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Cooking Poll + New Programmer + More Screenshots of Sebastian's kitchen! (Patreon)

Published:
2020-07-31 13:39:34
Imported:
2026-06
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Content

Hello there!

I hope you had a great week, we sure did! We have quite a few things to go over in this week's post so let's get started.

Cooking Poll

As you know, our latest Para, Sebastian, is a great cook. So regarding the cooking system in Paralives, we have been wondering what would be the best system to prepare and cook different meals. Would it be nice to have to collect or buy every individual ingredients for each meal that you prepare or could that become too tedious and boring? Is it simply better to make it so you can cook any meal from your fridge without having to collect any ingredients? Or maybe it could be a mix of both: most simple meals do not require you to have specific ingredients but some special high-quality meals require specific items to prepare. Please keep this poll between Patrons only, give us your feedback in the comment section and vote in the poll at the end of this post!
 

Postcards!

If you are on the Hero ($20) tier or Legend  ($50)  tier, make sure your address is correct on your Patreon profile because we will send a postcard in August! If you are not on these tiers and would like to get a postcard signed by the team with an exclusive Paralives art piece that Léa made, you have one last change to upgrade your pledge today. In August, we will send the postcard to everyone who pledged on the Hero tier or higher on August 1st. This reward previously required to pledge for 2 months but we changed it to just 1 month minimum :)


A new programmer on the team

Please welcome Jérémie, he just joined the Paralives team! It's been so exciting to have more people working with us and I can't wait to see where it leads and to show everyone our progress! Jérémie will join us on Discord and he will be there for today's chat session  at noon EDT on Discord for Patrons on the Ancient ($20) tier and up. Join us, if you can!


Here's a little something Jérémie wrote to introduce himself:

Howdy everyone! I'm super excited to be here and have joined the Paralives team as their new programmer. I have known Alex for over 4 years now, worked with him at one of his previous jobs and also participated in a few game jams with him. I've been immersed in computer science and video game design for the past 13 years - my university degree is in game design - and I'll be doing everything I can to make sure this project is the best version of what it can be!

I've been a fan of simulation games since the SNES era; Indeed, some of the titles I've played back in the day include SimCity and Harvest Moon. I played my fair share of The Sims 1 when that game came out - and the following sequels - and Animal Crossing is a big part of my gaming background. I love role playing games, narrative experiences and strategy games, but I try to play many different genres to satisfy my professional curiosity. Besides gaming, I enjoy many things like cooking, writing and photography.

I personally hope I'll be able to help with character progression, storytelling - both by writing text for the game but also working on daily events and interactions - and the artificial intelligence systems of the game. I can't wait to see where Paralives is going and how I'll be able to help the creation of its systems and features! I hope I'll be able to share my enthusiasm with all of you as well! 

More screenshots of Sebastian's kitchen

The kitchen is a place where Sebastian spends a lot of time so it was important to set it up quickly and properly after moving in.

This bear is really important and Sebastian's kid would never allow him to go inside a box on moving day!

Sebastian does not really need cooking books since he likes to improvise, but some books are just pretty and would make anyone drool!

A Picture of Sebastian and Lucas with their child. Sebastian framed it and it was one of the first thing that he installed after moving in the new house!

That's it for this week. I feel like I can't say it enough but, thank you for supporting the development of Paralives! It means so much to us and everything is shaping up well and looking great for the future of the game. And this is all thanks to you!

Cheers!

Alex

Files

Previews only

Comments

C

💜

Charmely Eenig

I loved Sims 3's aspect of buying groceries to make food! Of course you could make food without the groceries but buying them made it more realistic!

Anonymous

I want to be able to go grocery shopping. Purchasing individual items like in real life. But have a time system that means this doesn't take up a whole day lol

Anonymous

I love the idea of having to buy groceries to make food, could this mean supermarkets and online shopping?

Anonymous

I love the idea of a challenge for cooking! I almost went for the first option but I can understand how other players may not be as interested. As a major foodie, it would bring a real fun element to the game to *have* to have ingredients to cook anything. Maybe there could be a switch option for it in gameplay settings between needing ingredients and not?

Anonymous
>>41338158

I completely agree with this!! Having a more accurate time system so making food doesn’t take an hour, buying groceries won’t take like 4 hours, would be amazing.

Anonymous

grocery shopping please !!

Anonymous

I liked going to the supermarket in the sims 2 to pick up groceries and pay for them. Also being able to have a grocery job where you can work at the grocery store and own one and restock the shelves.

Kiya Averhart

I actually loved going to buy groceries or ordering them online on the Sims2 or 3 (I forget which one)? It's the small details that can really make a game come to life. ♥️

Kartoon Management

If you're making eggs and bacon you should have to purchase eggs and bacon. If you're talking about gumbo or something then maybe you purchase meal kits. Meal kits should be less satisfying than making it yourself

Breoni Hester

I think it’d be nice to have a switch option in settings or have it take longer/higher skill/cost more money to cook some things without specifically grocery shopping.

Amy Wallis

I loved the sims 2 idea of having to buy groceries, because of the realism it added. The sims 2 version of grocery shopping is my favourite because it wasn’t so tedious as to have to choose individual ingredients. Maybe a mixed idea of “buy vegetables” or “buy sweets” and “buy meats” etc would be a good balance?

Fae

I would love to have my paras go grocery shopping! They could also order through a grocery delivery service (like Shipt or Instacart irl), but that method could cost more

Anonymous

I feel like you should be able to buy groceries individually but not exactly as listed in the poll.. You could either buy them separately one by one but also filter by meal and buy all groceries for that meal at once..

natasha

I really want them to go to the grocery store. I want there to be some simple mundane activities like grocery shopping and going to the store to buy things.

Anonymous

I think it'd be fun for all play types to make it so that it's far cheaper to buy the ingredients individually for every meal, but the option to cook everything directly from your fridge is possible (just at an inflated rate). Having more complex meals require you to shop for specialty ingredients would make sense too. It lends towards those who want more realistic gameplay and those who want it to be easy and quick. Love the way the kitchen items look, by the way!

Queen Alyssa

Maybe ingredients are not required for the basic level but if you wanted to improve the quality you have to buy ingredients

KittlynM

Welcome to the team Jérémie!! 💕

Bizbot

Buying groceries would be so much fun <3

Anonymous

Really used to love the option in the sims 3 to have to make time to actually go to the store and pick out the ingredients for my sims and make sure I had what I needed to make meals. I agree with what someone said earlier maybe having an option in setting cause i could see not everyone loving that option

Anonymous

I think, if you're playing as a Para who is a chef or a stay-at-home parent or just generally loves to cook, having to go grocery shopping could be really fun... however, if your Para is focused on other things, it could disrupt gameplay. Would love to see this as a toggleable feature!

NHFoodie

I think needing to collect all the ingredients is great but giving players an option to “buy all automatically” from the fridge before they cook could be a way to avoid it being tedious if you don’t want to shop.

Adina

Welcome Jérémie!! <3

Haley

I think it depends on how long the cooking process takes. I think in the sims 3 it’s 2-3 sim hours. So if I have a family of 4 with two working adults and little kids who can’t cook then it’s almost impossible to make time to cook without having everyone be too tired for work the next morning. I can’t imagine always having to go shopping on top of that, even though that’s such a fun game play element. Maybe there could just be quick meals that don’t require ingredients (yogurt, canned food, salad...) and then everything else you need to gather up to cook?

Ella Pilchik

I think it would be good if you can cook any meal from the fridge, however they can be average quality at best. If you go out and buy the ingredients, their quality can be high

Anonymous

Grocery shopping makes the game even more interesting, imagine the para can go to supermarket to buy some eggs for fried eggs.

Fae
>>41338262

This would be neat! Maybe depending on what category of food they buy alters the options in the fridge/pantry

Christine Harvey

I like the option that Dehn proposed. I think maybe simple ingredients for each meal. Like you shouldn't have to worry about collecting every single item but maybe have 1 or 2 items for simple meals that you need or more for more complex meals?

Anonymous
>>41338261

i second this!! needing groceries for every single meal would be a lot, but this idea gives more options for the player and how they prefer to play

Nazly Sabet

Welcome Jérémie! I love hearing everyone’s stories when they introduce themselves! Especially that now I’m also looking into pursuing Game design in university! Can’t wait to see what you can do!

Sophie Goodman-Merel

I like the challenge of having to go grocery shopping, but also it makes the world feel bigger and forces you to go out and explore with your Parafolk. A notification popping up to tell you you're out of certain ingredients could be really nice like "Your Parafolk used the last of the Whole Milk! Do you want to add it to the grocery list?" And you can click yes and make a grocery list to follow when you take your Parafolk shopping. I'd also love clothing shopping! Maybe if you gain enough cooking skill or maybe a fashion skill you can create new recipes and design basic outfits? If that's too much for now it would be a super fun update. This is how I imagine that would work: you want to create a soup recipe so you select soup and then click on the ingredients it includes. And for the fashion design, I figured you can have basic templates like a tshirt template and a maxi shirt template versus a mini shirt template (stuff like that) and you can use stickers and brushes to create your own pattern. Then you can sell the design to stores and see other Parafolk wearing it around town! And for the recipes you can write a cook book!

Pyrus

Maybe everything comes out of the fridge but if you run of of groceries or you want something high quality you have to go to the market?

Anonymous

As much as I love the challenge of finding/growing (maybe) each ingredient for cooking, at some point it would get too tedious. A mixture of the two options would be nice, as it allows for your para to focus on other things. Maybe a life goal or skill would be to have a fully stocked kitchen, or to create every meal in the game with each ingredient with a rating of perfect or immaculate. But for the other paras whose stories don’t focus on food or cooking, having to stop their story progression to get every ingredient would take away from that stories immersion.

Lenny

Can we go grocery shopping pleaseee❤️

Anonymous

I love the idea of having to get the ingredients that you will need to cook with (or even collecting them from your garden, if this will be in the game). Someone else mentioned a time system being out in place so cooking and grocery shopping doesn't take all day, and this is a great idea! Also, welcome to the team Jérémie!

Anonymous

I’d love to make it an option for example when you look through the menu to cook something in a top corner there is a checkbox with the words fridge is always full etc if you toggle it then the fridge is always full and you’ll never have to go shopping if you untoggle then you have to go shopping for each recipe I think shopping would make me be more immersed in the game but at the same time I could see myself getting annoyed

Anonymous

I loved going to the store and buying groceries in the sims 2, it wasn't very specific, you just had a percentage for the total capacity of the fridge, but it made it simple and fun!

Maggie

Thanks so much for the update and the chance to vote!

Giu Alonso

Please bring back grocery shopping, maybe with an more expensive option to have the groceries delivered (it would stock your fridge automatically), but if you want to select higher quality items or save some money you'd have to go to the store.

Anonymous

Wow that looks so amazing. My heart is so soft for Sebastian and his bub already😭😭💞💞💞

Emma J

I chose option 3. It would be annoying to have to 'craft' a meal every single time, as I assume parafolks would want to eat 3 times a day. There should be fast grab options for the players who aren't interested, but anything related to actual cooking skills and making a good meal should require individual ingredients.

Eden Chan

I like needing specific ingredients but I understand that it could be annoying to have to go grocery shopping, so here's my suggestion: you can set it up so that your para household gets regular grocery deliveries, so you'll get those ingredients without having to spend time actually shopping. Rarer ingredients needed for special recipes might not be obtainable via delivery, so that's incentive for players who like cooking to still go grocery shopping. Also, since Sebastian likes to improvise, I'd love it if you could cook not according to recipes - as in, if you have a bunch of ingredients but they just so happen to not fit together for one specific recipe, you can still make a meal out of them. I think this would also reduce the frustration of having to make sure you remember to stock up on specific ingredients because your para won't starve if you don't have this specific ingredient combo.

Anonymous

I think this could be optional. For example, you can choose to have an automation where the meals are made automatically by taking some money from your account balance, or you can make them manually using ingredients that you bought in the supermarket. This would give us more options on how we want to play.

Anonymous

I love the way it was in The Sims 2! Welcome to the Paralives Team Jérémie!

