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Skills Progress Update + Sebastian Doing Push-ups + New Team Member! (Patreon)

Published:
2022-10-21 13:46:30
Edited:
2023-02-02 15:34:49
Imported:
2026-06
Tags:

Content

Hello!

This week’s post is all about skills. What are skills? It’s anything that your Parafolks will be able to learn and eventually master. It could be cooking, painting or working out, to name just a few examples. 

Before we get further into that, I’m very happy to announce that someone new has joined our team! Her name is Gabrielle and she will act as an assistant community manager. This means she will be interacting with you Patrons here as well as with followers on social media. She will be hanging out on Discord and she will also be collecting ideas from the community!

Here’s a message from her to you:

Hi everyone! I’m Gabrielle and I’m super excited to be joining the Paralives team as an assistant community manager! I grew up loving life sim games, from playing Animal Crossing on my old Nintendo DS to spending countless hours in the Sims universe and City Skylines. I’m already a big fan of Paralives and I can’t wait to share my love for this project with the community!

Welcome Gabrielle! 👋

🎯 Our Goals for the Skills in Paralives

To help us make decisions on how skills should work in Paralives, we have established various game design goals that I’m sharing with you today:

Skills should make you feel like you are progressing. Skills are one of the core progression elements for your characters so it should be satisfying and motivating to level them up.

Skills should make you feel powerful. As you progress in your skills, you should feel that your characters are getting more and more capable as well as feeling rewarded in different ways for your efforts.

The skill system should have interesting effects on other parts of the game. Education, careers, relationships and more should all have an impact on and be impacted by your character’s skills.

The skill system should have innovations. Our goal is to try different ideas to see which ones are going to make the skills aspect of the game really fun to play with.

With that being said, we are currently testing different new ideas for skills in Paralives. We are looking forward to sharing more about that once we have made progress and tests!

💪 Skill Level Impacting the Character Animations

Some interactions will have different animations based on your current skill level. I made a few GIFs to showcase that today.

Sebastian is struggling to do push-ups because his fitness skill is low.

Great! Doing push-ups seems much easier at a higher skill level.

Here, you can see Sebastian speaking on the phone while doing push-ups. We’re exploring the idea of being able to multitask, if your skill level can handle it!

Bonus GIF: I added a cheat to set your current skill level. This way, it’s easy for us to test the different animations that vary based on the skill level. I’m sure players will find a use for this cheat as well!

📊 Which Skills Would You Like to See in Paralives?

In the past we’ve held a community brainstorming about skills and you shared many many interesting ideas. Thank you again for that, it was super useful!

Today, I would be very curious to know more specifically which skills you would like to see included in Paralives when it first releases? Think of the most essential or the most interesting ones and please share them in the comment section below!

Take care!AlexEdit - February 2, 2023: This post is now public, feel free to share it!

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Comments

A88Miles

Personally, I'd like to see no limit to the skill levels, but for it to get harder and harder to get higher and higher. A bit like in the real world where you get better all the time but the more skilled you are the harder it is to get better. This will ensure that there is always someone more skilled than you, or that you can set world records. I would also like to see some skills linked together but not one skill to do everything. For example a high fitness skill alone should not allow to play basquette like a god, on the other hand a good fitness skill should allow to progress faster in basquette and a high basquette level should not be achievable without a good fitness skill. Climbing a basquette skill (or other sport) should also raise the fitness skill a bit, but not as fast as practicing fitness. One could also add a dexterity skill which would be essential to progress in some sports in addition to the fitness skill.

Sashi

I don't think I can be any more excited than I already am. I am so looking forward to the day I get to hold this game in my digital hands and load it up for the first time.

Jackie7Sims

This is great, I love to come back and see all of your progress. Skills are most definitely a very important part of any game and mostly why we play. We love imitating reality. For me: Sebastian answering his mobile whilst doing press-ups. Multitasking is one thing that I love in games and I love the animation of Sebastian’s cough as the "SetSkillLevel cooking 6" is typed in.

Bek

I would love to see different musical instruments and their skills! In other life simulation games, you really only get guitar, piano and violin. I’d love to see more! Flute, recorder, saxophone, ukulele, drums, for example! I’d also love to see bands, like school bands, and music lessons. Same goes for singing; singing lessons, choir, etc! And maybe having skills within these like rhythm, theory knowledge (like being able to read music vs playing by ear)

Bek

And adding on to my other comment, having skills for multiple styles of dance, like ballet vs hip hop vs casual/social/party dancing?? And I’m that having dance lessons, dance teams, or gymnastics class, cheer teams, and maybe having skills within these too??

