, you are doing wonderfully.
Thank you for the update! I’m looking forward to it. The multiple select option is cool. I can get used to it. It seems to be better option to select for group activities.
This is such a great gameplay feature! You're truly doing amazing work!
This is awesome! It's so wonderful to see a life sim be made with some common sense and quality of life features that will be really useful and look so natural. This is fabulous!! PS: I quite like the circle under the characters - there but an unintrusive white. Of course, you guys might come up with something you like better, but the unintrusive white circle isn't bad. :-)
My only question is how will the game indicate position when a character isn’t standing up with their circle under their feet, but sitting/lying down, swimming etc. I suppose the circle could transform a bit so it won’t clip or something
That is honestly perfect!
AMAZING! On the end of the group dancing option, I would love to have the style of dancing shift depending on the relationship type (slightly awkward for acquaintances, fun/wild for best friends, and fun/romantic for partners). That might be too big to ask for though. I would diiiieeeee for partners to be able to romantically dance together though!
I agree! And same for the walk style
THIS. IS. BRILLIANT. 💚
Amazing!
WANT TO PLAY
Wow, this is truly amazing. What awesome work. Well done guys!
Great idea! I hope that in the release version the characters won't move in sync like robots or zombie armies. Some character should delay, have slightly different paces...
Oh my, this is what I have always wanted in The Sims. Well done! This is something really outstanding for me.
This is genius, thank you Paralives team
Getting the Parafolks to eat at the same time? Truly a feat. 😆 it would be really good if the seating could be targeted, too!
Oh yes, it would be cool to be able to assign seats, just like beds! We will have to look into that!
OMG ! I could cry... I actually started to well up when I saw them going for a walk together and then all sit down to watch the TV. I am so excited for this game. I've supported you since I saw the first showing of Mollys loft, and my faith in you and your commitment to making a great game has been well founded. Well done guys ! My love to you all xx
Thanks so much Elayne, happy you liked today's post and thanks for your support!
The toilet and the bed ideas are GENIUS! I'm so excited!
Thanks Sarah!
Yes!!! I wanted this
Yes!
This looks fantastic and makes activities so simple. I adore it! You guys are doing such a great job.
Thank you!!
I love the group interaction so much... how great it will be not to have to click on one Para at a time when giving the same command, i.e., eat, sleep, (etc.)!! Really hyped about that interaction!! Yes! Thanks Para devs!! 💕🥳
Thank you!! Glad you like it!
That is so cool! I can imagine it would be really easy to create Clubs with this system. Gardening Clubs, drawing or crafting, doing Sports and Reading Clubs could be done very easely given the right spaces! That's Something i really hoped for. Maybe If this system gets developed Fürther they could do similar activities? An example would be: Task 'play instrument' when multiple Instruments are present -> paras play different Instruments together as band! That's Something that would be so absolutely cool but i understand If that's too difficult to do at all or too much work for Initial Release :>
Clubs and music bands would be really nice to see and work well with this system! It's not planned to have them for the initial release but they would be great things to add in an update later!
Mind blown! I'd hoped for a 'do things as a group'-interaction but had no idea it was possible to this extend or that I needed this in my life. Some questions/thoughts: - Would doing things as a group together also improve their relationships and possibly make all participants "reading buddies" if they were all to read a book as a group action? - Would cleaning chores (assuming that'll be an option) work similar to watering the plants? So you could select the whole household and make them clean the house by each picking their own cleaning chore? I.e. someone cleans the sink, someone else the toilet, someone the bath and so on. - Will the sleep interaction work similarly for other objects/actions? For example, paint as a group with each using their own easel (if they are present) or cook as a group with each making their own meal as long as there are enough counter spaces, groceries and appliances or something? - Is the group action also possible for 'negative' interactions such as arguing or fighting (assuming those will be in the game) where they'll all interact similarly as if the action was to talk? Great feature, so innovative.
I love all of these ideas!
Omg this is so cool! I’ve always wanted to see something like this in life sims
Thank you!!