Anonymous

I love having to get groceries and getting some ingredients would be interesting for special recipes!! At the same time I don't want ind. ingredients for every recipe and every parafolk, as it could be a bit time consuming and not as applicable for some gameplay

Anonymous

Welcome Jérémie!! 🙂

Miss Adrian Lee

Since the Sims is my only real reference for this kind of game, I want to throw out that my biggest complaint about grocery shopping was how long it took. And really how long everything takes in the Sims. I understand the time has to be sped up to be playable, but why does it take a whole hour for my sim to get out of bed, walk downstairs, and brew coffee?? So really, I'd love grocery shopping if it didn't take up half of an in-game day.

Anonymous

Also with the shopping thing, maybe theres and option of "add it to the shopping list" and "make with what you've got" which idk if there's mood modules but mayje the "make with whar you've got" has the chance to make a parafolk nauseous, upset or happy with the food they've made. Hope i make sense

Sasha Pugliese

I like that food would require ingredients but I think all ingredients should be purchasable through a grocery store or something. I hate when I can't cook something in a game because the ingredient is nearly impossible to find.

Melissa Toothman

I love the ability to buy or forage for ingredients, but not making it a requirement... maybe if you add homegrown or wild found ingredients to a recipe it can increase the quality of the meal. Maybe there's a quality higher than "high quality"... a superior quality of sorts, that can only be obtained by a combination of these ingredients and a high level chef.... but also if a para is bad at cooking, adding these ingredients might boost the poor quality up a notch for them, or using them might add more experience to their cooking skill than simply making meals without them... like the difference between farm fresh ingredients and making a microwave dinner or processed box meal. Also, welcome new team members! I also love to write, make art, and do photography! Looking forward to your contributions to the team!

Giuseppe Sammatrice

I'd like to have the deepest gameplay possibile. Thank you for listening to the community!

Anonymous

I would love to have the opportunity to buy ingredients at a grocery store, collect it yourself or buy it online. Also, I like the idea of being able to toggle it. Refering to the commentary from @Cara Miller

Anonymous

Supermarkets and online shops will bring some realism to the game! 👍🏻 But I also think it can be annoying for some players. So, maybe there should be an option like “restore groceries” and all minimum necessity groceries get to the fridge automatically. And the option “go shopping” which means you can choose things by yourself manually.

Anonymous
>>41338689

I agree!!! I love the grocery store idea! I feel like that was missing in the Sims.

Anonymous

I think it would be really fun to have like a grocery store to buy full meals, like frozen food/quick meals to keep in the freezer/fridge but also have the ability to but ingredients to make ""real"" food. Like your Para could buy pasta or make pasta based on how much effort the player wants to put into it. There could be like a cheap store like a Walmart esque thing and then a wholefoods kinna vibe for a different store and your Para can shop at whichever one fits their price point.

Anonymous

I wonder if there could be an option to get raw ingredients for specific recipes delivered to their home. Think like Hello Fresh that sponsors a lot of YouTubers. Could be like a subscription service where the meals are based on your cooking skill level and food preferences (Vegetarian, Vegan). I also think grocery delivery or grocery pickup options would be nice! Order online and pick them up or have them delivered. I like actually shopping in a grocery store but I just get worried with how much of my game time would be spent doing so with no idea exactly how long the Paras days are. Even then, sometimes I just feel lazy and having extra options like IRL would be great!

Anonymous

I think it sounds really cool to have to collect every ingredient for a meal, but would get tiring pretty fast. I would be fine with turning it on/off OR having a mix of both. Maybe for any dish past a certain skill level you need to have ingredients for, or maybe just a few "special" ingredients. :)

Anonymous

I think the mix option provides the best of both worlds. By not having to obtain the ingredients for everything you cook, it removes the tedium that would quickly cause frustration/impatience in some users. While the special high-level dishes would make it so that creating those dishes would allow the player to be more involved in the dish.

Anonymous

You could also have a system where you get groceries delivered to the door, if you don’t want to use a lot of game time grocery shopping. Or just an in game option where you could choose wether you need to shop yourself or if nothing requires specific ingredients

Anonymous

I would love to see an online grocery option. I think making it a requirement to have every single ingredient on hand would be tedious, maybe have an option to switch how deep you want that aspect on and off? I think it would be fun sometimes but not all the time.

Charlotte Stevens

I'm all for every ingredient but ingredients shouldn't go off. If food runs out online delivery can be made within the hour and failing that...takeout! Love the cookbook <3

Katy Thompson

I would love to have to buy groceries, but I think to make it simpler and less tedious there should be an option to shop by recipe like in the Sims 3 - you can just select what meal you wanted to make and the required ingredients will be automatically added to your cart

Anonymous
>>41338588

I agree! It would be cool if Paras could get a pack of basic groceries, without having to pick out all the individual ingredients every time. But it would be nice if there was the option to buy specific ingredients as well.

Samantha Johnson

I say the best option make all meals require ingredients but have all ingredients purchasable from grocery store easily so your little paradoll can buy groceries every few days or weeks and have a toggle for when you don't feel like doing it

Anonymous

I would like to see ingredients, where a Para would have to buy them in a shop or online. It would also be good to switch ingredients, for some unusual or funny results. It would be great if it could be toggled, some players might find the level of detail enjoyable

Anonymous

Have an in game option!

Simmons

I think the last option is the perfect balance because everyone’s gameplay is different. Basic meals wouldn’t require shopping however, every once in awhile you’ll have to replenish the fridge by clicking on it and it will just buy your food in bulk for you.

Danielle Ellis

It'd be cool if we could go to the grocery store and shop for things. For like a week or two supply of ingredients. And if we don't use them soon enough, the food spoils.

Danielle Ellis
>>41338897

Yeah, I agree. If we had the option to turn that feature off like some of Sim's gameplay options, that'd be nice.

Beth Anne

I love the idea of cooking being more in-depth and having to go to the grocery store, but I also don't want it to require the kind of intense meal planning we have to do in real life. Someone mentioned an "add to shopping list" option, which I like. Being able to go to the store with a shopping list (perhaps even auto-add-to-list based on which recipes you select) and being able to get it all at the register would be neat.

Aleksandra

As someone who loves gardening in The Sims 3 and the payoff in the form of making meals with the ingredients my sims grew, it'd be a HUGE turn off for me not to be able to do that in Paralives. It'd be great if all food made from scratch would require ingredients but you could also buy premade/frozen/microwavable meals at the store that would be super easy to prepare but wouldn't be as tasty/cheap as meals made at home.

Anonymous

I would say that very few dishes could be made without specific ingredients, but a lot of dishes needing ingredients that we have to buy in the groceries!

Nazly Sabet

hi! Quick question, will postcards be sent to Europe too? Thinking of changing to Hero tier but live in the uk?

Cookielllama :p

I'd really like to see a cooling system like the one in the Sims 3. Where you could go to a supermarket to buy ingredients but if you don't want to you could also cook the meal without having the ingredients at home which would then remove some money from your household

Anonymous

You can use the fridge to make convenience food, but that will affect the health over time. To cook real food, you can go to the grocery. ❓

AmorFati

I love the idea of going out to get your food by grocery shopping or gardening/collecting, as well as the option to get your food delivered. I think most meals should come with ingredients, but they don't have to be so specific, e.g. any vegetable/meat/canned good would be fine. And then some other recipes, especially the higher level ones, require more specific things. Of course different foods could still require different food groups, just not specific items perse. Fresh produce could improve the quality of the meal, and produce that's gone off makes it taste bad, and can even make your Para sick. Also, there should be a simple way to get the right ingredients for a recipe, so you don't have to remember a whole shopping list of (specific) items on the regular; so something like an in-game shopping list might be cool/useful.

Bee

It would be nice if they could just use the ingredients if they have them unless it’s a high level recipe that would require them.

sagebye

I think option 3 will be the one, but will maybe there be an option for it in the modding menu, like no ingredients or all?

Anonymous

I think there should be a few basic meals that won't require ingredients. those would be useful so your para wont die just bc you forgot to go grocery shopping. But for most of the meals you have to have at least one or two ingredients (the higher the level the more or rare the things you need maybe?)

Anonymous

i think a grocery shopping system like ts2 would be nice. like you have a food level in your fridge and if you run out of food, you have to run to the store and buy more, lest your sims starve. i think it'd be nice to have a system like that and for higher level meals maybe require some specific ingredients.

Anonymous

I'd love to see it be more optional - like if I was so inclined my para could stop by the grocery store and pick up special ingredients and/or pick up some general items rather than individually choosing - and doing so might give the para some kind of positive effect instead of impacting their ability to make any food. (Maybe something like "Fresh Food boosts your energy and keeps your sated for longer!" idk) I don't really want to have a system where I'd need to keep track of the number of eggs, bacon, and bread I have to make breakfast for my para family.

Hayley Seymour

I voted option 3, because option 2 is too unrealistic, but option 1 is too restrictive, especially if you play legacy style (which I’m planning on doing) and start out with little to no money. Option 3 is the goldilocks zone for me! SO excited to see how much progress this game has made recently, and I’m even more excited to meet the little dude - from that picture, I bet he’s going to be SO cute!

Myles Roy Revivo

What I really really really loved was how it worked in The Sims 2. You'd be able to prepare any meal from the fridge, but after a few times you'd run out of groceries, and you could order groceries on the computer. Not specific ingredients, just a grocery budget, and the higher it was, the more meals you could prepare. I loved that system, because it was not extremely tedious, you wouldn't have to keep track of recipe lists or hunt down one missing ingredient, you'd just order general groceries when they'd run out.

Anonymous

I am definitely in favor of needing to have ingredients for most meals with the exception of a few basic ones that are readily available to be used should your para not have money to grocery shop right away or just hasn't had a chance to grocery shop. Being able to pick up groceries is an experience that I miss from sims 3, but it would be even cooler if the para can go into the building and I could follow and see the inside. It would feel more immersive.

Pcrafter1
>>41339828

I like this idea! I’d like being able to go to the store as well but ordering a general resupply from the computer would be a nice touch!

Maddy

I'd like to have a system similar to the sims 3 where the ingredients are more "simple" and I'd really like a few meals that could be prepared solely from things you can grow/make on your own lot. With how I like to play the sims most of the time the "cheap meals" that don't have to be made, annoy the heck out of me. I don't think they couldn't be included but maybe if we could have a way to toggle it on and off?

Courtney S

I voted for most meals not requiring specific ingredients, but certain high level recipes requiring them. Or maybe if specific ingredients could be optional, but could raise the quality of the meal? I know some people love having to collect/buy specific ingredients, so it's probably important to have to some degree. On the other hand, I personally have no desire to think about ingredients when cooking, at all, ever (I also don't in the Sims), so I hope there will also be healthy meals in Paralives that don't require them.

Delisa Dickstein

It would be nice to have a mixture of both options for cooking.

Anonymous

If the top one wins, it would be nice to have a grocery delivery system available. I prefer version 3 though

Elizabeth Gonzales

I think I second the idea that they're are a few basic meals that don't require it. Kind of like they can have frozen meals or something so they don't starve if you haven't collected or bought any, lol, but I like the idea of having to collect or buy to make meals.

Taylor

I think that having to collect ingredients would add more value to having a garden or grocery shopping. I do think that one should have to pick up things like cereal, bread, milk, etc. but they wouldn’t necessarily have to be one use only and you wouldn’t necessarily have to put all of the ingredients together in a cooking interface. I also think having a cooking interface though would be cool for allowing players to experiment and find recipes themselves, or modify existing recipes to change them (ex. Making vegetarian burgers with fish (if pescatarian) or faux meat). Maybe after you make it once you can “quick make” meals below a certain skill level?

Dizzardy

I think the idea of needing multiple ingredients to make food is a neat idea....but it could get old fast. I think if something like was to be a thing it would need to be quick and easy for people to buy the food they need. (like have an online food shop you can set up to deliver weekly, daily, biweekly etc) Some people will like sending their para to the grocery store all the time to buy ingredients but for other people I could see it being annoying. I could imagine that gourmet dishes would take more effort to make (like having to visit a farmers market) but your standard run of the mill mealtimes should be straightforward to get the ingredients for.

Elizabeth Gonzales

Oh, the other thing, since time would move faster in game, I hate that it takes too much precious time to do things in Sims. I'm hoping it doesn't take too long to cook, collect or buy. I do hope your time management is a little more balanced. 😁

Anonymous

I like the idea of meals not being available until you buy ingredients, but for simple meals it would be good if there was just a "stock fridge" type of option. Like you could buy generic "groceries" and that lets you have cereal and sandwiches and microwave meals etc, and you can do that at the store or from the fridge directly. For fancier meals buying/finding special ingredients would be great. I like playing desert-island or self sufficient challenges, so I'd love it if the only meals they can eat are ones made from stuff they've grown/found themselves.

