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🏠 Save, Share and Move Your Houses Around + Interaction with Twitch Streams
🕑 Added 2024-09-20 13:05:01 +0000 UTCHello everyone! Richard and Alejandro here bringing you new features and changes to the Build mode! As you know we have been working hard on the last touches to the build mode before focusing on the Live mode.
This post is for Patrons’ eyes only, so please do not share it 🐧
Save Lots as Premade and Move Houses Around
We started with the feature of saving your lots as premades to be shared with other people. It was a complex task but at least I, Alejandro, had the loading system to start from: when we load a game, we load each lot, and then the rest of the town. In my case, I needed to save and load just a single lot, with no extra data, so I started with that.
Loading my first premade lot:
As it had no interface yet, I made a cheat command to load a premade to the game.
However, despite the lots being loaded correctly, they were not added to the current lot itself. We had an even bigger problem: they were loaded exactly where they were saved and we could not move them. So, we decided to add a new feature allowing players to move an existing lot, or a newly loaded lot.
Adding the “move lot” feature was a bit harder as lots of math was involved. Rotating so many objects at the same time was not as easy.
Here are some bugs we encountered:
Here, the rotation went wrong, for math reasons!
We showed this bug a while ago on the #developers-posts on our Discord, but it is still funny.
After many iterations and bug fixes, I was able to move and rotate a lot without problems. (There were still many bugs to fix)
With these two features, we added the possibility to load different lots and move them within the current lot. A good example for this feature was the neighborhood we showcased not long ago of different houses made by the Paralives team.
All the houses were made in different saves and were all added to the main save using the premade lot feature.
Our small neighborhood, showcased in a Patreon post and on social media.
After all the technical stuff was done, we needed an interface to be able to easily pick a premade house; command lines are a bit excessive. I based it off of the interface for selecting premade characters and had to brainstorm a feature to take a screenshot of the lots. This feature is still a work in progress but for now, it is good enough, as we have to prioritize other features.
Some premades do not have a photo as they were made before this feature was done.
That would be all for me! Now, I leave the rest for Richard and what he has to show you!
Outline On Hover and Selection
I added an outline while hovering and selecting walls, floors, and items. This helps make what you are interacting with more clear!
Selecting different sections of my house’s walls in paint mode.
On the left: before the change, when selecting this floor section (there was a subtle white highlight overlay on the floor). On the right: after the change.
What the outline looks like on a chair and on a cactus plant.
Here are some funny development GIFs of the outline:
While trying things out, I made a funny shadow effect.
Again, a funny effect on the hovered object. This is a normal part of development.
As you can see here, the outline doesn’t work well on vegetation and leafy objects. Therefore we will be using the white highlight overlay on them.
Hackweek: Twitch Integrations
For my hackweek, I wanted to see how much work would be needed to add Twitch integrations. This is a feature where a streamer can enable their chat, allowing players to interact with the game. Those interactions can either be helpful or hinder the player’s experience. They make the chat more interactive and are a lot of fun and/or chaotic.
I made the Together Cards into a chat poll. That way, the choice of what happens is now in the chat’s hands.
A poll on whether my character should _______ or ______.
Here's what the chat can look like. The usernames have been hidden for privacy.
I also added the following interactions, other than Together Cards polls:
Make a Para do an action:push-ups, dancing, etc.
Set a Para on fire: yes, in my playtest I was constantly on fire 🥲
Increase and decrease needs: now I understand why my Para always needed to use the bathroom!
Set fire to a random item in the lot: can you guess if my house was still standing after the test? 🤣
Play a sound
Spawn an item in the lot
Turn the lights on or off: ghost simulator
Be notified when a user has joined the chat
This feature was a lot of fun to show to the team. But it is far from being done! It will stay on the side until we have more time to work on it, which might be before or after the game’s launch.
Have a great weekend, eat your vegetables, and see you next time 🙂!
Alejandro and Richard
Comments
TnT_Terry
Wow looks like you all had a great time and lots of laughs! I am loving the house and decor, awesome job! And that you made it look like someone lives there that has limitation, very believable, again nice work. It seems you all are taking the time to get things done right before release, unlike some devs that are forced by corp to get it out beforehand regardless of the endless bugs. You are an inspiration as to how it should be done Alex and team! I really cannot wait to play, but I have patience for something I will be thrilled with in the end. BRAVO team!
Kayleigh
This would be great! Even basic tags like how many bedrooms or bathrooms would be useful, so we could filter based on the size of home we need for the family we’re looking for.
nemo
I love the styling of the selection outline, and twitch integration is always exciting since some of my favorite streamers do wild stuff with their chat and games
Ellen Kaluza
I love the outline animation! You've really developed a style and I love to see it!
