One of my earliest gaming memories is playing a life sim. Little ol’ me sat down at the computer and played God. It felt tingly to be in control, and it’s still the feeling I get now. And while I’ve spent countless hours in new titles, like Starsand Island, and ‘old’ ones, like The Sims 4, I’ve been patiently waiting for one title in particular – and that’s Paralives.
Over the last 7 years, this game has been brought to life through a fully-funded $3 million Patreon campaign. People clearly back Alex Massé and his studio, supporting their belief that there’s still space in the sim world for more. And I’m perpetually inclined to agree.
And now, it’s finally launched into Early Access. Paralives Studio has been very upfront about what you’re going to get right now and what will come later. That level of transparency is something I’ve kept in my mind throughout this EA Impressions piece, especially when I’ve noticed bugs that, well, bug me. The team plans two years of this, adding content like cars, pets and deeper parenting gameplay over the coming months. Fortunately, any extras will be free. In fact, they pledge that there will never be any paid DLCs.
As a new life sim on the block, Paralives invites you to do what this genre does best, run the world as you see fit. From the get-go though, I found myself fighting the urge to compare Paralives with that other big great sim that’s been at it for over 20 years. But Paralives Studios has 15 people on its small indie team, and what they lack in big numbers, they certainly make up for in ambition and resilience, as I feel is demonstrated in this title.
I arrived in town on a train. The storybook art style is dreamy and different. The vibe reminds me of a Wes Anderson film. It’s serene, and it’s also my introduction to the gameplay of Paralives. My host? Roberto, a conductor who speaks strictly Parli, the language of the Parafolks, lovingly crafted and eerily similar to Simlish (I told you, it’s far too easy to compare).
Families are lining the seats of a busy carriage. The Preston-Beaumonts, the O’Reillys, the Reed Household, all with detailed paragraphs about their interests and relationships. I’m told, for instance, that Florence and Faye O’Reilly have been happily married for 30 years, and it’s details like this that I love. A picture is being painted for me and, unironically, the characters look like they’ve also been created by the strokes of a brush.
They’re just glimpses of what’s available in Paralives’ very own and wildly intriguing character creator, the Paramaker. Immediately, I’m astounded by the level of detail you can go into when creating your Parafolks. I swim around in a grid to change the size and shape of the entire nose, chin length, face height, and even the position of the earlobes. Once inside individual features, I can change intricate proportions at a level of minutia that’s deeply impressive. But it almost feels like too much.
Clothes, for now, are fairly limited. Another feature that Paralives Studios has keenly said there will be more of. They’ve included a jammy toast costume for EA though, because why not? Apparel is gender fluid, too, and thank goodness because the women’s wear is far superior in scope. Once dressed, you have points to spend across personality, plus vibes, social perks and talents to pick out that you’ll grow as you play.
I take my time pondering over choices like the eight different levels of ages and clothing that can literally be tweaked individually across the entire colour palette. But, where my eyes twinkled with glee was with the game’s genetics system. In Paralives, you can make offspring based on their parent’s genetics. One parent, or two, it doesn’t matter. When I experimented with just a dad though, the female and male child had the exact same face, and let’s just say it didn’t flow the way I’d hoped. I didn’t want to make a child though, I wanted two parents to have one in the game.
It’s time for a confession. I’ve played thousands of hours of sim games, one in particular, and my favourite thing to do is to have babies. I’m a breeder, okay, it is what it is. But, I also do it because I think it’s a superior stress test for a game, for both the development and for myself. Before I can get to work on this aspect of the game though, I needed to create my Parafolks.
I make two adults, Jackson and Lisa. On the train, I’m immediately introduced to a game mechanic that I’ve never experienced before – your Parafolks can travel as a group. That’s right, they can do tasks and complete goals, as a collective. Everyone’s hungry? Drag a box over your Paras and get them all to do the action together. Genius. Where this faltered though, was when I instructed Lisa to do something individually, like check the daily requests on a board, and in the meantime switched to Jackson, which then triggered it to respond to him and not her.