BreakingGaia

I'd like to have meals hidden and discoverable with different ingredients with a toggle or setting for those that want everything unlocked. I'd like to be able buy, grow, or find ingredients for meals with an option to maybe use fresh ingredients to spice it up. And if I'm feeling lazy, I'd like to have groceries delivered, but maybe make it so that you don't receive the best or freshest ingredients. I'd also like a system like TS2 where the meal's filling factor is based on how easy or hard it is to make.

Anonymous

Maybe we can use ingredients in every meal, but not every meal requires them, for example if we harvest some ingredients and use them to prepare meal, it makes food better quality.

Lucas

I voted option 1 because it's the most realistic option, plus it brings in more realistic gameplay and make the gameplay harder too unlike Sims 4. Xx

Freja Mikkelä

Either way, it should be so that one has to buy "staple food" for the fridge that runs out after a while, so you then have to fill it up. (Like sims 2) Part from that you can buy individual special ingredients for better food and whatnot. (Like sims 3) 🤗 imo

Anonymous

I would love to have to buy ingredients. Maybe you can add "meal" grocery lists, for the meals you want to be able to make, and then order them. Or you can have a more advanced fridge that lets you have automatic grocery delivery that keeps you stocked when you use things and they get delivered to your door and you have to click on the package and put away groceries. Or something like that.

Anonymous

1) WELCOME TO THE TEAM, JEJE!!! 2) I vote for 3rd choice because cooking is not my focus as a gameplay. If it is too complicated for a simple gameplayer like me it will turn me off quickly. But if I cook a special meal eg. for a Xmas party or for my sick loved one the special recipe will be more fun to acquire. Such as "Sebastian's kid catches a flu from his kindergarten pals. So Seb needs to go to the market to buy chicken or need to use the mint leaves from his own garden to make a special soup."

ZombieZmaj (Jenni)

If its just shopping in real life you can just order everything and have it delivered without leaving your house so really only 1 step longer than ingredients just being in your fridge... so its essentially not that unrealistic. It is for example possible in real life to have a fridge which creates a shopping list... or when I use something in my fridge I just tell Alexa to add it to my list. My cats food for example I set up a delivery 2 years ago on Amazon. I do literally nothing and every month their food arrives like magic. I dont even have to think about or acknowledge it except to open my door and take it in. I understand the idea of getting ingredients, but them just being in the fridge you can pass off as a maid/your partner/your online shopping being delivered so isnt actually that much of a stretch from what you can do in real life.

Becky

Awwwww this has made my day!! Such wonderful and surprising news. I had to bite the first one as it brings a new unique way of cooking from other simulations. Lastly, welcome Jeremie and Alice! Lovely to have you both join a beautiful talented family that I call my friends and I cannot wait to meet you both soon! Much love team 🎉🌸👏🏻❤️

Lucas

I voted for option 3, so everybody gets a bit of everything and what they want xx

Megan

My biggest concern is that collecting ingredients will become extremely boring and tedious. If there was a way to order them and have them quickly delivered to your home, that might be ok. But I'd much rather prefer if most/all cooking could be done without collecting anything necessary.

Sonny J

Would love recipes to be discoverable through cookbooks or expiramentation with ingredients. Getting a bunch at every ‘level’ of cooking skill gets so repetitive and doesn’t feel real.

Sonny J

And yeah maybe if you had to get all your ingredients to cook something you could save ‘shopping lists.’ That way it would be really easy to have everything you need for your basic recipes but it would still have that individual ingredient realism.

Anonymous

Hey Paraboos hope you guys have a great weekend! Welcome to the team Jérémie we appreciate your help ❤️

Anonymous

I want it to be 1 and 3

Anonymous

I wouldnt say most meals dont need ingredients for the bottom. Stuff like microwave meals not most

Anonymous

I would love a merge between buying groceries for meals in general and for the high/special meals u would have to collect or plant

Kaitlyn Metro

Welcome to the team Jeremie! As for cooking, one of the few things S4 does well is allowing you to grow your own ingredients and cook for free or to pay for a meal when you don't have the ingredients. I like this system as it makes 'living off the land' easy to simulate when I play with hippies.

Anonymous

I think it would be awesome if it could be like a combination from TS2 and TS3! So generic “ingredients” from the grocery store/delivery service from TS2 are required to cook regular meals for the average person, but someone that has a garden, enjoys foraging, or maybe just prefers buying ingredients from the organic/specialty grocery store can then use a couple of individual ingredients if they want a higher quality meal.

Trishy

I think the system in sims 2 was great were you could go to the store and buy/order grocery’s and you would have a good level and when you ran out you would need more groceries

Anonymous

I would like for it to be set up in a way where we can go shopping but we don't have to shop...like we can click on the fridge and it will cost money to cook something if we don't have the ingredients but if we go shopping and now have the ingredients it will not cost anything to cook. So like if you make a cheese omelet and you need eggs and cheese to make it...if there is no eggs or cheese it cost money to make it, if there is one ingredient then partial, and all ingredients nothing...the more complex the meal the more ingredients

Anonymous

Either way, I would just really appreciate having to actually go to the grocery store or use a delivery service in order to cook! I think it would improve on the realism/day-to-day experiences that TS4 is lacking!

Kasia

I really appreciate that his Cookbook is opened to pho 👌

Eliason

Honestly, if we can have only one of those options, I choose the 3rd: as others have said, it isn't unrealistic that you'd have staple ingredients in the fridge that don't necessitate a trip to the store, and maybe it's simply understood that some items were already "delivered". Complicated/high-level /specialty meals could require special ingredients that must be purchased or (cheaper option) home-grown.

Anonymous

I think the third option is the best (maybe combined with a ts2 grocery system?). In that way players who care about the cooking skill get some interesting gameplay, while people who don't care can focus on other aspects of the game. Also: I've said so before, but it would be so cool if paras could collect recipes rather than automatically know them at a set level. Paras like Sebastian, with a high cooking skill, will often make dishes of higher quality and also find it easier to find new recipes. Thank you for this great update, the best team! And welcome Jérémie!

Jimmy Neutron

So excited to hear there's a new programmer!! In regards to cooking I do love the idea of having to have each ingredient. Others mentioned this in their comments but having a grocery delivery service option would be great for those who dont want to need every ingredient. If we can have the basics delivered on a schedule then no need to go shopping all the time. Another thing, what about something similar to breath of the wild where we can improvise a bit? Maybe have main ingredients that you cant change but then some open slots to put special spices, ingredients etc. If you have some dried peppers then you could add it to make the dish spicy

Lucy McClean

I would love to have a from-the-fridge option for things like microwave meals. But to stand it apart from the sims I would love to see an option to buy bread, milk, cereal, eggs, sugar etc. Or an option to buy/top up on a bit of everything via internet shopping as well for those who aren't to bothered by collecting specific ingredients. I really dislike the pay from the fridge option, I like the idea that you can run out of food and have to run out to the corner shop or get a food delivery for the morning and only eat dry cereal for dinner lol. Also having the option to buy from places like with deliveroo (could also be a teen's first job) where you can order curry or noodles or pizza or falafel and it's a quick treat.

Shavonte

I want to be able to buy or collect individual items because I miss ordering groceries or going to the store. It creates a level or realism that won't be there if you are able to just click on the fridge and cook things you know you didn't get ingredients for.

Casey

I enjoy gathering and using specific ingredients, but it would make sense to also have some “instant” microwave type meals that don’t have to be assembled from ingredients. this could come from a general stock of groceries or individually purchased at a grocery store.

Eliason

Honestly, if we can have only one of those options, I choose the 3rd: as others have said, it isn't unrealistic that you'd have staple ingredients in the fridge that don't necessitate a trip to the store, and maybe it's simply understood that some items were already "delivered". Complicated/high-level /specialty meals could require special ingredients that must be purchased or (cheaper option) home-grown. It's probably a lot to ask, but is it possible to have an option in Settings to toggle food-buying on & off? A person might want to experience that from time to time but not always (free time is valuable and too often rare). Like toggling for aging in Sims.

Jacklin

I like the idea of buying individual ingredients, but it can get tedious. Instead, I think it might be nice to have to buy generic groceries once a week that would allow you to make simple meals. And then you can buy specific items for special meals.

Aleksandra Gołębiewska
>>41342064

This is exactly what I need in a game as well. In the sims 2 one could run out of the food and check how full the fridge is- it would be nice to have something similar in Paralives.

Anonymous

i would love to go to the grocery store to go shopping!!!

Anonymous

I think we should have the staple ingredients in the fridge but have to restock these essentials (just known as groceries) like in TS2! And then high level meals will need you to seek out specific special ingredients.

Emerald Sausage

Going to a supermarket to shop would be great.

Jimmy Neutron

One more thing, splitting up the cookbooks into diff cuisines would be a great way to customize ur Paras diet preferences and tastes. It would also be interesting if all recipes were able to be made but depending on ur skill level would determine how well it turns out. Weve all made a nightmare meal in our lives.

Joanie Boissonneault

I would love the idea to have to plan money and time to go to the groceries

Lucy McClean

I'd especially love to have the option to choose between different foods - for example getting the higher sugar/colourful cereal makes some kids happier than when they just have basic cereal... Having an option to choose between pastas. Mundane for some but just gives that little spark of fun to the gameplay. I've (re)started playing sims 3 again while I wait for this and just really enjoying going shopping to get bubble bath and a whole chicken. It's fun 🙂

Emerald Sausage

I love the look of the kitchen. I would like the cooker to be more streamlined with the counter, but I have a feeling you showed off built in hobs that slot onto counters, so I imagine there will be ovens and other appliances that also slot onto counters. The round mirror with the little shelf is lovely.

N00dlex

I would absolutely love supermarkets and other shops to actually be able to shop in, and I like the realism of having to buy groceries every week. Adds another task/chore to make the life a little more realistic, like laundry or ironing for example. Maybe Paras could buy simple ingredients "packs" or big meal packs with all different kinds of groceries, or have them delivered each week for people who prefer a less detailed shopping and cooking experience?

Anonymous

I think shopping and gathering is a great idea but also higher difficulty dishes could require rare ingredients that you have to find somewhere in the neighborhood. Also, I am so happy somebody is finally making another game like this, I can't wait for this to come out!!

Anonymous

I think it would be nice to have a separate category in game settings for "difficultu" or "gameplay" where cooking ingredients and other stuff like that could be adjusted. Taking cooking as an example - easy setting would allow to use fresh ingredients but not having them doesnt punish or block you in any way and then the hard setting that only allows you to cook with all the needed ingredients

Anonymous

I think it would be nice to have to buy groceries! It could provide the options of buying groceries either with a trip to the store, or with an interaction on the fridge itself (and maybe have them delivered?). And of course Sims with gardens could grow their own food.

Elli Roth
>>41342938

I would love that so much. Special dishes you re only able to cook if you find rare ingredients in the neighborhood.

Maxayn Henderson

Maybe it would be when you first learn a recipe, you have to have the ingredients but when you master it, you don't.

Anonymous

I think it would be great to have to actually go to the store to buy the ingredients that you need and the store actually having most of it, maybe the rarer items for higher level cooking could be random if it’s actually being sold that day or not. And then maybe in settings you can choose to enable whether or not you just buy the ingredients straight from the fridge when you make a meal!

Zedef

Welkome Jérémie! It's great the team is expanding and, in this case, that Jérémie and Alex have known each other professionally for a while. I

Stermatical

I really like the idea of buying groceries from a grocery store or ordering them straight from home. Along that, there could be an option to buy all the ingredients for a specific meal at once and having a saved shopping list to make things simplier. Basically, Sims 2 and Sims 3 grocery system combined. Last but not least, welcome to the team Jeremie! 😊 Looks like Alex isn't the only male working on the team anymore. 😉

Zedef

As for cooking, I'd love it if our Paras could buy ingredients and have some staples that can be used for all kinds of meals and some more complex ingredients. But in addition, they could also buy ready-made/TV-meals if they don't want/like to cook and can reheat these meals in the oven or microwave. And hopefully they can buy all this from a supermarket in person (Para?) or order it online for home delivery.

Elli Roth

Maybe there could be the options that you have to "refill the fridge" or just cook the dish and pay the ingredients automatically, but it would cost a bit more than buying them at a store. So you would have a little advantage, if you went to the store instead of just quickly cooking the dishes.