Panthro Samah

I would like to see other paras reacting to a top skilled character differently. The top skills should be very hard to achieve also.

Teri Lastovicka

If this game would come on nintendo switch too that would be a dream come true for so many people + paralives would be the only game like sims that would be available on switch so it would sell so good 😍 please can you make that happen? 🥹🥺

rénette

I think everyone has came up with some great ideas regarding skills.

ladyteruki

Welcome to the Parateam, Gabrielle ! Is this the first *official* cheat for Paralives ? In that it's the first one that's shown to us (AND the first one related to gameplay)... I think that it is, someone correct me, quick !!! (wouldn't it be fun if all the cheats had original names ?) Loving the idea of multitasking being (in part ?) connected to skill level. I feel that it's both a great incentive and true to life. That could also lead to some powerful combos if your Para is relatively skilled in both activities... As for skills, there's a lot of great suggestions already, some kind of niche and some very broad. The ones I hope for the most are the ones related to human interest and interactions : parenting is an obvious one (and compatible with a "parenting styles" system, too https://www.patreon.com/posts/33104058 ). I'd also love skills that are about the Para themself : a skill for loving yourself, for instance, would be fantastic (and in line with this suggestion about our Parafolks' inner life https://www.patreon.com/posts/71923475 ).

mar

Rather than specific skills, I guess what I really want is the system to allow some skills capping. Cooking for yourself or having social interactions shouldn’t make your a master at cooking or social skill by the time you’re an elder 😭 I loved suggestions about innate skills/talents which could be random for each para (please have some cheats allowing us to set these as well) and the category/major skills with specific minor skills as for music / different instruments, singing, etc. It should also be pretty tough to improve some skills, cooking the same meal over and over shouldn’t contribute to it. Skills should influence a para's daily life, in some life sim games, you could go your whole (sim) life with barely any skill and that would be fine 😅

Apila

The essential skills for my first paras would probably be: communication, joking, parenting, cooking, baking, gardening, cyckling, swimming and weightlifting or fitness in general, singing, drawing or painting, acting, tinkering, gaming, charity, evilness, and animal handling.

Abi wabi

Gardening, fishing, cooking, baking and other home making skills have always been my favourite in the cozy game genre. I think different skills for different social categories are also important and should reflect the personality and traits of the para

S&M Gonzalez

I would like to be able to have my para teach others a skill and also having paras watch others do something and they learn a skill that way by observation

S&M Gonzalez

Skills I’d like to see: Lying Flirting Kissing Charisma Empathy Charity Patience Gardening Dancing Stealth or sneakiness Cooking Baking Reading Writing Wilderness Survival Street smarts Masonry Handiness in repairing things Computer Drawing Painting Homesteading/ farming Mechanic for working on cars Sewing Crocheting and knitting Confidence Singing Skating Driving Fishing Hunting Journaling Social media I think it’d be nice if skills were broken down into sub categories too like you para can explore. Like dancing for example could be broke into ballroom, salsa, hip-hop, ballet etc. And those sub categories could allow you to be able to do certain actions as you level up vs if your skill is lower. I would also like to be able to buy things in order to do a skill too like buying a paint kit to draw and paint, or a journal to journal, tool set to repair items. Just like animal crossing requires you to have items in order to do actions same with making things in general. Id really like this. Versus it magically happening within thin air.

Luna

major skills and mini skills that branch from it, like "music" and piano, guitar, singing etc

Lauren & Tish Fox

I really like the thought of being able to choose skills within skills. For example music has tons of different instruments (including vocals), or there is composing! Sewing has quilting. knitting, needlework, etc. Even if it means fewer skills for me making them even more unique would have stronger impact, and make it easier to play multiple sims with the same general interests.

