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The Process of Testing the Game + Bugs Showcase + Pathfinding + Parafolks Sitting at Tables
🕑 Added 2025-02-14 14:05:02 +0000 UTCHello everyone,
Charlotte, Richard and Alejandro here with today’s Patreon post! Charlotte will show you a peek at how gameplay features are tested followed by a showcase of a few special bugs. Richard will talk about pathfinding with staircases, finishing with Alejandro who will go into chair animations and item slots!
Quality Assurance Testing Process + Bug Showcase
Happy Valentine’s Day! ❣️Today I will give you guys a look behind the scenes at my process with how I test certain features using checklists.
Here’s how the process goes: Alex and Jérémie will let me know what feature needs to be tested. I’ll take a look at the feature and any documentation available and from it, I will create a testing checklist– essentially a list filled with the gameplay system’s basic functions that I will need to test one by one.
Here’s an example of a checklist I made last year for premade houses that you can place on empty lots! I have to balance it to make sure there are enough points that cover the basics but also don’t get too specific in order to be efficient with my time.
Here’s a closer look at a part of the checklist.
Once the checklist is done, I’ll pass it over to the programmer in charge of the feature to make sure everything is good to go. After I get the OK from the programmer, I’ll start testing! This means I go through each one of the points to see if it succeeds or fails.
Here’s the filled version of the previous checklist. As you can see, some stuff Failed, and so a bug was logged!
Having these checklists allows me to have a documented test of the gameplay feature to see what worked and what didn’t, and I can always return to it to see what was tested previously. The checklists also allow me to retest them again in the future, with some tweaks if features were added or changed.
Of course, through all of my testing, bugs are found! As of the writing of this post, I have entered a grand total of 778 bugs (with 537 of those being fixed). I’ve picked a few candidates from that large pile for a little showcase.
Hrm, not sure you’re supposed to sleep like that…
My Para can take you on a magical carpet ride and🎵 show you the world 🎶…
When you’re struggling to choose between sitting on the couch or getting a snack…
Roses are red and… doors are too?
But of course, all bugs must be reported no matter how goofy or “ordinary” they look, because here at Paralives, we love all bugs ♥️ (Okay well, maybe the programmers might not like them as much as I do, hahaha). Here’s to hoping your Valentine’s Day is filled with fewer bugs than mine!
Pathfinding Stairs Exceptions
Hey, Richard here for a quick addition to pathfinding. I have been working on pathfinding and one of the changes I made was to not allow babies to use stairs. This system will also allow us, in the future, to enable/disable paths in pools or have reserved/locked doors.
The baby can crawl but since they can’t take the stairs, it was not possible for them to get upstairs. Don’t worry, I will be working on making a parent take the baby upstairs.
Chair Slots and Item Slots
Hey! Alejandro here, I have been working on the chair slots and item slots. That means, whenever you place a chair on a table or an item on a counter, it can be rotated and placed in a specific position.
This will link the chair with the table and the Computer and vice-versa.
With this, we can create connections between the item on the table and the chair, for actions like being on the computer. You will still be able to place the items in any position or rotation by disabling snapping with the alt-key.
This connection also makes it so chairs will automatically follow when moving a table in the build mode.. There is also no limit on the amount of chair slots a table can have.
For when you invite all your friends to the table.
With this, we also worked on the sitting animation for chairs at tables. We had to modify our system to support entering a chair from different sides and also exiting. We can sit directly from the front of a chair, but also from each side of it.
My Para sitting on and getting up from a chair from the right side (It was more complex to achieve than it looks)
We are still working on tweaking the numbers to get a smooth transition between all the steps required to sit on a chair, surprisingly there are a lot of numbers a developer can tweak for sitting on a chair.
This concludes today’s Patreon post!
Have a great weekend everyone!
Edit - May 1, 2025: This post is now public, feel free to share it!
Comments
Rafael
I still have some doubts about whether Para will be able to sit normally in a chair turned in any position or sit on a sofa full of cushions.
Nathalie Carluccio
Wow, great work 👍👍👍 the flying carpet should still be a feature 🤣🤣🤣🤣
jrrt1459
The magic carpet is a feature, not a bug.
Montehammer
That ridiculously long table is my everything. 😍 I love overly indulgent, elaborate builds, and a massive dining room is a must.