Bianca J

Hello Devs and Welcome to the family Jérémie. With regards to the poll, I preferably want to shopping for my ingredients. I want more reasons for my para to leave the house. When we speak about challenges in the game. This was one of the things I thought could be challenging by constantly having to restock the fridge..

Anonymous

I agree with Maxayn! I'd like to expand on the concept of collecting recipes by suggesting that the main way you discover recipes is by first collecting all the ingredients. For example, your new Para wants to make pancakes but has 0 ingredients. You as the player would go to the store and pick up flour, butter, milk, and vanilla and unlock the pancake recipe. After you've unlocked the recipe you don't need to go to the store for butter, milk, flour, and vanilla every time but you can if you'd like as a more immersive player. Maybe there could be a "use shopping" tick box that consumes the ingredients upon cooking, otherwise the ingredients stay in the fridge until other ingredients are bought to unlock more recipes.

Anonymous

In real life if I just want groceries auto delivered then it costs more. Perhaps something like the daily service, you can setup recurring groceries to arrive each day and stock the fridge but it costs more than just going to the shops yourself.

Anonymous

I like Chris's idea with auto delivery but costing a bit more. I would also add a "mystery groceries" to your regular groceries just so it encourages players to try to cook new recipes

Gabi Gratz

I prefer all recipes needing ingredients, but the ability to buy whatever you need that you don't have as a bulk purchase option (not purchasing individually). Ex a meal needs eggs, butter, milk and you have no ingredients: it costs $12 to make. Same meal but you have eggs, it costs $8. Same.meal with all ingredients, it's $0).

Anonymous

Welcome to the team, Jérémie! Loving the idea of my para going grocery shopping. Would be interesting if there was all kinds of variety to choose from for the ingredients!

Dana Darling

I'm split between the first and last option. I like the realism of requiring ingredients for all meals if there is ability to actually go to the grocery store and purchase them...or have them delivered. Otherwise (if grocery shopping isn't a feature), basic meals should be cheap with minimal or no ingredients required, and elaborate meals should of course require more.

Anonymous

being able to go to a grocery store would mean everything!! i love the realism. would also be cool to have a grocery delivery service you can order through some sort of in game app or website <3 thank you all so much for the hard work you're putting in on this game and welcome to the team jeremie!!!!

Hannah Varnell

I really love a mix of the first and last choice! Being able to buy ingredients for a new recipe or a more upper-scale dish would add realism. But having it all the time could be annoying. I agree with a lot of others about an auto-delivery on groceries that would cost a bit extra. So you don't have to worry about running to the store right before an event starts!

Alani Mason-Callaway

I'm hoping that if the Para does not have to buy each individual ingredient for some dishes, that there is still room for being creative in the kitchen, with options for which ingredients to use in those dishes even if you don't have to go out an d buy them. Things like seasonings and herbs would be awesome if they were customizable for each dish no matter what. And then main ingredients can be the things that Parafolks are not required to choose or buy. Just a thought.

Anonymous

I'm also loving the idea of 'unlocking' ingredients by discovering them for recipes and then being able to bulk purchase either in a grocery store or via grocery delivery. I think the mystery ingredient idea is fantastic too! Could be part of a chef's weekly challenge - discover X new ingredients and make X new meals.

Anonymous

It would be so great if there was a grocery store where you could go shopping for the ingredients!

Amir Mohanlal

I'm in favor of needing multiple ingredients to make a dish, since It requires you to actually make frequent trips to the supermarket and meet other paras on the way.

Anonymous

Bonjour et bienvenue à Jérémy. Tout d'abord un grand merci pour tout le travail incroyable que vous faîtes et j'ai vraiment hâte de pouvoir jouer à Paralives. A titre personnel, je pense qu'on apprends pas la cuisine dans les livres. J'ai appris à cuisiner grâce aux livres de recettes dont j'ai suivis les instructions et à force de pratiquer de cette façon on s'améliore très nettement. J'aimerai beaucoup qu'on ai pas à apprendre à cuisiner mais plutôt suivre un livre de recette et qu'à force on se perfectionne automatiquement dans la compétence cuisine. Par exemple, si on pose ce livre sur le plan de travail et que l'on clique dessus et que l'on choisit la recette, notre para ouvre le livre et sort les ingrédients du frigo et notre para suit les instructions et cuisine le plat avec plus ou moins de succès en sachant qu'il peut progresser à force de la fabriquer...

Alyssa Abernethy

I like the idea of auto delivery, but also having the option to go to the store.

Deborah Mutombo
>>41343113

I think maybe the option shouldn't be the fridge where you can buy groceries. Rather like a home/cell phone where you can call in deliveries. I think it should also be a tad bit more expensive to incentivise Paras to actually go out to the store. Other than that, I would love the idea to go grocery shopping even for simple items!

Aaron

There could be an auto-charge system like in ts4 if you don’t have the required ingredients for a meal, or you could have to restock the fridge like in ts2 by ordering groceries online or buying them in-store. I do really like the idea of having to buy specific ingredients, and I think it’d work best if you could order them online in addition to the option of going to the store so that paras wouldn’t *have* to leave the house every single time they need eggs (although that would probably be more realistic lol). As for unlocking new recipes, I like the idea of being able to buy certain recipes, as well as unlocking a few as you level up a cooking skill (like ts3), but I think it’d be rly fun if there were some very special recipes that paras can only unlock by eating them at a restaurant/food stand or by having a friend/family member prepare them. Maybe high-level cooks could even “create family recipes” and have the option to add/change some ingredients in an existing recipe, name the recipe and then teach it to other family members ^-^

Anonymous

I think the win/win here would be to make buying groceries an optional feature. Some people might enjoy hyper realism in their game, but personally that's not usually what I'm going for when I play.

Deborah Mutombo
>>41343281

I like the option to toggle on/off buying food from a fridge. I personally would not like it if there were no groceries stores and everything could be bought from home. We need something different and more realistic than the sims 4, please!

Deborah Mutombo
>>41343446

Oh yes, already prepped meals are a great idea. Maybe there will be snack items. Or maybe instant meals that don't require too many ingredients, like "Ramen" you just need noodles.

Deborah Mutombo
>>41343461

Thank you for this idea. I think we should make home delivery or purchasing ingredients from home more expensive not only cause it's realistic (shipping fee, tipping fee sometimes), but also cause it incentives Paras to go out of their home more often. How often do Sims (in Sims 4) leave their house if not for work and school?

Masha

I would love some "experiment" function where your para could just make something out of the fridge and maybe even give a name to the dish. Adding ingredients to it could make it taste better :D but yeah, it would get a bit tiresome to always need to buy ingredients.

Anonymous

I like the ts3 system where using certain fresh ingredient (from a garden or bought) helps improve the quality of the meal and the cooking skill of the sim

Deborah Mutombo

In the Sebastian reveal video there was a box of pizza. Is this a hint at a fast food delivery system? 🤔 Also, I personally think that Paras should have the option to go out and buy ingredients for any dish big or small and I think it should work this way: when at the store, you can shop for individual items or you can shop by recipe, this will bring up a menu option that shows all recipes that Paras have unlocked and are able to make (based on their cooking skill) and also show all the ingredients necessary. That way players don't have to endlessly search for every single ingredient. And if possible, please make a quick animation of Paras carrying their grocery bags to the fridge or the cabinets or somethings after their grocery trip/delivery. This would be such a cute addition and attention to details

Anonymous

I would like for them to grow some vegetables and fruits in the garden...

LapeyLou

I'm a builder in just about every game I play; I rarely *play* the actual game, I just spend all of my time crafting, building, and designing. That said, it's because of the lack of realism. Having the characters' finances be a factor in their meals would be amazing, and I would love to see that as a base feature. "Should my para pay the bills today, or eat something that's not mac and cheese? Hmm..." I love that sort of consequence in a game, it gives you something to actually work towards rather than it just being free and available to you. Although it would be nice to have an option in the settings to toggle "make all meals free" on or off, depending on your play style. Or a cheat code, even.

Anonymous

I feel like making it more realistic would not only make it a bit more challenging but would actually give me a reason to leave the house, i personally would love it if you had to leave the house to grab stuff like grocery's, clothes, or furniture even. And maybe for the people who prefer a sandbox game that's closer to sims 4 have a option somewhere to make it were everything you can buy and ship online (by a computer or phone) or have every thing like clothes and food unlocked for you

Wondrous_Mickey

As stated, everyone likes to play differently. I wouldnt mind to see complex system - need of oil for frying, spices, butter, pasta, etc. I can see people who wouldnt want this. I think that mix of every option listed would be best - two options for players, either complex cooking (need of spices, oils and other specific ingredients) or third listed option - stuff like spices, oils, butter, could give some benefits, so it would be still up to players who chose third option to buy oils and so in order for some benefits, maybe special meals. And maybe it would be best to do open poll about cooking - like we could write recipes, ingredients and stuff about cooking

Anonymous

I want to have to buy groceries to cook like it was in Sims2. Maybe make an option to go to an actual grocery store or just order them online. Basically I need to spend my paras money on something for them to eat.

Victoria Franklin

I'm all for complexity, but for the sake of catering to people's different play-styles I think a mixture of both would be needed. If you can take a trip to the grocery store and buy like 99% of the ingredients I think that would be best. Grocery delivery can be an option. And takeout options (pizza, Chinese, etc.) should definitely be in the game as well. Very simple meals perhaps shouldn't require nit-picking with ingredients, but I think most meals should require you to have the ingredients on hand. I really hope a gardening system gets introduced to supplement this as well (and maybe even farming!!).

Megan Santucci

I like the idea of a mix because that's how I cook--usually I have most of the ingredients for my favorite meals on hand, but every now and then I might try something different and have to go buy a special ingredient.

Megan Santucci

But I do still want to go grocery shopping. Maybe there can be some kind of "staples" preselect so if you want to shop quickly you can click one check mark and your para will automatically get flour and eggs and milk and other stuff that's used in multiple recipes.

Megan Santucci
>>41348260

Sort of like in DnD where you can go through the whole equipment list picking stuff out or just buy an "adventurer's bundle" and call it a day. 😂

Anonymous

PLEASE let us be able to buy things like sugar, coffe, flour ecc... Don't need them to be necessary functional but I'd love to have the possibility!

Similicious

even to make the simplest thing like peanut butter and jelly in real life you need to buy the items (bread, jelly, butter) first. so I think having to purchase the ingredients is key. and we should have everything available to via delivery. I mean who only gets pizza delivered uh? You can get pretty much anything to your door these days. so yeah ALL ingredients must be bought and ALL dishes should be available to order for delivery NOT JUST PIZZA 😣

Anonymous

Welcome Jérémie! Hope you enjoy your time on this project! ☺

Anonymous

It would be good to maybe have a simple inventory by categories too, like "sugar, flour, dairy, veggies, spices, fruits, coffee" with meters for the simple foods. When selecting for recipes it could show "Requires fruit, flour, eggs, dairy" and have the meters marked lower for how much it would cost. We could have a "check groceries" and get a pop window. If low, we could do a "Replenish Groceries" and a delivery service would bring it for an extra cost. If we went to groceries it would be cheaper and we could buy individual items for some especial recipes. Likewise, going to the store and buying a specific fruit would also replenish the fruit meter. I think that would satisfy those who prefer it simple and those who like the challenge.

AmorFati
>>41349407

Yes, I absolutely love this. Some recipes might still require a specific fruit or vegetable, but most could do with any generic one. And maybe herbs/spices could be optional to recipes (insert bland white people food joke).

Nea Emrys

I would like at least some sort of requirement for cooking - like having to buy groceries even if it's not specific ingredients. There's always a place for cheats, but default should prioritize immersion - which ofcourse can be done in different ways.

Danny

From what I’ve read in the comments, a sort of bundle that has everyday ingredients like bread, milk, eggs, meat, veggies and fruit would be nice to purchase but more complex meals would require you to go out and specifically by them.

