Paralives' latest sneak peek details death and autonomy
More like Para*deaths*, am I right? Is that anything?
It's been a busy week for indie competitors aiming to take some of the shine off of The Sims 4's life sim crown. No sooner had Tiny Life rolled out a significant content update, than Paralives shared a 30 second teaser video with a first-look at the game's death and autonomy systems.
The footage and accompanying dev post were originally released to Patrons in late May, but Paralives Studio have now let the general public in for a first look:
Roll on the inevitable comparisons to The Sims, then: Paralives' autonomy system shares its basic DNA with that of EA's life sim giant, in that you can customise the level of autonomy enjoyed by your little computer people to suit your preferences. This, incidentally, represents a different approach from what we've seen of other major Sims rival Life By You, which insists on letting the AI take control in most cases when you're not playing as a given character.
However, Paralives aims to improve a tad on its characters' overall intelligence in comparison to The Sims. It looks as though a peckish Paraperson with the power to make autonomous decisions will initially grab a light snack rather than electing to cook a full meal, leaving the serious business of dinner plans firmly in your department. They'll also hopefully be a bit better at heading out to work on time and choosing a fun activity to engage them when they're bored. Damn, Paralives, can you program me with some of that?
And, most importantly, in time-honoured life sim fashion, the new footage confirms that while Parafolk won't be directly murderable, you will be able to trap them inside a room, remove all exits, and watch them starve to death. You monster.
Paralives was officially announced in 2019, and is planned for an early access release on Steam. While there's no release date for that yet, you can support its ongoing development via Patreon.