Richard rail
Totally! Pathfinding is a complex system! That's why it's easier when a game is just simple grids. This is not our case, more complex to make but it makes the game more fluid :)
Heather Kiser
The magic carpet lol 😂
Macayla
Toddlers can climb the stairs. They showed it 3 weeks ago on January 24th. It’s the baby that can’t climb the stairs.
Clara M Johnson
I love the idea of being able to place lots of items on tables and other surfaces, instead of being forced to only put them in one or 2 places on some surfaces, like in The Sims. I love to have a lot of clutter in the houses I build, because it makes them look more real and lived in. About the toddler not being able to climb stairs, I think since this is something that in real life toddlers can do or at least learn to do, so it should be allowed. Like maybe they could learn to climb the stairs overtime.
Ghislain Pedro
Seems essential
ღPark Nikkiღ
In the future I’d like it to be possible for my para to stand up from the chair holding an item that was picked up from table while being sit
Adrian Silagan
the sleeping bug is honestly so real
nemo
Its always fun to see bugs lol! But its even better knowing how hard y'all work to polish the game 💖
BooDotBoo .
Happy Valentine’s Day! Thanks for a little peek into the bugs and glitches. It’s always interesting to see.
Nephie A.
Lol that could definitely be a fun bug to keep 🙈
Maxx
From what i understand you still need to slot the chair to the table and the computer into its slot to be able to use them in combination, though
Candle
The sitting animation is SO good!! I'm amazed by your work every Friday. Thank you for sharing your process of development with us 🕯️🧡🥰
Lucie Baha
Happy valentine day !
Stellafera
I love the little animation of "picking up" and "putting down" objects in buy mode, it's so cute
Derek Warren
I love the funny glitches in the game!
Renikee
My only nitpick is that the hands could be pulled further back, to make it seem like he's holding the chair when pulling/pushing back while he's sitting down/standing up, but in itself the animation is really good and smooth!
Renikee
Reminds me when I have sims doing something like cooking or sleeping, and then I pull the object with moveobjects on cheat, and the whole sim, or just their arms start flying away towards the object lol
Victoria Garcia
The little "run" to the fridge! So funny! Happy Valentine's Day! 😄🥰
Panthro Samah
I loved how the toddler stumbled before crawling the stairs. The attention to detail that you put in your work is really inspiring!
teszter.bp
I always check the roadmap after patreon posts. How up to date is it? :) It's so exciting to follow what's still to come, it gives me the thrill of the countdown this close to EA :D
Amanda Hannu Näckros
What a pleasant little Friday chuckle I got from this post 😅 Great work as always! ❤️
Trisha
Happy Valentine's Day!! Thanks so much for showing some really fun stuff. RIP the Para who tried to sleep. Looks like the aftermath of a crime lmao. I loved how the bed covers still moved for them though. The toddler following the adult and the baby just waiting there for someone to come aww. I, too, get the confusion sometimes about whether I want to sit or eat. It's okay Para. You're in good company. The sitting and standing looks good and I'm really happy to see the slotting animation and the slotting for the chairs.
ZLoves
Happy Valentine's Day, Parafolks 😙💞💞💞🥂 I personally wouldn't mind if the carpet ride was kept in the game 😭
Kit
Being in QA myself it's always interesting seeing how it's being done in games.
Gill Reid
I love the flying carpet. I say keep it in as new transport 😆
Rivers
I remember ages ago people asking about how it'd be possible to sit on a chair that's not aligned to the grid, and it's so cool to finally see glimpses of that here :)
Cece
Amazing job as always team! Every insight into the process gives me a new appreciation for game development and the time you all put in! And every shot in the game is just gorgeous, I will never stop adoring this art style and I don’t care if 99% of my comments say it, this game is so beautifully crafted!
Agata Kurek
Toddler crawling on stairs is so cool!
Cece
Omg the couch and door bug… back in December I tried my hand as scratch coding and eventually tried to make a life sim. This reminded me of the pain that was pathfinding. Got to couch? Fine. Go to couch and then fridge when finished, while following proper path finding? Ha. Ha ha.
Amanda
the animations are looking amazing! good job team <33
Cesar A
Happy Valentine’s Day!! Thank you for all the effort you put into the game❤️
Danny Juforier
The carpet bug is hilarious 😂😂 Happy Valentines Day!!
Ellis
Thanks for being so transparent when it comes to discussing bugs!
Julio Saliba
Happy Valentines Day! Thank you for showing us the bugs and glitches! Best Valentine’s Day gift ever!