Anonymous

I think that for a few easy dishes, you should not need to go ingredient-hunting. (However you should still need to fill up your fridge with generic groceries, something like the sims 2. I would not like to have an endless supply of food just because I bought a fridge once). But then I would love to have many recipes and dishes that are more fleshed out, where you need to buy/grow specific ingredients etc. Maybe you need to buy specific cookbooks as well? Maybe there is a fancy deli where foodies can go to get their ingredients? I would LOVE that, it is my number 1 dream for this game to have a little foodie cornershop where you can buy cool spices, fancy cheeses, wine, jams, rare ingredients etc. So bottom line: A mix, but with a clear emphasis on the 'specific ingredients' alternative. I would choose alternative 3, but swap 'most' for 'some', and 'some' for 'many' :P

Lauren Belcher

I like the idea of having to go out to the store to get food and ingredients. It’s just not realistic to me for the food to just materialize in my fridge. Or even buying seeds and growing your own ingredients

Anonymous
>>41350530

Oh, and pretty pleeease let my hipster para be able to grow his own chillies<3<3

Anonymous

I like the idea of having food be a mix of both. You have all some basic ingredients , but the more complex stuff you have to buy. To unlock new recipes you could have to find or buy recipe books! And even find them in the town or unlock them or get them from paras :) like if your para gets the achievement of becoming a grandmother, you can unlock grandmas pie recipe or smth and get a special mood let with it. I also love the cooking interaction in breath of the wild, and obviously not exactly like that, but it would be fun to have some mystery dish options ?? Like choose random ingredients and be able to experiment to get new things!

Anonymous

Could this be a setting? Maybe the game is programmed to require us to collect ingredients, but this can be turned off in settings.

Pandaslayerr97

Buying the ingredients and collecting them reminds me of sims 2 for consol I loved having to get fish from the fish tank and collecting veggies and fruits from the garden to make meals!

S&M Gonzalez
>>41342620

I agree I’d like that a lot better having cookbooks have their own cuisine specific recipes, that way everything isn’t jumbled together based on skill level, but the recipes for higher skill requirement would be included with each book

Anonymous

I want grocery storeeessssss

Anonymous
>>41351564

That seems like a super simple fix and if it isn’t included in game, this would be easily moddable! :)

Ovi

like, i think i'd like an option to do required ingredients or no ingredients required.

S&M Gonzalez

Hey and welcome Jérémie to the dev team we're happy to have you on board! =)

IdrilPuck

Maybe the with low level recipes ingredients are optional, but if u use them the dishes are higher quality

S&M Gonzalez
>>41347366

I agree i'd like some complexity to this and not have it be like sims tbh, but i think for those who wouldnt like to go through the tediousness of that could have an option of before cooking or the game how'd they'd like to simplify it for their play style. Like 'Stress free kitchen' would do most of the work for you or 'Chef reporting to duty!' which would be the complex one lol.

Anonymous

I think sims 3 got the food system the best. You could go to the store and get better ingredients, or it just took the money from your household as you made the food for average quality ingredients if you didn't have the ingredients available. And of course if you had a green thumb you could make ingredients higher quality than anything from the store. Or a system like sims 2 was also good a fridge percentage system rather than buying specific ingredients. Though I would like the option to be able to buy higher quality stuff maybe there can be different tiers your fridge can hold, like filled with 60% average quality, 20% good quality 20% great quality etc. etc. But keep excellent or perfect quality exclusive to growing yourself.

Ashley Brent

Homemade meals or recipes from scratch, you should totally have to collect or buy ingredients. Snacks, prepackaged foods, etc. you wouldn't have to collect/buy anything.

Anonymous

~ I like the idea of going shopping to get ingredients to cook or even gardening for what you want to cook wether it be a community garden or a home grown one, but I also know that other players will not like the extra work, so I think it should be an option that you can customize or switch off if you do not like shopping or collecting ingredients, but for me I think it is a part of life & ads realism to the game.(but for those whom opt out I guess it could be a system were you can purchase from the Fridge,internet or by phone!)~ I almost forgot, Welcome to the team Jérémie.

Sydney

I like the idea of being able to make the most basic version of every dish, but then have your Para be able to add any ingredient to customize the meal, make it higher/lower quality, give it unique buffs or whatnot. For example, every Para could make a basic spaghetti dinner without requiring any ingredients, but adding fresh tomato would make it a higher quality meal, or adding zucchini would give it zuchinni noodles instead of pasta, which could give your Para a little positive buff for making a healthy choice (or give your young Paras a negative buff for feeling like they were tricked into eating veggies!) Your Para could ruin dinner by adding chocolate to the meatloaf (or they discover a new, amazing family recipe, chocomeatloaf.) Paras could all have their own unique, secret recipes, that maybe they only share with their families or keep locked in a recipe book. Idk I'm letting my imagination run wild but I'm excited about all the possibilities!

Austeja Dunno

I think really simple foods and easy to make meals shouldn’t require ingredients but other higher level ones you’d have to shop for. So maybe your para won’t starve but you get to make better food if you actually go to the store. And there could also be rare ingredients you need for super special recipes!

Anonymous

HUBBY AND I TOTALLY DID HOMEMADE PHO FOR DINNER LAST NIGHT! 😄Yum yum! But yeah I've never been a fan of having to collect ingredients, or pay for them, for simple meals (even the advanced ones) cause it's just too much work for me. I'd rather be playing out other aspects of the game more realistically. I see many others feel the same. 😉 Keep up the great work guys!

Anonymous

I agree with most of the comments here that a combination of the first and last options would be ideal to me. Having a "stock up on staples" interaction at the grocery store/through ordering groceries that allows you to make many or most dishes without having to individually collect all the common ingredients would maintain realism while preventing tedium, and a status bar as an indication of how stocked your pantry/fridge (so that fully stocking up will last you maybe an in-game week or something) is also a great idea that could make this easy to keep track of as a player and make it so shopping isn't a constant thing you have to do. I also like the idea of having a few items for dishes that are trickier to find and some that are much more difficult to come across (especially considering Sebastian's backstory) having to track down a spice or a special cheese or a type of produce would make a fun completion quest out of cooking. Additionally, I don't know how complicated this would be to implement, but I REALLY like the idea of paras who are more experienced with cooking maybe having the ability to experiment with the specialty ingredients they have on hand by having the option to use the specialty ingredient in a food item that only requires normal ingredients, and doing that perhaps gives the item a quality boost (or decrease if it was a bad combination). So, for example, say they're going to make a ham and cheese sandwich (which uses staple ingredients), but they have fancy cheese leftover from making fondue or a cheeseboard or something that required special cheese-- the option could come up to substitute the cheese. I think this could be a really immersive and amazing way of dealing with not only food in the game but lots of craftables/consumables. In that, you can buy the basic necessities to be able to do the thing without fuss or tedium but having specialty tools or components or ingredients can not only unlock new items to make, but also add value to the items you can make normally. If possible, I feel like this type of system would add so much game play, and also potentially prevent issues of money glut over time. And in this way, for families with other focuses, the food system is simple and only requires a few player interactions/ relatively low time commitment while still being realistic, but for paras that have food and cooking as part of their stories or their personalities, the same system expands to meet them.

Anonymous

I think that cooking most meals shouldn’t require any ingredients, but if you want to use them you should have an option to do so. I like the idea of having some special meals that require ingredients though.

Anonymous

Would be cool to have an option to buy food and then have it delivered, like it was in ts2 😊

Anonymous

The best solution, I think, realistic and not annoying at all

Lex

more important to me is how much food costs! Whether stocking up the fridge with generic groceries or shopping for specific ingredients, it will have such a strong effect on gameplay to require budgeting resources to feed Paras :D

S&M Gonzalez

Not sure what happened but my original post got deleted so i reupload it: I would like to buy individual items for recipes but i think that there should also be prepackaged items like in the real world paras could fix also like snacks food (cookies, cereal/oatmeal, microwave ramen, frozen dinners, canned soups/goods) for quick easy buying , but snacks wouldn't fill up paras as much as regular/prepackaged food items would. But also given the abilities to make recipes from scratch like in real life and buy raw ingredients like making spaghetti for example noodles,tomatoes/or canned sauce, and meat. I think it'd be really nice if we can also have paras improvise recipes in game like if spaghetti called for beef we could substitute it for other meats or even veggies instead as meat place holders. Or if we have a canned soup we fix for paras we can fix them a salad or toasted bread to go along with their meal they can eat. But I think having para go buy individual items and prepacked foods at the grocery stores would be really nice, which i think being able to save grocery lists like other commented will come in handy for things like basic necessities. I'd like to be able to buy spices and herbs like shown in jars in Bash's kitchen, and things like flour, sugar, tea,coffee that can be used for various recipes or used alone (bread,tea,coffee).

Piper Smiley

I think there should be staple foods that a para will always have (bread, milk, cheese, flour, salt, sugar, rice, etc) meaning a para will always have something to eat, even if it's just buttered toast. Stuff like meat, fruits and veggies, snacks, spices etc can be bought (I really hope there's a farmer's market!!!)

Anonymous

I think simple meals like sandwiches, cereal, bread and butter type things shouldn't require the ingredients, but actual meals like spaghetti, rice and chicken, gourmet meals, etc should require ingredients. But I only like the requiring ingredients if we are able to physically go to the grocery store.

Slippers

I'd like to have to buy or gather ingredients for most recipes other than simple basics like cereal or toast (that you can survive on if you have to). I love cooking irl but in most games it is either too easy or too grindy. In that other game that won't be mentioned it's way too easy to cook, there is no sense of accomplishment, nothing to achieve. Boring! I'm worried that if we can just open our fridge and cook whatever we want it will be boring and have no challenge or sense of realism. I want getting groceries to be a meaningful task that involves planning ahead based on what you can harvest or afford to eat. Can you at least make that gameplay an option?

Vanessa H

I'm not big on cooking in real life, and I'm sure not big on it in video games either. But I understand everyone likes different things. I like the third option; gathering ingredients for special meals would give it a nice touch. And maybe there could be a way to add a personal touch to a meal by choosing an extra ingredient? Like hamburger could be the default, but add cheese to make a cheeseburger, bacon to make a bacon cheeseburger. You could even add some humorous choices too! Might lead to some funny moments in-game as a random Para ends up loving a meal that repulses everyone else! The Paras having differing preference in food would be fun too. That might be hard to implement though. I guess you could try categorizing the basic ingredients and have a whole menu in the Paramaker where you assign likes, dislikes, and indifference. Like cheese, poultry, beans, leafy greens, meat could be a few categories. Then average out their feelings on all the ingredients in a dish to determine how much they like/dislike the end result. That way, meal choice has more meaning than just filling up the hunger need. Oh, and when Paras order food/choose what to make, they'll default to their preferences! That would give them more individuality, as people in real life tend to eat the same things too.

1luckydandelion

I would like it if all food required ingredients, so Paras could grocery shop by buying individual ingredients for meals, but also an option to buy an automated delivery packaged bunch of ingredients, that include staples and common ingredients, that’s more expensive than buying the individual ingredients but easier on the Para and the player. So richer Paras would never have to worry about food while poorer Paras would try to maximize their budget

Anonymous

I think a hybrid system would be perfect. Each meal requires ingredients but once you create that meal once, you can auto create it in the future without needing to select ingredients. This will give you both a sense of discovery as well as eliminating any tedium. Think witcher 3 with potions and oils.

PinkLyon

I just want to add a clarification on my choice for the "specific ingredients required for some meals" option. I very much dislike the idea of a perpetually stocked fridge that always allows a para to cook anything at any time. No matter what, buying groceries from the store should be needed for anything. I just think specific ingredients in addition to this should only be for special meals.

Anonymous

I liked the system in the sims 2 where you would have to restock your fridge supply and could go to the grocer to get your groceries (but you didn’t need specific ingredients) added a little chore to do that wasn’t too tedious! Maybe some integration of that would be good :)

Anonymous

I think it could be interesting to have these as actual game settings! If it's possible, you could make a game option where players could choose if they want to do material-gathering for cooking/building or if they want everything available to them.

Anonymous

I like the idea of having the basics always in stock, like milk, bread cereal etc but having to either shop or gather/harvest for most meals

S&M Gonzalez

As someone mentioned above I’m wondering about pricing as well including how much use we can get out of food items and items that would be considered no perishables. For example oranges, will we have to buy individual produce (an orange) per $ if we want or buy a bushel for a set price so we don’t run out of food for our paras as quickly than if it was just individual like one orange would only last one recipe vs a 2lb bag that would last many recipes. If that makes sense? Another example by what I mean frozen entrees one could be enough for 2 paras or or you can buy family size and it’d feed 10 paras, just like when in sims we can fix bigger dishes for more sims to eat from. Except in this case we could buy items that’d last and feed just as much

Anonymous

I really would like to see there at least be an option to have everything require ingredients, I honestly don't see why higher tier meals should but lower ones shouldn't.

