Build Mode Clutter & Decor + Showing Some Disabilities-Related Items! (Patreon)

Hey there! Chloe here today to showcase some exciting stuff for our Build Mode. I’ve been working hard creating various items to decorate and clutter your houses so you can bring your builds to life and better represent your Paras through their space. I’ll be showcasing a full house build today, focusing on the game’s new clutter and decor items – we will also discuss disabilities in the game. Today’s post is a big one!

A Word on Disabilities in the Game

Many people have been speculating on our view regarding disabilities in Paralives. As devs, we feel it is important for us to be able to represent as many people as we can with our game. Disabilities are everywhere around us; be it our friends, our families, or even us, devs. Be it visible, or invisible.

There are many things to consider regarding disabilities in the game, especially with gameplay features. It requires a lot of design (for instance, how to tackle pathfinding with Paras with mobility restrictions), research, even consulting, and programming, to get things right.

While we won’t be able to do more complex Live Mode features related to disabilities for the Early Access launch, we thought there must be a way to at least represent our player base living with disabilities in the game. In Animal Crossing, people loved the wheelchair, although it was unusable, you could make your character sit in it and take pictures in it. We figured it was the least we could do – as such, the items we will be showing you all today will most likely not have gameplay uses for the Early Access release. Nevertheless, we hope it will help you better represent your Paras individualities as you decorate your house with items that truly embody them. 

While I used some specific disabilities and diagnoses to guide me when creating objects for the game and decorating the following rooms, please note that labels and diagnoses will not be in the game!

House Tour!

On to the house tour! The house I am showing today was created while stress-testing the Build Mode. We want to make sure all severe issues that players will encounter, or issues we will encounter while creating our town, are ironed out before the programmers shift their focus to Live Mode. This house was designed to showcase the different new objects I’ve made these past few months. This isn’t a Townie house!

You can tell an older crowd decorated this space! We have new objects that fit the “chalet” vibe, as well as returning ones, like the deer head and the bullhead from Sebastian’s house. Psst psst: the fish is called Billy.

Quite the cluttered kitchen, wouldn’t you say? I created a lot of kitchen clutter in the last few months. This is a few of them!

We have new tool holders, baskets, and cutting boards! Also, believe it or not, the eggs in that metal basket are recolorable! Just in case you prefer your eggs brown.

We have some recent produce, like the jam jars and honey pot, as well as tins and even a steamer basket! Why the cheese wheel, you say? Yes. Mmmhm. Cheese.

For this room, I’ve imagined a Para that likes pastel colors, likes space, and is autistic, when creating the room. I decided to fill the room with a lot of comfort items, like the different plushies (including the new weighted lizard!).

Stim toys and noise-cancelling headphones are lifesavers when you are getting overwhelmed. We also have a heating pouch, to combat cold winter nights.

This room is visibly geek-coded. Someone who’d live here would have a liking for, huh, Delicious and Dungeon. Right. You got cool displays of skate decks, and LARP gear as well. You can maybe notice the asthma pumps, along with the blood glucose meter and the insulin pump.

This one is quite the colorful one! I imagined a space for someone who’d have an auto-immune disease, and so they always have their trusty oxygen concentrator not too far.

A closer look at the manual wheelchair. Pretty much every aspect of the chair is recolorable, so I’m hoping you will be able to customize it to your liking!

We also have a walker, with recolorable tennis balls (of course)!

In terms of mobility aids, we also have forearm crutches and walking canes!

With someone with mobility restrictions in mind, I created a bathroom large enough to easily fit a wheelchair, with everything at arm’s length (while seated). I added some handles as support to get to the toilet and the shower. They are, however, purely aesthetic and not functional.

Lastly, the more “dated” look is back. We have a white cane (it has a marshmallow tip, for anyone wondering), a book in braille, and a magnifier to see things better!

We have some small hearing aids and a sign language book. There’s also a text phone, which allows people to read what the other person on the other end is saying; nowadays, it’s all possible on cellphones, but the folks struggling with technology tend to still use it.

These bathroom staples are soon to be your bathroom staples!

A full view of the first floor!

And here is the second floor!

The exterior of the house as a little bonus treat! I wanted to have fun (breaking) testing the build tools, and wanted roofs at different heights and levels. (Disclaimer: the little ramp at the front is something I did with our advanced tools, it is not currently an object in the game.)

This concludes today’s extensive showcase! I hope you liked the new objects you may have spotted in the different rooms around the house. Let us know what other items you’d like to see in the game (I’m always looking for inspiration, ahah!)

Chloe ლ(́◉◞౪◟◉‵ლ)Edit - November 14th, 2024: This post is now public, feel free to share it!