Richard rail
Each feature can be enable or disable. So a streamer could only put helpful things, or just funny things. For now, the together card vote is that chat choose any they want and you have no say. But this could change in the future :).
SorAxel
Yes, you would be able to get builds made by other players online, also we may leave premade lots for you, some premade shown were for testing but we will try to have enough for you to choose from!
Richard rail
For now the building are straight on the terrain. We might look at that in the future after the alpha :).
Richard rail
We have not really though about that. Interesting, I will keep an eye when we get back to working on the live mode.
Chiara
The Twitch integrations seem fun! I'll probably never stream anything, but nevertheless I'm curious so I have some questions: can a streamer decide to enable only some of the interactions for the chat? I mean, for example I want the chat to vote on the Together Cards (or only on some of them??), but not being able to set my character on fire, or they can dictate my hunger need, but not my hygiene need etc. Basically, how customizable is for the streamer this integration system. Thanks!
Chiara
So we will find some "premade" (by the devs, I guess) houses to choose from if we don't feel like building a house from scratch? I don't think I'll be a great builder, so that's really good for me. And I guess after some time we could also choose from houses built by other players that are willing to share them online?
Nathalie Carluccio
Good work guys 👍❤️
SorAxel
Interesting Idea, depending on how complex creating a file explorer for premade lots will be, however I see the usefulness of it so definetly will keep it in mind!
I JONES
Has building on sloping terrain managed to make the game after all? I've only seen flat terrain being built on so far. By sloping terrain I mean for example on a hillside where the lot is located on the hill and follows the terrain, not the sort of terrain tools that can make little hills and dips on a previously flat lot.
Tereza Restrepo García
Great idea! 🤩
Maxx
There could maybe be a toggle in the settings to enable or disable it in live mode
Maxx
I love the squiggly outline on selected objects. These always remind me of Life Is Strange's artstyle 😍 As a builder, I would love to have the option to organize our saved lots into folders or categories and have some filtering options as well. When you have a lot of builds it becomes hard to find a specific one in your gallery!
Alexi
Showing the pre-made house made me think of a request I have. When our paras buy new houses I hope we can get a good view into the house so they can fully see what they're getting.
playeronthebeat
I love this more and more! Great work! Keep the good work up! I'm stoked and confident in your ability to make this game really great and cool!
ladyteruki
Oh, yes, maybe not a recap of EVERYTHING, then XD I just meant that a lot of people don't know that we'll be able to write our own Together Cards, or potential future players ask whether we'll be able to create our own worlds, or recently I discovered through a Dev Chat ( https://www.reddit.com/r/Paralives/comments/1ecrr0f/weekly_dev_chat_june_28th/ ) that we'll be able to create our own rabbit holes. Stuff like that. So a recap of things along those lines would be helpful :)
Kateřina Králová
The outline looks so good!! I am so excited to tune in to every paralives stream and just making the duck sound over and over lol
ZLoves
I'm sorry but that first rotation bug where the undeveloped house came completely apart then swiveled back together again seamlessly?! It scratched an itch, it was so cool. And even though that tree didn't like your outline, I think it's adorable lol
Remy W
I love how y'all show all of the bugs throughout the process, it's really interesting to see how it can mess up! It's then so impressive to see the actual end result, like, damn!!!
Ferb Sánchez
The Sims could never 👀
Roe B.
Thank you, that's awesome! Keep up the good work.
Ana Caroline Martins da Silva
Can't wait to drive a streamer mad with Paralives
chanel moon
been watching over this game in this patreon from the moment it was announced, so exciting watching it all come together !!! (,:
Crystal Lover
I really like the white outline buuuuuut I do feel that it's a bit to prominent if it's going to be featured in live mode
Und3rgr0und -
Will the outline be thinner in Live mode? Feels good for build mode but might be a bit distracting in Live mode!
Madegeeky
Ohmygod, thank you so much for the house sharing option. :D I generally don't like building and decorating (just let me play my little people) and was just resigned to making it work so you have no idea how happy this makes me feel. Thank you for thinking to do this!!!
Jordan Harrison
Loving everything about this so far! Come on 2025!!!
SorAxel
Yes! You are able to load as many times you want the same premade on your lots
Richard rail
Thanks you :D
Richard rail
Chaos gremlins !!! 🥰
chantal99
I imagine the Twitch interactions will be so much fun (for chat) xD
Carelle
Oh, I love the Twitch integrations. I know a streamer that will enjoy this. I also love the white outline, overall I do think the sketch look is really nice.
Roe B.
Question: Would it be possible to be able to place multiple premade homes on the same lot (like a mini neighborhood/co-op/trailer park)?
John Bergstrom
I love that whole idea of having houses saved as templates to be used in multiple neighborhoods. Honestly, I can’t wait to play this game sometime next year.