S&M Gonzalez
>>41350343

Like a subscription based service like Blue apron could be delivered or you can go pick it up at the store?

Anonymous

I would LOVE it if we had to gather and buy our own ingredients, but I want to be able to store them in the fridge inventory and cook directly from there too. One thing I don't like in the sims is that you can't store ingredients in the fridge to use in a meal. They have to be in your sims inventory for it to show up as having that ingredient ready to cook a meal with. Which is annoying because it clogs up my sims inventory and the disorganization is ugly. It would be awesome in paralives if the paras are able to collect their own ingredients and store them in the fridge (like you would in real life) and cook straight from there. I voted for the cooking a meal requires multiple ingredients you have to collect option, but i think that it can be simplified to take some of the 'tedious' bits out. For example online grocery shopping is a thing nowadays, why not include that in paralives? Basically online shopping but for groceries. Means your para doesn't have to go out to get what they need and can just place an order on a computer and its delivered to your door. This would also be cool to incorporate costs into. I assume you've already planned for this, but (and again I'm referring to the sims but its all I can refer to sorry haha) I don't like how sims just pay when they take ingredients out the fridge. They pay then and there. Would be cool to be able to stock the fridge up and do like a weekly grocery shop and pay for the full grocery shop as you buy the ingredients you need for the week. Am I making sense? I hope so. I like the idea of perishables, but i think now we're getting into 'tedious' territory. I'm all for meals having a best by date but I kind of don't mind that ingredients stay fresh until you use them. Anyway, thats my two cents worth. Clearly I'm passionate about food 😅 I hope everyone is having a lovely day 🖤🖤

Anonymous

Doing groceries or having a garden sounds amazing but I feel like it could become tedious if you HAVE to do it every single time you want to cook meals. Maybe there could be an option to simply 'buy groceries' and get generic things if you don't want to take the time to select everything yourself as well.

Anonymous

option one, but with option for home delivery, redeliver repeat orders, food bank?

Marcin

I think the style from The Sims 2 would be the best. You need to buy ingredients but not as single items. Just a visit in a supermarket to get the groceries and you’re good to cook for a few weeks.

Alysia Fleming

I think it would be cool to maybe have a button in the menu to turn on/off the option to “grocery shop” for ingredients. So if you have it on, you can shop for every ingredient, which would widen the amount of foods you can prepare; if it’s off you just purchase the food from the fridge to prepare it. I hope that makes sense 😊 Thanks for all your hard work

Anonymous

I voted for making only certain recipes require ingredients since that seems to be the most realistic to program, but having every recipe require specific ingredients AND having the option of a food delivery service that just shows up with the ingredients for specific meals once a week would be a nice compromise. If going to the grocery store is mandatory though, there has to be enough time in a day to complete actions. I don't want my paras forced to spend three hours a day at the store and then another three hours on meal prep.

Anonymous

A trip to the supermarket and picking your groceries would put a realistic and enjoyable part of gameplay for me, but also having the option to go to the fridge and choose to cook would be convenient. So I voted for the third option. That way we can choose based on time and how we're feeling at the time. 👌 Keep up the awesome work guys! Loving your work so far! Cheers 😊

Anonymous

Gotta say my preferred method would be similar to how the sims 2 bought groceries. Just kinda go to the shop and buy a certain amount that you could afford (or as much that could fit in your fridge). Being able to buy directly from the fridge feels way too cheaty for how I personally play lol

DaveLPR

Voted for the third option. Sorry to all the foodies out there, but I already have to deal with grocery shopping in real life, I don't want to *have* to go shopping in a game every few days for my character to not die :p I like the idea of a few basic meals that are always available and then anything else, or if you want to improve your cooking skills, you'd have to shop for/gather ingredients.

Bree

I feel like regardless of if you have to get specific ingredients it should still be required to purchase groceries. Or order deliver/take out. It forces Paras out into the world... For the more reclusive paras perhaps they can get their groceries deliviered? It is 2020 and you can get pretty much anything delivered anymore lol

Akasha O'Connell

I voted for the third option, but I'd like it more like the Sims2 ps2 game, where you could make a meal from the fridge, which didn't require ingredients and was quicker, or you could craft a meal, which did require ingredients and would fill the sim up better. So, kinda the best of both worlds.

Bethy Grace

Welcome Jérémie! So excited to see the team continue to grow :) Can't wait to see and hear more from you x

Roe B.
>>41367560

I know you can't mean the sims 4, because I've been able to not only cook, but also mix drinks with ingredients in the fridge, and make floral arrangements from flowers in the arrangement table.

Anonymous

While I voted for the option where you have to buy each ingredient separately, I like the sims 2 version of having to either go to the shops and buy the food, or maybe you can do a shop online thing on the computer and have groceries delivered, and they come the same day unless its past a certain time in the evening. It makes it realistic, but also gives a lazy option for those that don't want to go to the shops to get the ingredients. Maybe a notification to tell you how much ingredients are left in the fridge each time a para removes an ingredient, to remind you if you need to order more groceries. I would love a take out option too, get chinese or pizza delivered, have a para version of UberEats (or whatever is equivalent in other countries) to get other options. I would love an option where your para has to read a recipe card/book to learn a recipe and maybe children/adolescents learn family dishes/recipes by 'helping' parents while cooking. It can increase social skills, relationships and children gain knowledge of a new recipe. I think it will be an interesting game play if a young adult moves out of home that hasn't been taught how to cook from parents, that can only cook basic meals or eat microwave food 🤣

Fran Smith

I think we should have a toggled option. I'd like to actually go shopping and buy ingredients in a more lifelike manner, but I know others might not. Couldn't we have a toggled option between the three? Paralives does NOT have to be like the Sims, in fact the more different, the better, quite frankly. The Sims is bland and shallow (now) and becoming moreso. Someone above mentioned a type of auto-buy online thing - I think that is a great option for those who don't want to do the shopping thing - groceries could arrive in boxes and Paras could put them away. This game SHOULD be different. Also having shopping will open up a whole area where modders can go mad, creating grocery items and recipes to make with them. I'm imagining a kind of shared grocery community action with interesting recipes from around the world. This would also help to make the game more culturally broad. Food is a VERY important social aspect to some cultures in a way that western society could never understand and I wouldn't like to see that curtailed by a more limited lower depth grocery and cooking system...

RachT

I really loved the cooking in the Sims 2 was it? But if it was a bit different I wouldn't complain either :)

mortia

I think a combination of The Sims 2 grocery store type of food acquisition and the required ingredients and gardening style of The Sims 3 is the perfect way to handle food in the game. I'd really hate to see it end up the lazy, low effort Sims 4 way where you just buy everything from the refrigerator. I'd also really like to see options, though. If it's possible to accommodate different approaches to handling day-to-day chores with a toggle, that's always best.

Anonymous

I also agree that it should be like in the Sims 2 with the grocery system. As, yeah you could cook anything but eventually you had to buy food.

Anonymous

what I really don't like about Sims 4 is that it is to easy and as a result - boring. So I picked the first one, it adds realism and challenge to the game, that I really want. But I agree with people who say that it is a good idea to make it switchable, cause not all the players would like that and prefer the easy mode.

Zoe H

Definitely think that a togglable option would be great - provides some variety for anyone that likes that stuff or doesnt like it at all. Picked the third option, but first preference would be to make it optional.

Anonymous

An option that you can toggle would be great. The third option would do for most instances with select ingredients for those special occasions. The first option would be great if you fancy yourself an amateur Gordon Ramsey or have aspirations as a chef as part of a Paralives career path ^^.

Anonymous

You guys are so neat! Incredible artwork on the wall of Lucas as well. That really looks so creatively awesome. Thanks for your amazing, giving nature!! Never been such customer service before in the world like this yet, hehe 😉

theOnlybody

With needing all the ingredients, it'd be cool if there was an option buy them by meal. Like "buy all ingredients for mac & cheese" or something.

KittyPara

I agree with Rhiannon :)

KittyPara

Welcome Jérémie we love you ♥

KittyPara

welcome Alice ^-^

TheDesignatedDreamer

Agreeing with a lot of the people in the comments, I also think buying ingredients should have some form of toggle ability as I know many times in the Sims, I have wanted the added challenge of possibly managing a households weekly shop or deciding what exactly to cook for the week, but there are many other times I want to make the family interactions the primary focus. Hope this helps and is not too wordy

Anonymous

If it would be possible, can we add a setting option for this? If you don't want to buy the ingredients you can disable the settings. I would love to have this in the game like sims 2 but I understand others do not like this system. Maybe there should be some kind of note that ask you if you want this setting or not?

KittyPara

I hope to see Sebastian cook for real and not like in the sims where food magically appears or disappears. I want Sebastian to open his drawers to retrieve his bowl to eat his cereal he bought in a supermarket! In The Sims 4 they use a single animation for multiple tasks which makes the game very poor repetitive and boring

Bengt Bagels
>>41392375

Honestly that was my same thought. I get tired of being forced to gather all ingredients in some simulation games and end up cheating in items. But! Having it so u can make any dish, but if you get all the ingredients the dish is better sounds great. This would, also, add to your personal storyline for your game. Like Seb loves to cook... so I would probably give him a garden for storyline. With another Para I may skip this.

Anonymous

I prefer the third option, but like the idea of buying ingredients for special meals; maybe for a family meal you might want to go all out. Maybe also different ethnic/native dishes require special spices, that could be fun. I also like the sound of Paras having small herb pots in their homes to maybe add some basil to their sauces or something. Maybe Paras could experiment and unlock mystery dishes - requiring us to just explore and smash together different ingredients? Overall a toggle option is a good idea, I agree with the other comments :)

KittyPara

I voted for the third option 😉

Mélanie Chabrol

In my opinion, that would be awesome if we have to actually go to a store to buy the food and then our paralives take it home in a shopping bag or something, like we saw in Sims 2 (I know it a different game, but this particular detail had a big impact on immersion for me), or delivery food, with multiple choices, not only pizzas (chinese, japonese, french even ? Burgers etc..)

tey711

I voted for the third option, however, I love for my people to shop in a grocery store and be able to go in with them. I also love the convenience of food delivery like i.e pizza, etc.; although it would be nice to have online ordering as an option as well, which is what I currently do in real life during these COVID-19 infested days and it works great. I love being able to open a grocery app and choose my grocery items by department, pay online, and them be delivered straight to my front door, and the delivery driver also gets tipped online through the app after my goods have been delivered. The service meets a definite need!

Anonymous

While I'd generally play with option 1, I think it'd be important to have a toggle for easy (option 2) mode because some players could find it tedious, including myself on certain days, and some characters would not really be cooking oriented. I'm a big fan of using options to tailor the game to each player's tastes.

Judi Dielman

Hi all, appreciate all your doing to make the ultimate sandbox game. Good thoughts.

ponyfhtagn

I like a system where cooking food costs money UNLESS you have the ingredients. Let's say we're making pasta; you get a discount if you have tomatoes, a further discount of you have garlic, and so on until you've covered every ingredient and the meal is now free.

Somi

Yeah I agree, a cooking system where the cost of making meals is discounted if you shopped for ingredients prior. That way you can do either one and still have that interactive element!

Anonymous

perhaps kitchens could always have staple ingredients but you need to go buy meats and produce?

Anonymous

I'd also like it if there was an option to buy fresh from a farmer's market, and there being an option to purchase from a grocery store.

tey711

I would also like the option of cooking an 'actual' full course meal to include several dishes like appetizers, entrees, sides, drinks, dessert, (etc.)., set the table, and place food dishes on the table, then call the family and guests to the meal and have interactions centered around the mealtime. In addition, its always a drag to click on a recipe and be missing ingredients, so it would be helpful to click on the missing ingredients to create a shopping list for the various dishes to be prepared for a meal and then go shopping for those ingredients or send a family member to do the shopping, or send a text to a family member to pick up items on their way home from work, as example. And for players who do not want to go shopping have the option to instant buy when they click on all the ingredients to make that perfect family meal.

Lenny

I really want option 1 to winnn

Anonymous

Welcome Alice n Jeremie!!!

NaJa Jackson

Grocery store options and builds would be fantastic!

syphaia

I just really want a grocery/market in the game. As well as a store to buy clothes. I don’t want everything to be readily available at home

Anonymous

To make the game more challenging and realistic, I think grocery stores and clothing stores should be available to purchase items instead of just automatically having them.