Visual Novel Fund

Sebastian’s first push up looks like me lol. Having more basics skills (cooking, fitness, handiness etc) is definitely something I’m hoping to see- but some more “specific” ones that I think would be cool are Hobbies- Instruments/music Painting/drawing Creative baking Writing stories Possibly specific sports rather than just fitness Knitting “People skills”- Social skills (awareness etc) Confidence Charming Persuading Emotional control Child handling Random other skills I just thought of- “Animal skills” (like dog training etc) Meditating Humor Photography Reading Gaming These are a big scramble of ideas, but maybe they can help :) I trust whatever you guys decide to create. Also- welcome to the team Gabrielle!! Thanks for reading

Shota Tsunamura

Wow this looks good know it’s a lot but I kinda would like the ability attempt to multitask with low skill, and ten have pers fail.

CardmanOfficial

Welcome to the Paralives team Gabrielle! I've been awaiting this game ever since it got announced! In terms of skills I'd like - Cooking - Photography - Gaming - Music - Comedy - Dancing - Swimming - Coding - Animal skills (I have a friend who loves animals and I'd love to have a good animal skill mechanic to recreate it) - Art, maybe specific subskills like painting, drawing, animation etc. Also I really like @S&M Gonzalez 's idea of wilderness survival, I definitely think that current life sim games lack a way of making someone have survival sense

James Bender

skill for space exploring and science, farming

PinkLyon

I love the look of different animations to represent skill levels! It got me thinking, could there be negative-levels for skills? Like, even at a low fitness, he's still getting his whole body up. At 0 or even negative fitness, it would be so realistic to have a para only be able to push their chest off the floor rather than the whole body, or need to do kneeling pushups. I suppose I'm just a big fan of struggle in general haha. It would be fun to see a para with negative parenting skill just unable to get their kid to listen to them or discipline them in a way that works, and they'd need to attend a class or speak to their own parents for advice to raise their level. A para with negative cooking skill (say, from always being served and never taking opportunities to learn growing up) could set the kitchen on fire. I'm hoping to see zero or negative skills that make life hilariously difficult for my paras, so it's actually rewarding when they level up.

Jenni

I think as well as doing activities to level up skills, it might be fun to have some requirements/tasks to level up some skills - similar to in Sims 3 how you could only level up charisma if you had enough friends. I personally just think it helps break up the monotony of just waiting for your para to play enough chess to level up logic for example.

Annika Koopman

Cooking, Baking, horse riding (since there will be horses), yoga, meditation, fitness, painting, writing, gardening, floral arrangements, taking care of plants (would be really Nice!), learing to drive, biking, dancing

Khaya

It would be nice if certain actions could help Improve more than one skill at a time. For example gardening would not only improve nature skill but could improve patience (need to wait for plants to grow)kindness, curiosity. Biking instead of only improving fitness can improve strength, endurance (which would then improve for other skills that need endurance. ) coordination (which could help to learn dancing faster or some other skill that would need that.) I think this will make the skills feel more organic. It could also give players a choice of activities for skill improvement instead of repeating the same action over and over (like Jenni mentioned with chess and logic - there can be so many other ways to improve logic - playing an instrument ,murder mystery party, family/friend puzzle board game night, sudoku or crossword puzzle, reading instructions and then building something,etc.)

Visual Novel Fund

I love the idea of skills branching off each other!

Khaya

I think these are important skills: Endurance, Physical Balance and Strength, Body Flexibility, Understanding other cultures, Leadership, Eye for Fashion, Innovative (think out of the box, create something from nothing), Good Listener, Storyteller, First Aid, Cyber hacking (which can be either good or bad), learn to speak several language, Speed Reading, Great Memory. Some random fun ones, Video gaming, Impersonations/impressions of others, Magic Tricks, Whistling, Shuffling Cards Like a Boss, Knife/hatchet throwing , Auto Mechanics, Rescue an Animal in distress, Building a fire, knife sharpening,Car Racing I hope character traits and skills will be integrated. Traits will affect skill progress. As an added challenge perhaps certain personalities would keep a para from maxing out skills (unless they work on changing it.) (lazy would make for slower progress, a mean para would have trouble with progressing the charisma skill, a creative para would be faster at creative skills a loner would struggle to improve social skills… ) And skill improvement could change personality. Taking care of animals or children will make a para less mean, a loner would become more social through social related skill improvement.

