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Handy Features of the Interaction Menu
🕑 Added 2022-08-26 18:00:13 +0000 UTCHi!
Today, I’m gonna show you some very useful features I added to the interaction menu this week. Let’s get into it! This post is for Patrons only so please don’t share it, thank you!
Interaction Menu Feature: Searching
Earlier this year, in a Patreon post, I shared some ideas I had for the interaction menu in Paralives. Well, now they are no longer just ideas and I added some of them to the game!
In Paralives, just like in real life, some objects will have a lot of interactions. A computer, for instance, has so many things you can do with it so the interaction menu for it will be very full. Being able to search an interaction by name will be very useful in those cases, when you can’t remember in which submenu an interaction was!
The search feature in action. We don’t have objects with a ton of interactions yet but imagine that there would be a lot more interactions, many of them into submenus. The search feature would come in really handy then!
Interaction Menu Feature: Pinning
Next, I added the interaction pinning feature. It could also be called favorites.
A lot of the time, you end up doing the same interaction on a given object. For instance, when clicking on a bed, most of the time, it will be to select the Sleep interaction.
Now, you will be able to pin one interaction per type of object so that it visually stands out when opening the interaction menu. But most importantly, this pinned interaction will now be mapped to a shortcut. In addition to left-clicking the object and browsing the menu to select the interaction, the object can be right-clicked to add the pinned interaction to the interaction queue without even having to open the menu!
In this GIF, I simply right-click on the floor to run towards the clicked position, without the need to open the menu to select the Run interaction. This works because I marked Run as the pinned interaction when clicking on the floor.
Interaction Menu Feature: Build Mode Shortcuts
Sometimes, you want to tweak an object in your house but it’s a bit of trouble to go into build mode just to do a small change and then come back to live mode. That’s exactly what I told myself when I added some small shortcut buttons in the interaction menu to:
- Start moving or rotating an object
- Change the colors of an object
- Delete an object
These shortcuts in the interaction menu should allow you to quickly tweak an object in your house without needing to go into build mode.
More buttons might be added in the future here like:
- Duplicating the object
- Changing the texture and material of an object
- And other object related customization
These buttons won’t be here when opening the interaction menu after clicking on a character (because you can’t move or delete a Para!) but they could be replaced with character specific buttons like:
- See character personality sheet
- See skills
- See relationships
- See outfits (or edit outfits if we clicked on one of our household’s character)
That’s it for today. Let us know what you think in the comments and have a great weekend!
Alex
EDIT - January 10, 2023: This post is now public. Feel free to share it!
Comments
Panthro Samah
Pinning interactions is the best thing that I didn't know that I needed until now. Amazing!
DistantLoner
I hope it will be possible to edit the outfits of someone outside of the household.
Gloriamus
I think baby showers are one thing, in that for many people they are fun but please do not make gender reveal parties. I think they clearly undermine the inclusivity of your game.
NSO
I have trouble remembering a bunch of keyboard shortcuts so it's a good sign for me that I think everything is intuitive so far :)!
Will some of these things be pinned already? Like using the toilet or sleeping?
Marta Čisáriková
This is awesome, pinning the interactions is such a great idea! Also the possibility to look for options ♥ Amazing job, everybody! ♥
Alishzart
with all honesty i guess the drop down for dance here walk here wont be a fun option if we do play like .. even in sims we play on multiple household members so selecting each on and having such micro controls for everythng makes the game too draining in a way .. its just my perspective 😅
Anna
The pinning option with right click is my favorite, so creative. Great job!
TheTronixX
Now that I see the pinning mode to walk with a single click, a mode to move our Para with the WASD keys or a controller would be great
Sam Puchlerz
I love these features! They're incredibly thoughtful. Looking forward to them!