Anonymous

I don't like comparing and contrasting Paralives and the Sims 4, but for me, the Sims 4 is to repetitive and devoid of real gameplay. I think shopping for necessary food and clothing would bring a lot of excitement to the game. Being able to buy different foods for different recipes would be amazing :)

Anonymous

Okay like how the poll is going. It’s just if I don’t feel up to focusing on cooking just having a few meals that require no effort to make is a good option. But also having the option to focus on cooking and put in effort to do things related to the skill is cool. So best of both worlds

Vicarious Human
>>41338329

I'm really hoping the days in Paralives are longer so that parafolk have time for these daily chores AND time to pursue an interest depending on the player's narrative. _ I agree with you and really enjoy having quick meals being "ingredient free", when there isn't actually any cooking going on such as the ones mentioned by you. A few extra examples: 1. Just warming a can of noodle soup/ 2. Assembling a cold sandwich/ 3. Frozen ready-made meals/ 4. Pouring a bowl of cereal/ 5. Blending smoothies/ 6. Microwaving leftovers... the list could just go on!

Anonymous

Maybe for the first meal ya make you have to get the ingredients but every time after that it will be stored in your “memory bank” except

Crystal

Sims 2 did it right when it comes to grocery shopping. I'd like to see something like that be implemented in Paralives. Something that adds realism by needing to order or purchase groceries at the store, but nothing too tedious where you have to purchase each ingredient.

Anonymous

No i don't want any free food. I want to have to buy most ingredients because then you cant survive like if you where broke you can just live of all the free food. No i would rather you could get stuff like pot noodles or ready sandwitches but i would love to buy most stuff!

Genesis Llanos

I would love to have a to get ingredients to cook for each meal. I am someone who in real life enjoys cooking and gathering ingredients so I would love to be able to do this in the game. I can totally see though, how others might want to gather ingredients for only special recipes. It would be great to be able to switch between the two.

Anonymous

I would love to be able to do food shopping and then create a meal with the ingredients I brought, for example, to cook a roast dinner you have to have at least 1 vegetable item and at least 1 meat or nutmeg minimum. I think that would be more realistic if it was a bit more flexible. And to make fruit salad, you have to have at least 2 fruit items etc.

Jordy

I'd love finding and shopping for ingredients. It adds challenge and a different type of gameplay.

KittyPara

A sophisticated para should eat a pizza and a burger with a plate, fork and knife. For a relaxed para cool will eat his pizza and his burger with his hands. and a para who has no education will eat his pizza and hamburger like a pig. We want every event to be consistent with every identity and personality of the para.

Anonymous

I think it would be nice to have the ingredients similar to sims 2. Where you have to “buy groceries” in order to cook either through online or going to a grocery store. But then to further improve the quality you can get ingredients through gardening or farmer’s market type event.

Anonymous

Taking it a step further in a similar vein to Sims 2 Open for Business a career path as a chef that can open and run his/her own restaurant. In addition you can acquire recipes through various sources and use option 1 to purchase and use ingredients in a restaurant kitchen environment. Maybe even develop your own recipes? Overall, taking cooking to the next level as a mini game in itself.

ladyteruki

I want to manage my resources, so I picked "Cooking a meal requires multiple ingredients". I think there is value in managing what you buy (...or grow), in planning menus (instead of just cooking anything you like, any day of the week, as if you could have lobsters in your fridge just waiting to be prepared on a weeknight), and making sure you have everything at home. That includes the possibility of running out. Maybe you can still cook the plate of pasta tonight, but you ran out of tomatoes so you'll put just butter and cheese instead ; if recipes are flexible like that, it could actually add realism AND a bit gameplay. The ability to buy those ingredients if you don't have them should be possible ; actually running to the grocery shop at 11pm or asking a neighbor for a cup of sugar would really make it immersive. But I don't want the process to be too simple. And welcome Jérémie !

PixelPerfect
>>41465010

Yes !!! I like the thought of asking neighbors for items or them possibly asking at times. I really hope there’s a grocery store or maybe like a farmers market that comes to town once a week

PixelPerfect
>>41403848

Sims2 has hundreds of awesome little details. It does feel weird to compare the game at times , but sims2 is probably the best game to draw inspiration from.

Nalander

I understand that many people are choosing to have both. I too thought that would be good...but I want something that we haven't really had in game. If we are telling stories to bring them to life...why not have it where we have to purchase or grow our food? It makes playing challenging and you have to play with logic. No money for food..no food...no connections...no food. Having the game create consequences for our actions where if we spend too much here or there it will affect our para life. I believe this will lead to more developed game play and bring challenges that our para would have to address. Thank you for all that you do and look so forward to this game and it's release.

Anonymous

I am freaking out over the picture of his son

Megan Santucci
>>41447594

True! Being poor is kind of toothless (pun not intended!) when you can live comfortably off bottomless free sandwiches.

Anonymous

For me the cooking experience is everything, making a list, going to the supermarket choosing the best ingredients, bring them home, washing them, chopping and so on, I mean the pot stearic g is just the end. If I had a say I would put a choose like make meal automatic or make meal from scratch and in that way those who love the cooking experience can buy and choose and those who don't can have it like the boring version on the sims. I mean this is simulation right? In real life things don't appear magical in our fridge...

Anonymous
>>41481808

You’re absolutely right, but it seems as tho , the most of the people want some of the “lazy” /“boring” aspects of the sims in paralives when the paralives team has the know how & will power to make it better and more immersive & realistic which is their primary goal!! ❤️ I hope they can just make it a toggle option. instead of dead set in stone one way or the other. I agree with your statement

Annie Wampyra

I want to be able to cook with ingredients I have grown myself or found outside. I would love to be able to fish and cook my own fish and I want there to be spices. I want to be able to bake a potato or 3 in the micro if Im lazy one day and have bread that I have baked myself, mmm nom nom.

CheckerDuck

I makes sense if only special meals require special ingredients. Most people have "typical" ingredients at their house most of the time, while if you're cooking something special, you usually have to plan for that and go out and buy the specific ingredients. One thing that could be interesting is if you buy amounts of things, like f.ex if you have a kilo of pasta, it depends on how many portions you cook before it runs out and you need to buy more. And if you have to acquire ingredients, having the option to order online and getting it on the door (or straight into the fridge/pantry) would be great. Oh, an maybe the option to subscribe to a "food box", where once a week you get the required ingredients for a week's worth of meals (according to a meal plan and the number of people you've subscribed for) delivered on the door (or, again, straight into the fridge/pantry)

Anonymous

I would like the challenge of having to buy/grow multiple food, having me to really manage my money. It’s never something I’ve ever played in a game that wasn’t a mod. Though I do understand how people would find it tedious. Perhaps it would be better if you could both go to the store/farmers market and buy food individually (And if so I’d really like the option of having a notepad that I could open and type what I need) or just buy in bulk online..

Devilia

I would really enjoy a more realistic game when the cooking come , i agree for the third option , But, going out to buy the food that you need, just like doing a ''real'' grocery could really be nice! i agreed with @CheckerDuck for the suggestion!

Anonymous

I always thought that the writing skill in TS4 should have a perk where you write a shopping list and it makes your food shop cheaper? IDK

Anonymous

I think there should be a mix because many players/Paras will not focus on cooking. But if you do focus on it, you can make birthday/wedding cakes with special bonuses. You could produce meals that impress omnivorous paras with veggie options, school lunches that kids can share to make friends easier etc :)

Tannes Johnson

I would prefer tohave basic items in the fridge and have the option of going to a grocery store or local farmer's market. I like @CheckerDuck food box suggestion.

Katherine Winn
>>41469576

I love this as a thought, I prefer this, but I think it should be forgo-able so that people who don't want to do this don't. Kind of like how I'd love to see smaller chores, and toiletries but understand why people wouldn't want to deal with it

SinfulPetGirlRD

maybe a mix? or as a feature you can toggle on or off. I personally love in depth cooking games/mods that require you to "make" the food like cooking sim or even the one mod for sims 4 that requires you to go food shopping and you can only make what you have the ingredients for.

Sarah Evelyn

i think needing to have your player go to the store for food helps with the realism of a life simulation game.

Jade Mulick

I definitely think groceries should be an aspect of the game! I loved how in TS2 you had to keep your fridge stocked or go hungry. But maybe where specific ingredients are involved you could give us an option to toggle that on or off? That way people will have the choice to stock their homes with "generic" food, but players who enjoy micromanagement would have the option to seek out specific ingredients. I also think specific ingredients should be necessary for special, high level dishes.

Anonymous

Can you tell us more about Maggie like you did with Sebastian?!!!

Anonymous

What I'd like to see is that if you grow your own vegetables and stuff, the quality of the food will be higher. Since that's the truth irl

Anonymous

I like the little details in games (I'm a game dev myself) so I personally would love to have to buy the ingredients to make all meals but maybe make it so only "fancier" meals require a lot/specific ingredients. like cooking spaghetti should only require noodles and a can of sauce perhaps but special occasion meals require extra things like oils and herbs or something.

Anonymous

Um, Is it me or are the statistics not changing??? like is been on exactly 38% 2% and 60% since the begining??? hmm idk.

Vicarious Human
>>41619628

I thought I was being paranoid about that too... thank you for pointing that out. I can calm down a little bit now.

Matt Jeffrey

I really like the idea of buying ingredients rather than just buying the food directly from the fridge. Maybe y’all could do the best of both worlds? Like, incentivize the player to go get the ingredients themselves. Maybe something like making purchasing directly from the fridge more expensive?

Anonymous

I feel like mediocre meals could be made without gathering any ingredients/ bought from the fridge, wheras purchased ingredients might make good food and caught/grown/gathered foods could make excellent meals. Rare meals would have to have specialty ingredients. A good balance of earning good meals, but don't punish lack of interest in the system.

Szymon

Maybe do sth like in sims 2 where u have to refill the fridge when it gets empty, not with specific ingredients but with food stock. And maybe when you want higher quality meals then u can use specific ingredients.

Danica Savic

It doesn't have to be complicated, you could just require three or four main ingredients, like for pasta, you could require pasta, red or white sauce, additional vegetables and for a little higher level add herbs or sth :)

Anonymous

I would prefer there to be ingredients for cooking. I miss going to a grocery store in my sims game. It may seem like a boring tedious thing to some but I loved having my sims stop by the grocery store once or twice a week on the way home from work. That was of course in an open world. It was just a little thing that made something like cooking that much more involved. It makes having a garden important. I guess you could really make it so that you can make better food if you have fresh ingredients but you can still make a meal even without it.

Anonymous

I would prefer to need specific ingredients for cooking. If you don't wanna go to the grocery store, just have them DELIVERED!

Anonymous

It would be nice if we needed specific ingredients, and we could just buy them at the store. Or if the fridge had a purchase option so we could just buy what we need when cooking!

Joshua Rumsey

It's be awesome if we bought ingredients to unlock recipes. So we get basic boring recipes ready to do. However if we bought mushrooms, we get mushroom styled dishes, same with fish, mince, ect.

Anonymous

I like that idea. Maybe a certain combo of Ingredients unlocks certain recipes. Or obtaining one ingredient unlocks recipes with that ingredient as you said

Anonymous

Something I think could be good would be to allow buying snack and processed foods from the fridge, but they have a drawback like making you hungrier again faster. Going grocery shopping and getting generic ingredients (vegetables, fruits, meat) could let you make meals but only of good quality at best. Acquiring specific ingredients for recipes lets cooks work at their best.

Ryn

I'd rather have to buy all ingredients, but perhaps it could be somewhat line Sims 2 where you can have a large batch of ingredients delivered at a time to stock the fridge with the basics. Or you could even set up a standard grocery list that each family of parafolk get each week depending on their preferences.