Marley

This all looks amazing! I feel like the animations have improved some as well. I have a question about skills, will interests/traits be involved all? Lets say a para loves art, but not so much fitness, would their art skill level faster then fitness? And would their mood maybe change based on what skill they're practicing? Like gaining a positive mood from doing art and a more negative one from fitness. I think that would be awesome to see! I know it would be hard to implement, so maybe not right at launch, but eventually I think it would add a lot into the personalities of the characters

Kate Günelkan

Please could we have cabinet making and upholstery? I'd love my para person to be able to make her own furniture! Also anything crafty; sewing, knitting, crochet, model making etc. I'd love my parafolks to be self sufficient, staying at home making things for others. Thank you!

Hannah

Pet care! Like someone who doesn't have a pet and is new to pets not being able to tell exactly what a pet needs at a given time or struggling to teach them tricks, but someone with a high pet care skill (someone who has had a pet for awhile) going "ah yes I know that bark you're hungry" and having a really easy time teaching commands/tricks or having full on conversations with pets.

Grouch

I'm loving everything, though I do want to just mention that SNEEZE though! If a Para has a high cleanliness skill and/or trait, they should sneeze into their elbow, or pull a hanky out of their pocket! Adding onto this, it's extra, but I always loved the idea of customizable buyable action items, like umbrellas/parasols, canes, backpacks... etc., so what about a buyable hanky that, when in a para's inventory, causes them to perform that wiping/sneezing into action? Just food for thought. Thanks for your great effort on this project!!!

Stewby

Welcome Gabrielle. I hope you have a great time as community manager. Personally, I would like a skills journal (surprise to all the discord users). :P i would like the skills to have a maxed point but then the option for new techniques, etc to be learned. i also love the old TS3 skills journal where there were achievements to obtain like get 34 different flowers, cook a perfect meal 10 times sort of idea. i really liked this as even once you had maxed out the skill, you still could carry on doing stuff to gain wee achievements. i would really like (in the future) for base game skills to be added to so like cooking would add new recipes and new techniques (even though the skill level will stay the same). ALSO... ditto everything Zahlea said about major and minor skills. if you ever go on to discord, ask to see her skills concept... it is a thing of beauty. <3

Brandon-Lee Ensing

I see you have a fitness skill, but I would love to see it split up in categories like: Aquatic sports / ball sports / Physical Endurance etc etc

DesDes

Welcome Gabrielle!!! I would love to see different art skills included. There's usually painting, but sculpting and jewelry making could be so cool. Writing is a little harder to show, but it could start out on like notebook paper and slowly evolve to computer typing, then eventually having a book for a Para to edit. I play FFXIV, and for desynthesis, you have a max allocation of X desynth points, so you can only perfect 3 desynth categories (mine are Goldsmith, Weaver, and Leatherworker) but if I start to desynth like.... armoury things, I'll lose points from one of the other 3 that I've maxed. I saw someone mention a studying skill, and i think it would be neat if you could add more "skill points" to use in general by studying be it like "studying music theory" or "beginner's guide to computer repair". I also love the idea of a skill tree. I know how to fix minor furniture issues and occasionally plumbing issues, but I will NOT try to repair ANYTHING related to electricity. Also I think it would be neat if like... you could "research" a skill before we set a Para off to do it or buy the equipment of it. Like if we have a system of "☹😐🙂" to let us know how much a para likes something, then that would let us know ahead of time how they'd feel about something.

TeaAddict

Welcome in Gabrielle! 🤗🤗 Personally I am a musician and a gamer, so having a couple of (separated) instrument skills would be really fun for me - Guitar, Piano, Singing, Bass, Drums, Violin, Saxophone!! (I've always wanted a saxophone in the sims, lol). I feel like it would be cool though if skills were kind of "grouped" and have an impact on one another. For example, once a para has learned *an* instrument, it could be a little easier for them to learn others because they have that understanding of musical theory. Gardening could also be linked with health and cooking, as an understanding of plants could impact a para's understanding of flavours and how to live a healthy life. Having a high intellectual/logic skill could make it so books are read faster, and impact the speed at which they can learn other skills, etc. I also want to say that it's super important to me that early development (baby/toddler/child) is linked to skills the para's learn in the future. For example, I've always wanted even babies to have basic skills such as Movement & Language Development, increased in a variety of ways (tummy time, bouncers, floor time, face-to-face play with parents, flash cards, board books, etc) - that then transfer to toddler skills like social and motor skills, as well as emotional development - that then carry into childhood, etc etc. Excited to see more of this gameplay!