Before you start, you pick a Storyteller who affects gameplay parameters and difficulty level. I opted for normal because I wanted the most realistic version of the game. As I played, every single time the clock ticked to the next day, the Storyteller offered me a perk or a change in my gameplay that affected social, work, and random extras. In conversations, the Storyteller also played a part. But, while her presence was appreciated on some levels, it did begin to feel like a little bit of a chore.
It’s the conversations between the Parafolks that I really want to talk about. Unlike any sim I’ve played, you fill up a bar and you can pick a topic of conversation based on your Parafolk’s personality trait. I don’t want to keep repeating myself, but right now in Early Access, this feels limited. I felt like I was choosing the same options over and over, waiting for my opportunity to influence a relationship while the bar filled up again. But, I still managed to make sure Lisa and Jackson fell in love, with a little prompting from the Storyteller, and that’s when it got very interesting.
I got to make the babies. Twins, unexpectedly. And as Lisa writhed in agony during labour, Jackson chatted to her about how dirty the house is. As if by magic, both babies were suddenly on the floor, crawling, straight out of the womb. My perfect stress test introduced twins to the mix, and I’ll be perfectly honest, it was chaos. Jackson dropped a baby under the crib and started to do push-ups. One baby found itself half in the floor, half out. At one point, Lisa lay one of the twins on top of the other in the crib and they created a strange hybrid baby that was a struggle to split apart.
I’m not saying I didn’t enjoy it. I love a challenge, but I’m just not sure that the game was ready for me to do such a thing. After cleansing Lisa and Jackson’s home with some sage, I resorted back to simpler lots with single Parafolks or pre-built families. The life sim lover in me hopes a fix comes sooner rather than later.
Life is busy enough without the babies though. Paralives has included a wraith of extras to keep you ticking along in the open world, like picking up daily requests off the town boards, donating to the community centre, gathering mushrooms and artifacts and reading the daily paper. These are interesting building blocks to a busy life in the town. As EA continues, I’m excited to see how they integrate more into daily life, but for now they’re great flickers of how Paralives intends to build out its offering.
Jobs are interesting, too, though they need some ironing out. You can pick up more than one job at a time, as long as the schedules don’t clash and you can even choose your schedule. But, it’s very basic in its nature and pretty easy to level up. I seemed to achieve it purely by attending my job in a good mood (and sometimes still when I’m not in a good mood).
What I’m trying to say is that, as of right now, the Live mode is not quite Paralives’ best asset. It needs work and I’ve no doubt it’ll get it. In fact, you can check on the active Patreon and constant updates about what’s to come from weathers and seasons, to social events, to fishing and gardening, and even tools to create and edit towns.
Where Paralives impresses the most is in its Build mode. Where Live mode falters, Build mode comes in with the tools to fix it. It is seamlessly integrated, meaning you can move objects and even delete them in live mode without any special mods (bye, bye mouldy food). But what’s really exciting is the gridless placement. That’s right, you can put things wherever you want, whenever you want. There’s even curved walls and split level design that really tickles my builder pickle.
This scope is huge for a build mode lover like myself and it’s where the intricacies you experience in the Paramaker really come into play. Your colour palette offers endless possibilities for item customisation. You can flip objects, stack them, even resize them. This is where I think Paralives players are really going to unlock the game’s potential. Forget having a job and raising babies (for now), I’m about to get hardcore with interior design.
So, while Live mode has left me feeling a little disappointed, there’s promise of more. Build mode is a demonstration of the developer’s intense creativity and deep understanding of life sims. When this translates into more time invested in the Live mode, well, I’m excited to see what happens. It’s Early Access, after all, and there’s a whole list of things the developers will be adding in as the game evolves. I’ll just have to hold my breath and wait for them and I suggest you do, too.