Awesome! Will we be able to select multiple Paras through their portraits as well? That way we could command multiple Paras who are too far away from each other to come home or meet up somewhere.
Yes, that is possible too!
omg
☺
I know this is an incredibly persnickety little detail, but on windows and a lot of programs like Google sheets and the like, shift clicking something will pick those two things and everything in-between. It's ctrl clicking where you can select individual items. It'd be really nice to have parity between usual keyboard combinations and those found in the game. Again, I know this is an incredibly finicky thing but it's one of those little things that's going to bother me.
I totally agree with you and it would be ideal to do it like you suggest, thanks for pointing it out! Right now, ctrl-click was used as a shortcut for us developers to edit a given character in the Paramaker so that's why we used shift-click for the multi-selection. That might be changed!
This is soo darn cool! Keeping families on a schedule will be a million times easier!!
Thank you Victoria!
This will make group activities so much easier! What a great idea, love it! EDIT: I was just wondering, when selecting the group to go to the toilet, does the game priorities the Para with the highest need to go? Thanks in advance if answered!
Thank you and good question! Right now, it doesn't prioritize Paras but it would be an interesting addition that we might do eventually!
The shift+click is *everything*!!! This is amazing and so useful, thank you Richard!! And thank you Alex for sharing! It's really interesting to see that the actions selected are not necessarily tied to the object (e.g. selecting "Sleep" on one bed, and everyone using their own bed). That's a concept I've not seen before in other life sim games! I'm interested to see that in action elsewhere - besides the bed and toilet examples given here :) Super cool!!
Thanks Lane! Looking forward to sharing more examples in the future!
That'll make everything soooo easy. Now I'll want to make family reunions and that kind of things because I won't get on my nerves anymore. Love it!!
Hehehe, I see what you mean! I hope family reunions will be easy to manage with this!
Amazing! 🤩
Thank you!!
Would it be possible to have polyamory, group "woohoo" type thing. Also can 3 people sleep in a bed together? Or can a baby/toddler/child sleep in with one or both parents? This would be amazing! Being able to have things like family meetings which give a feeling of unity... Thinking about maybe families preparing different ingredients in a meal etc. I love it!
These are great ideas, thanks for sharing! Regarding polyamory, we are planning to look into what we could do to support it in the game
France J'aime tout ce que j'ai vu !les paras pourront-ils manger au restaurant ensemble?
Merci Ludivine! Nous n'avons pas encore décidé comment fonctionneront les restaurants mais si on les ajoute au jeu éventuellement, ils pourront sans doute y manger ensemble, oui!
This is such a great idea! Love that y'all keep finding such creative ways to make drastic quality-of-life improvements that we've yet to see in this genre!
Thank you Tiffany!
AH SO COOL!!!
As a patreon side note, has the 'like post' button disappeared for anyone else or just me? 😅 I can see it for the comments but not the post itself
Every post like this one keeps me so optimistic about the game! It has some great QoL features that makes everything easy to do. My brain is between wanting to play ASAP and letting the game cook slowly so we get hundreds of more features like this 😂
Hehehe, thank you a lot!
this is incredibly smart, i love it! in other simulation games, when there's two charas who need the toilet, one will go, and the other probably gives up bc the needed item is already in use. it's possible they will wait their turn, but maybe a different interaction will just override the 'use toilet' action. being able to send a *group* to do something, and the game figures out if they can do it simultaneously (like push-ups), or together (like playing a board game), or if they wait their turn (toilet), or if they have specific linked objects (like their own designated beds) is simply genius. i can't believe i haven't seen it implemented this intuitively anywhere before. congrats on this new milestone! i'm so excited to play this game eventually <3
Thanks so much for all the kind words!
I LOVE how the paras are smart enough to take turns using the washroom and will continue to chat until it's their turn. Very nice design and dev work!
Thank you!