Joy Kennedy

I'd like to see some DIY- tinker skills. For example, repairing/fixing a car, building a pc, building a bike or skateboard, or building a boat. Then the para can sell it or keep it for themselves

Tallia Storm

Welcome, Gabrielle!! Looking forward to what you will bring to the Paralives team and game development. Players have provided so much great input and some of what I suggest I know may be repetitive, so please forgive. As far as gameplay action/style, I very much enjoy research, foraging, exploring, bow hunting, collecting, adventure, quests, lore, storytelling, i.e., my all time favorite sim game was Sims 3 'World Adventures' and I still play it. In addition, building from ground up, renovation, landscaping, interior decorating, and family activities indoor and outdoor. So, any skills that would contribute to any or all of the above gameplay would be awesome!! However, I feel confident whatever the Paralives team includes in gameplay will be just what we as players will need from the start or added as actual gameplay progresses.

Jasmin Sartison

I'd like to see different kinds of skill for physical, creative, mentally and socially challenging activities, for example having different sports like football, basketball, pilates as well as different instruments like the violin, piano, guitar, saxophone and science stuff like chess, coding or a general science skill (for career purposes maybe even branching out into bio,physics, chemistry and math). For some creative outlet my suggestion would be things such as creative writing, painting and design. Apart from (in my opinion) crucial skills like cooking, fitness, charisma, comedy and gardening I think it would be important to have niche hobbies and skills for the Paras so that their personalities feel more unique.

Vicarious Human

I think mischeif should be allowed in this game, but not as a skill.

RavenShadow

I love the idea of being able to multi-task as you improve. This is what normally happens when I'm performing a task like weaving, crafting, or household chores. If I'm doing something physical I need to do something metal as well.

Vicarious Human

Main and Sub skills would be fun. Example of main skills. Gardening, Cooking, Wellness, Creativity, Communication, Fitness, Dexterity, Logic, Handiness.

Vicarious Human

Main and Sub skill ex. Garedening: growing plants, learning about compost and rain barrels. Cooking: homecook meal; gourmet; baking, European and Asian pastries; fermentation; preserving smoking fish/ meat and pickling/ canning. Wellness: herbalism; patience; parenting; emotional control; fishing; foraging; bird watching/ identification; bee keeping. Creativity: singing; all dance; flower arranging; all instruments; acting; writing; knitting; painting; photography. Communication: charisma; comedy; storyteller; actor; pet trainer. Fitness: all sports; all dance; excercise; rock climbing; yoga; swimming. Dexterity: video gaming; all instruments; knitting; darts; bow hunting. Logic: astronamy; herbalism; foraging; research; archeology; electrician; biology. Handiness: mechanic; woodworking; reapir/restoration; grass mowing and wood chopping; electrician and plumber.

Brendan Makidon

Flirting, kissing, physical encounters (whatever they may be called), communication are all things that could have skills related to them. Example: a characters first kiss is going to be awkward. The more they do it the better they get.

Krayola

i love this iea! and the animations are really cool! I'm so excited x3

Picasso

Are you able to have skills impact certain life events. Say your kid randomly trys to sneak out can a certain skill level affect the outcome/ reaction? I think it would be rewarding to raise a helpful kid and see him randomly do an act of kindness. Even the elderly can be more insightful to teach certain skills better maybe a teaching skill/ learning/listening type of skills

Hannah Moody-Goo

Hi Gabrielle! Welcome! :) I would love to see a writing skill. It would also be fun to have a driving skill. Maybe you have to level it up to a certain amount before you can test for a license? I love the GIF of Sebastian talking on his phone while doing push ups. Now that's some serious fitness!

TheTronixX

As a cooking student I would love to see some gif of cooking skill! thx

V

I would like to see inventor and social media skills. Also, amazing job on the game so far! I love it! Keep up the great work!!

pearlofdysfnctn

I have always wanted more when it comes to people skills. Charisma, Romance, Comedy...those just don't seem to capture the real skills you need for people-ing or properly represent how these things are in real life. A reworking of that altogether would be nice. Learning how to navigate the social world makes up so much of what humans do. I would like to see it represented better and have more meaning. Empathy, active listening, social cues, vocabulary, language, etc. I would love to see internal skills as well. Insight, critical thinking, self-knowledge, coping, problem-solving, innovation, etc.

SketalDaz

".... We’re exploring the idea of being able to multitask, if your skill level can handle it!" That will be interesting to see and be very rewarding for the players.