There’s a reason that we’re in 2026 and still see so few life sims on the market: they’re incredibly freakin’ hard to make. That’s not just me spouting my opinion, it’s something that the developers behind games like The Sims, Inzoi, and prematurely cancelled Life by You have said in the past. There are so many moving parts in the ways life sim characters interact with the world, their peers, and themselves. Making something functional, believable, and fun? It is not an easy task.
It’s a sentiment that has now also been echoed by Alex Massé—creator of the newest life sim to hit our Steam libraries, Paralives. During a recent Q&A, the head of Paralives Studio delved a little bit into just how much goes on behind the scenes in an interaction as simple as instructing a Parafolk currently holding a baby to go to sleep.
“The game first needs to wait for the character to finish their current interaction, gracefully drop the baby they were holding, play an animation to turn around by 180 degrees, walk to the bed by avoiding obstacles on the way and not cutting corners too sharply and be sure to play the proper animation while climbing the stairs because taller Paras need a slightly different animation while doing so,” Massé starts off.
He then goes on to list every other little nuance the game has to factor in, like:
- Ensuring Parafolks are in their sleep clothes
- Checking if one side of the bed is occupied or against a wall
- Randomly cycling through sleeping animations
- Replenishing the sleep meter, dependent on age and personality
- Automatically canceling the interaction when the sleep meter is full
- Having the Parafolk get out of bed, animations dependent on age and height
- Playing idle animations reflecting a Parafolk’s current needs or personalities
Massé clarifies that “this is all just for the ‘Sleep’ interaction,” and doesn’t even factor in what the game is trying to do when you’re instructing multiple Parafolks to do this at the same time, or when you attempt to cancel the interaction halfway through. It’s almost 20 different things being considered in the background for one task!
That complexity behind crafting a fully fleshed-out live mode has reared its ugly head in terms of a boatload of bugs in Paralives. When asked how many reports the team had received since the game’s launch at the beginning of this week, Massé says the team has “received over 100,000 bug reports so far.” I do not envy whoever is having to sift through those in the slightest.
It’s certainly worth remembering that Paralives Studio is made up of a team of just 15 developers, which feels ridiculously small considering it’s managed to carve out a space in a genre known for having about a gazillion different moving parts at any one moment. It’s the reason I’m still so surprised by how put-together Paralives is even with having to wade through its buggy early access state.
While Massé says it’s “very possible we recruit a few more people to help soon,” he says that ultimately “we like working as a small team so we don’t plan to grow the team too much.” Despite a small team and a mountain of bugs to squash, Massé says the team will continue to chip away at improving live mode over the coming months. For now, at least I can hang out in the game’s genuinely fantastic build mode.
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