To be clear I love this as is and will be thrilled even if this idea isn't implemented. Suggestion: create an option for synchronized activity, e.g., push ups where they go up and down at the same time. This could be great for modders to use to then create yoga classes, dance routines, etc. And perhaps paras with less skill may also lag behind a bit. :D I'm so thankful for all the work you're doing.
Thanks so much Jennifer! I think the current system would allow to do something like that and I'm eager to see what we and the modders will be able to do!
I absolutely love this so far! I think a quality of life addition to this would be to include a dedicated "select all" button and/or keyboard shortcut, to make it easy to come back together after everyone's scattered off doing their own things for a while. Maybe even a selection wheel for more specific selections like "all in household", "all on lot", "all adults", etc. Just some food for thought!
Good suggestion! A keyboard shortcut to select all household members is planned and will be very useful, I agree! Having more quick selection options like the ones you suggest would be great too!
"It’s possible that these characters refuse though because they have their own life and their own autonomy." Yes, haha, YES !!! I could see how this is going to be a great feature for an entire household. However I don't picture just yet how this is going to be something I'll use with NPCs. But this sounds like a safety measure so that not everyone doesn't always do as I command. It's not really a life simulation if you have complete control over people imho :P So I'm glad there are safeguards against being too powerful in this world.
Yes exactly, being able to have 100% control over non-playable characters would remove a lot of challenge from the game
Oh this is amazing! Saves so much time! And I love that you got it to work so that they take turn going to the bathroom. Must be some fun glitches while you guys made that 😂
Hehehe, there were many fun bugs while working on that, you are right!
This looks amazing. Excited to see this in person!! Waiting eagerly.
Thank you Synthia!
!I really love how you make this game to be more user friendly I remember you showing us about left clicking the pinned action on an item and now this🤌🏻 BTW, what about CTRL + Right click? You can select plenty of parafolks like that - from the main parafolk to the other one the user clicked on.
Thank you! We are still tweaking what the actual keyboard shortcuts will be but yes, you can shift-right-click on any character in the world to add them or remove them from your selection
Will there be any plans for a feature to make a band, allowing several different paras to play different instruments playing the same song? (One on piano/keyboard, one on guitar, one singing, ect...) I 've always wanted that feature in other life sims, but I've never seen it implemented.
It's not planned for the initial release of the game but I'd love to add that feature some day!
So smart especially when it comes to everyone going to their own beds to sleep. Saves so much time
Yes, that will save time!
Wow! Your team impressed me more and more each time I see it. I cannot wait to play this.
Thank you Jennifer!
Amazing 🤩 absolutely love this feature!
Thanks Brook!
Paralives really worth waiting.
♥
This is so cool?? I'm so excited for the possibilities of group interactions. It seems like it could be extremely useful or allow you to create group chaos, and I'm here for it.
I'm totally not going to create a dance cult. Don't worry.
OMG THIS IS AWESOME ! C'est révolutionnaire !
Marci Sylvia!
It would be nice seeing the paras take different roles when “cooking as a group” depending on the recipe that they’ll be working on, like one of them is chopping vegetables while the other one its using the oven or looking for something at the fridge etc.
That would be fun to see, I agree! We are starting to work on cooking actions and we will see what we can do when doing it as a group!
i love this!! especially being able to make everyone go sleep in their own beds all at once instead of having to individually select each para
Yes! That is going to save a lot of clicks when it's bedtime!
Fantastic!🩶
Happy you like it!
This is great!
Thank you <3
Fantastic addition!!! Really love this feature! So glad for the opportunity to see this game develop and improve over time!
Thank you Danielle!
By the way, I had a thought about the garden, to add cherry blossoms to the game. I can just imagine how wonderfully the designers of this game will create cherry blossoms; I think it will be simply amazing. The same idea came up regarding rose bushes❤️❤️❤️
Oh, these would be great elements to add!
very interesting feature!
Thanks Giuseppe!
What an awesome feature! I hope to make like a dance group and have them sing and dance to k-pop songs!
That would be really cool to see!
this is revolutionary
Thank you!! Glad you like it!