Vari_Ares
I love the animated outline !!! 🤍
Cece
I love the aesthetics of the white outline! Takes me back to the censor experiments! And the rotation bug was so funny and somehow made sense, even without understanding coding you can understand that it just makes sense for everything to rotate everything individually at first 😂 great work team! I love hearing about hack week too!
Tiffany Stallings
Twitch integration is such a fun idea! Especially if it can be tied to Crowd Control where streamers can monetize the chaos for their stream or for charity. The chaos gremlins will be pleased!
Richard rail
it's used verywhere needed to know what you are interacting it. So yea in live you would have the chair outlined.
Richard rail
Thank you :). For the recap of everything moddable, the list is very long 😅. You can't add new code but a lot of values can be changed.
Lane Brettschneider
Thank you so much for your hard work and for sharing!! It's very cool to see these parts of the process. Will the white outline be only in build mode, like for painting/moving/recoloring/etc, or will it be used in live mode as well, for selecting the chair (for example) to sit in? Thank you again!! <3
Fran Smith
Wow! Awesome unique feature with the streaming, there!! I might even actually watch some streams with that (I'm not usually into watching streams). I particularly love the moving outlines on the chair and plant - it sooooo suits the game. Loving these incites into the making of the game! Awesome!
dcknx
That's so cool that you may be able to integrate Twitch at some point as well, thanks for sharing this with us! Also, I can't get over how pretty the starry wallpaper is 🤩✨
Pedro Lima
Awesome! Thank you so much 💖
SorAxel
Hi! This is Alejandro, apparently it is something people want and we have the tools already to take your own photos , so we will definetly consider it!
SorAxel
Hi! This is Alejandro, that is definetly a good suggestion, we already have tools to take our own photos so I do not see why it would be that hard to add the feature, so thank you for the suggestion we will consider it!
ladyteruki
Hi Alejandro and Richard, thanks for this very detailed post full of things to think about ! You two have been hard at work and have accomplished so much that it could easily have been split into two Paradevs entries, so I'm thankful that you took the time for this longer post. The premade system (as well as the need to move/rotate things once they're placed) is really essential for sharing lots as a community on the Steam Workshop, and it's really great to see that it is functional already ! The bug where you tried to rotate the house and pieces were rotating individually had a science-fiction fractal multiverse-y vibe XD Hilarious in the moment, but good God, I'd be terrified to see that happening to a building after spending 6hrs on designing it. I wasn't sold on the white outline in the first gif, but around the cactus and the chair it looks really good ; I think the effect is better on an object that is not made out of straight lines, than on a wall, at the end of the day. The effect on pieces that have curves and are not purely symmetrical fits very well the rest of the UI's aesthetic so far. As someone who used to stream, I totally see the potential for Twitch integration mayhem, but I'm also very glad random strangers don't have the ability to interfere with my gameplay XD I micromanage my games way too much to have the patience for that. In an internet culture where people are thoughtful and well-meaning, it'd be fantastic, but on the real internet, people like trolling and chaos way too much for my taste ! That said, voting on Together Cards is a nice thing, because it's still within the bounds of the game's engine deciding what the TCs are ; it's not as chaotic and random as people deciding to spawn whatever item from hell they have in mind. So it still provides some control for streamers over what happens in their game :) A pretty nice middle ground. Twitch integration will certainly be something mod devs will love to expand on, and I can't wait to see what comes out of it. Actually I'm still hoping for a recap of everything that'll be moddable in Paralives... 👉👈
Court12413
Thanka for the white outline. I cant tell any difference in the picture but the outline makes it super clear
Pedro Lima
In the subject of the premade houses, could you allow us to take our own screenshots for the photo? Great work as always ❤️🏠
lias
The twitch interactions idea is so cool! I don't stream or watch streams but this seems really fun and interactive and I'm pretty sure it would be very fun to use and make paralives stand out in the streaming community! With the sharing houses I have a suggestion. Do you think it would be possible to to select the photo that shows in the sharing interface yourself? I always get frustrated in other games, when the automatic photo looks so bad 🥲 it would be really cool if we could take our own shots of our creation and upload them ourselves so that people can actually see what that looks like!
Bethy Grace
As a streamer, those Twitch integrations scare me a little 🤣🤣 chats gonna go wild (in the best ways haha)
Danny Juforier
There's nothing better than spiky cyan vegetation 🤣 Also the Twitch features look so interesting! Great post!!
Andie
Okay the anticipation is killing us! Cheering for your hard work from across the globe. Can’t wait for the game! ❤️
Keela
Ooo i love the outlines, fits the games aesthetic so nicely!!!
Migs
You’re all doing an amazing job, thanks for all the hard work!! ❤️❤️ greetings from Paraguay