Aster Lea

Please no shopping using the refrigerator! Unless there is a special expensive "smart fridge" or something you can buy that has it as a special feature or something. Have the option on the computer or phones to have home delivery (and have an NPC actually take time to come deliver it!), but don't put it on just normal fridges. I really don't like how you can just buy things from your home furniture in other games, it breaks the simulation in my mind. I like the idea of having ingredients, but there should be easy ways to stock up on generic ingredients for paras who aren't that into cooking. Someone else mentioned the Sims 2 generic food stocks, so you still have to buy groceries, but you don't have to micro manage specific ingredients unless you want to. Another option could be to have a button while shopping that just adds the ingredients you need for basic meals to your cart. Maybe there could be a default grocery list that you can edit, so you set it up once and then every time you go shopping you can auto-add your grocery list to your cart, and then add in any extra things you want that trip. Maybe you could even set up a weekly home delivery on the phone or computer (or with a clerk at the grocery store for people who don't play with techonology in their game?), so your chosen groceries get delivered automatically at the same time every week for an extra fee. If you go with the third poll option, I think still having the option of using specific ingredients to raise the quality of low level meals would be nice, but then higher levels require it. Also, there should be options to order delivery like pizza, so if your para goes to the fridge and realizes they don't have anything to eat, they have an option to get some prepared food quickly. If it's too easy to just immediately magically completely stock your fridge, then you can lose a lot of emergent and realistic gameplay situations, like if you forget to buy groceries and have to order take out because the kids are getting hungry and you don't have time to wait for groceries to be delivered and then still have to spend the time to cook them into a meal. If there are easier ways to do things, they should come at a cost. For example, going to the grocery store with your para would take more time, but you won't have to pay for delivery fees, so it's cheaper. Take out might be even less time since it's already prepared, but even more expensive and not as good food quality as homemade (unless maybe you pay a lot more, or your para's cooking skill is really bad). This makes each option a more meaningful choice and can encourage different gameplay depending on the player's goals or the para's current needs. Having the option for paras to go to a grocery store (which I hope there is) is meaningless if you don't add some balancing like this, as going to the store would then just be purely for aesthetics, but it would be a bad choice game-play wise because it takes up more time, but otherwise would be functionally the same as having groceries just magically show up in your fridge with basically no time or effort on your part. This would discourage people from actually using this feature when playing. It's not enough just to have choices, those choices have to be meaningful. If you add a feature, there needs to be a real, meaningful reason to use it, even if it's optional, or else it's pointless.

Ellen
>>41781853

Maybe even more options for the delivery, like you could order chinese food, sushi, pizza, burguers and other kind of delivery food from other cultures (like pastel, esfiha), it could be an interesting way to bring up some of the results from the diversity survey

Caitlin

i want my lil parafolk to go to the shop and get some ingredients and make a dish for their family that would be such a nice little detail to add to the simulation

Anonymous

Buy all the ingredients!!!

Anonymous

I think we should go to a market or ask to deliver, because it gets more realistic and besides asking to deliver the ingredients we could order pizza and hamburger, Chinese food and various others

Jessica Martin

What about the cooking system like the one from Sims 2 on Play Station. Where you could pick ingredients and the sim would make something at random with them. You were about to discover new recipes and save recipes so you didn’t have to pick the ingredients everytime and you had to order groceries to stock your fridge. I remember I use to have so much fun making different kinds of bread lol and growing my own fruits and veggies. Maybe a spin on that would be nice

Anonymous

Both. I'd like to be able to buy certain ingredients and store them in my cabinets or shelves. It would be cool to be able to add spices and change / experiment with recipes

Anonymous

Maybe both? Some like to cook everything themselves so they could just buy every ingredient in the supermarket and some (me) would just order delivery everyday if they could so I think both would be great. Maybe give those Paras who go out to buy ingredients and cook a little skill boost.

Micah Barrett
>>41775369

I agree it adds some realism to the game that I just love! It's the little things

Anonymous

It would be awesome if there were different cook books for different cuisines that the parafolk could collect! After reading a book on Thai cuisine, then they would unlock a bunch of Thai recipes. I think that meals shouldn't be locked if you don't have the ingredients but maybe the parafolk will be happier or more accomplished after cooking a meal "from scratch" using specific ingredients.

Anonymous

What if when grocery shopping, you can buy premade meals that you store in the fridge/freezer? That way, when you are out of ingredients, you can either eat a freezer meal or order takeout. Maybe even the ability to meal prep- make freezer meals, canned goods, etc, and then store for the future.

Anonymous
>>42599626

Packed lunch for work/school, as well. Meal prep would be useful. Possibly could be a habit that parafolks who are more inclined to like healthy choices / family-oriented types prefer.

Anonymous

I like the idea of when buying food, you can just buy basic ingredients in one click to make basic quality meals. Basic ingredients could be essential things like; bread, milks, cereals, canned foods, generic fruit & vegetables, dried foods like pasta/rice etc. Then have the option to buy individual ingredients too, which can be used to specific recipes. This coulld add an option for modders like myself to add their own ingredient items and dishes. Or even an ingame UI to add our own foods. For grocery UI you could have foods in seperate catagories too, and if you have any ingredients from the catagories the recipe requires you can make the dish.

Christine Z.

An electric stove?? C'monnn, any chef would have a gas stove! They're elite!

Nascent

If paras have to buy food I would want that only if there was a grocery store or farmers' market in the world.

S&M Gonzalez

Just had a thought, Will food have expiration dates? Could food become spoiled if you don’t use it after a certain amount of time? Like non-perishable items for example chips or canned soup I think it’d be cool if could it become spoiled if paras don’t use it after a certain amount of time.

Joralyd

I would love the option of going to the market or store and purchasing groceries for the week or having them delivered, then cooking with those supplies. That way it’s not too much of an inconvenience but it adds realism. you could have special ingredients for special dishes that you have to grow or buy from the markets.

Anonymous

It would be cool if you can watch a video to attempt a meal at a higher level or increase the chance of making a high quality meal.

Anonymous

I think the fridge should have a supplies meter so paras would eventually have to go grocery shopping, and certain gourmet recipes could also require rare ingredients.

Kiiiwiii

I would LOVE if you could like order home the ingrediens for that meal if you don't have them at home. Like a home delivery kind of thing

Anonymous

Maybe it could be like The Sims 2 where your fridge had a stock and after some time you would have to buy general groceries, not specific ingredients

Anonymous

Or like with Sims 3 where you can buy the groceries for your fridge, but it doesn't technically need them and you pay a one off sum instead? Alternatively, you could do that style but add extra ingredients for flavours such as strawberries, apple, garlic, spice or something?

Anthony
>>43472042

Yeah I agree... in fact... use the sims 2 as a guide for most things LOL

Desirée Eriksson

Low level stuff could come in a "mix" package, like pancake mix. and frozen dinners. I like this idea because it could force you to go to a fancy restaurant if you want to have a high level meal with a low level cook skill... Also, I'd love, LOVE if the cooking animation was representative of making the meal itself. Like, a high level meal takes up all the spaces on the stove xD that would just make me so happy to see.

Alvilda

I joined as a patron today, but Sebastian's kitchen looks awesome! A middle of the road system, either with specific groceries that either cost a flat fee or you can grow/buy yourself would be great, but maybe where certain super rare/supernatural ingredients you have to find for yourself, ie your average grocery wouldn't stock dragonfruit or quail eggs. Looking forward to seeing more of this system!

Annamaris
>>43094215

I agree with you because in that case, you could also grow and harvest your intregidents for the food by yourself. It would be a good solution for those who prefer/want to focus on historical, farming, off-grid etc. gameplay. It would also allow the nice variation for the food: which protein or vegan alternative you use for this soup, how spicy and/or salty food you'd like to make this time etc. In addition, it would be cool if you managed in growin just potatoes that autumn, you would just... eat potatoes you've made with varieted methods (boiled, steamed...). Think the Sims Medieval's method as the reference if you're familiar with that game. To me, cooking just "meals" which can be basically found in the fridge, sounds a bit too much restricting but I understand this is an indie game. Modders please, I'll look at you with my adorable puppy eyes in that case.

Anna Wendel

I was thinking about that cook book.. Could it be possible to have text (like in books or on signs etc) in gibberish? Like similar to the Sims. As there are people all over the world who will be playing, it would be nice if the language in the game wasn't in English but instead just gibberish (for the characters, like in live mode, not us when we read descriptions and their needs and stuff).

Annamaris

Would some kind of parallel system be considerable? I refer by this to the system where the player chooses if the paras buy just common groceries to fill a fridge like in TS2 or individual ingredients for every meal like in TS3. Next, I summarise a bit additional details for this. Many of them have been mentioned by the others in the previous posts. Thank you for everybody for their awesome suggestions! I got very inspired and that's why, attempted to combine them together. - the paras can learn recipes by both reading books, seaching for them in the Internet and attempting by themselves by "cook something" or "cook from the ingredient *insert name*" interactions. The paras can share the recipes. Perhaps, every recipe haven't been written yet... It means when the para finds (unlocks) the brand new (hidden) recipe not found anywhere, they could have a chance publish it in the book or Internet in order to earn money. ...or just keep the secret and start the restaurant business - the ready-made meals (frozen and... well, ready-to-eat) can be bought in the stores but their quality is usually not as high as self-made. Of course, the latter depends on the para's cooking skill. The restaurant food can be picked up, delivered or eaten on the spot - the meals are not locked by time; the paras have freedom to eat whatever they desire around the clock - please, no shopping from to fridge. Ordering, buying and growing may be better way to do it - the meals can be varieted by changing vegetables and meats/meat replacements. In addition, the spiceness, saltiness, sweetness and greasiness of the meal is adjustable. It would be up to the para's preference or a (special) diet what kind of food they favoured and disliked. The meal and how well it suited to these would affect the their mood after eating. Besides, the preferences and the diets would affect social interactions and even relationships between the paras - like devoted vegan vs. omnivorous. The allergies would be very neat addition to this palette - the meats, the meat replacements and the vegetables can be marinated - the player can choose the amount of portions. The more portitions, the more time it takes to cook. The paras could also make the different meals at the same time if possible - maybe by "the meal slots" or something. This kind of multitasking may be more time consuming and the chance to burning and spoiling be more likely if the para hasn't enough skill. Cooking together would be very neat and prevent these challenges more likely - food for babies, toddlers and pets can be cooked and bought - the cooked meals and their leftovers will be spoiled but it can be slowed down by putting them in the fridge like in the Sims. In addition, the paras could store the meals by putting them in a freezer. The others like children could easily reheat them by using a microwave oven - there could be the fridge and maybe the freezer but also storages for bread and all those ingredients and meals which don't need cold to be stored properly - the paras can preserve the ingredients and harvestables by drying, making jams, canning, fermeting, juicing, pickling. They could be used for the meals or to be eated without preparing - different kind of ovens and stoves: tandoor, gas, baking/mansory, high tech electronic with steaming options etc... - little functional kitchen appliances: different kind of grills and grillers, kettles, waffle irons, deep fryers, regular and special coffee machines, fire pots, rice cookers, food steamers, pressure cookers, toasters etc... Generally speaking, the more all kind of "general" and cultural kitchen appliances, the merrier :3 As a hardcore food nerd whose hobby is sophisticating themselves by cooking the authentic ethnic food and attempting to prepare everything from the scratch, I'd gladly even pay extra for this kind of content. ♡.♡

michelle

As someone who is so so so interested, in cooking and food. Grocery stores are super important to me, i feel like if we could implement that realism it would be awesome, having to take the kids out of your car, and into a cart and walking into the store and browsing and picking things up and putting them down and writing groceries lists, actually being checked out and putting food on the thing to be scanned by the workers, or to have the option to do pick up or delivery, i dont know it would be really cool

Bohnita Roy Choudhury

I would like it if there's is certain default ingredients that are always there for every meal ( can be replenished by weekly grocery subscription or something ) like salt n eggs or flour and so the dishes that need are freely available (pancakes, omelet, toast, nachos, Vegetable stew) but some others you need to buy or acquire the ingredients to make - crystal dumplings, mango pie, Thai curry etc. Tho this can be optional. I just like the Idea of having options of grocery subscription or something instead of mysteriously paying the air an amount for a dish. Tho depending on the grocery subscriptions, diff dishes can be made ? - cold cuts, vegan, seasonal fruit, japanese basics, breakfast essentials - n can see details n choose with subscription (s) you want, cost could vary ? Also getting fruits from the garden, or going down to the general store/supermarket/meat store/butchers shop for chicken/ordering online one in a while if ur in the mood. Also optionally - spoilt food items ! That were stored for too long. So players who'd like that can organise their food items/kitchen, but players who don't want that gameplay or not bother by anything but their weekly subscription notis, maybe ?. Optional, optional 😂☺️🤙🏽

Anonymous

Ideally we would have 2 main options in the game settings to choose from: 1. No ingredients required 2. All ingredients required + Combination of great suggestions from the comment section:)

Anonymous
>>47340780

That would be awesome if all (or even just some) of your suggestions were implemented in the game! This is just perfect!❤️