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How Paralives Lets Modders Customize Any Game Content and Settings
🕑 Added 2021-10-01 17:09:14 +0000 UTCHey there,
People often ask us questions like: will there be a way to change the speed at which Parafolks grow up? Will there be a way to tweak the weather? Will there be a way to change the cost of building a wall?
The answer to all of these and to any question starting with “will there be a setting to” is: yes, if you are an advanced player willing to try our modding tools! With Paralives, we’ve built tools to make it so almost any game content, numbers, information and parameters can be tweaked easily. This is done through what we call the control panel, a tool that is part of our mod system and that is directly accessible in-game. This post is for Patrons only so please don’t share it!
A sneak peek at the control panel interface showing some of the settings that can be edited.
Most games have a settings menu. The control panel can be seen as an extremely thorough settings menu for modders and advanced players. Any Paralives feature that you can think of will have settings associated with it and tinkerers will be able to change them in the control panel. This interface will be a bit complex and packed with a ton of data so of course, there will also be a traditional settings menu for players who will be looking for a more simple way to tweak the most essential options.
Some Examples
First, in the astronomy section of the control panel, you can change the colors of the sky, the information related to the revolution and rotation of the Earth and the stars in the sky. The settings were used to create this video where we showcase the day and night cycle in Paralives.
Next, equipment is the term we use to represent any visual elements that can be seen on a character: clothing, accessories, hair, makeup, freckles and so on. In the screenshot below, you can see the equipment section of the control panel where you can add, edit or delete new equipment items.
Our last example for today is the items section of the control panel. There, you can tweak any information associated with a piece of furniture or other objects that can be placed in the world. Here’s a description of some of the parameters that you can edit on an item:
Conclusion
We hope that the control panel will help modders and advanced players tweak every little aspect of Paralives to their liking. We’re still improving these tools and working on documentation so people will be able to know what every parameter does.
If the control panel seems complicated and overwhelming to you, don’t worry, people will be able to share their own changes to the control panel so you will be able to download them as mods on Steam. Someone could do a mod that changes all the prices of the furniture, a mod that makes the game’s sunset longer and prettier, a mod that adds new hairstyles and clothing items. Any settings can be tweaked, any content can be edited and new content can be added. The virtual sky is the limit!
Alex
Comments
Noveternal
It’s freaking perfect!!!🤤🤯👏🏻👏🏻 love your ideas, I’m just speechless right now))
Willow Grewal
I LOVE this. This is the customization I adore and cannot wait to tweak!
Rainy Bells
All I imagine is someone making like a Gucci sweater or something and making it craaazy expensive
Marta Čisáriková
This is truly amazing ♥ Do you plan to have cheats in the game? And if so, can there be a list of all cheats directly in the game? (Somewhere in lessons or next to info about developers)
Sayori
This is amazing! Thank you for thinking of something like that! <3
Amy Joscelyn
Fantastic! I especially love that we'll be able to change the color of the sky. Hopefully we'll also get customization for the weather, like the color of rain or snow—so that if I wanted to have a red sky, I could change the precipitation to be black so that it looks like ash is falling from the sky. For as much as I love realism in my life simulation games, once in awhile it's super fun to make the world as fantastical as possible. If we're able to play around with settings that change up the worldbuilding like this, on top of alterations to Parafolk and flora and the like, the possibilities for creative new worlds is endless!
Beth Anne
I didn't reply to this when I first saw it because I was reading it on my phone waiting for my kids' schoolbus, but I wanted to note: this is amazing, and I am 100% here for it. I love the idea of being able to save my own settings or try out someone else's. *happy*
CBaker
Is a release of the game next year looking possible?
eggie
This is so cool, and so good that it'll be directly in-game ☺️
Annamaris
Long live Paralives! Easy modding with the awesome core will give it a plenty of years to be played and enjoyed by. Can't wait to see what kind of content and stories the community will create!
Stephanie Kuldell
*In Ryan George’s/Screen Rant’s ~Pitch Meeting~ voice* Oh a VERY player-friendly settings menu!
S&M Gonzalez
This looks amazing! As someone who mods will it be possible to set custom overlay skins within the mod settings that wouldn’t have to be loaded into paramaker like it would in sims. So we don't have to manually change each paras skin. But importing a custom skin mesh would be applied to all paras in a world at once.
Fishout
Options equal good times.
1luckydandelion
I love to explore the settings in all the games I play so this makes me so happy
Kyung Woong Koh
Much needed improvements! Thank you!
tey711
One word...Amazing!! The possibilties seem boundless!! I'm so impressed with the fact the Paralives team is willing to share these equipment capabilities with all players...Amazing!! 💞
Alex Agustin
It couldn't get any better! Take care you guys and thanks for the update!!!
Zeevryn
I don’t really understand much of what was said but yay! More options for people who want more options!
Glassheart
OHHHH! I love this!!!! Just a question: so you can even add personalized tags to create new categories?
Vera Ohlsen
You sexy, sexy developers with your sexy, sexy array of options, you!
Christine Harvey
I'd love the fantasy-esque idea!
Sabine B
Oh man this is like having the nraas suite or mc command centre built into the game! Awesome thank you 😍
Fran Smith
Wow! This is basically modding for non-modders!! Awesome!! And thank you!! One question: Will there be a kind of category tweaking available for things like price (so that we don't have to tweak them individually)? For example if I find my Paras are accumulating too much money after a while, will I be able to tweak buy items without tweaking build items, tweak only grocery items or only holidays or only luxury items, or only furniture or only cars or only clothes (possibly even further categorised - basic and expensive etc)? And things like income salaries, and rent/loans/rewards and penalties/utilities/taxes/maintenance (whatever ends up in the game) etc too? So that you can increase or decrease items on a category basis, probably by percentage? I want to be able to play all kinds off Paras from bums and poor to the occasional rich Para and everything in between (I want to be able to create a full, eclectic community), so I want to be able to tweak these things to ensure that I don't end up with millionaire normal families over time.
evistre
holy wow. nice
Alice Taylor
This is absolutely amazing. Such detail ❤️ question: if there is an issue with a particular modded item will there be some error message or icon to show what mods could be conflicting? (I am not a mod creator myself so don’t know the ins and outs but I do like to play with them)
Kamila Cecylia
Brilliant!!!!
Francis McDonald
Such a wonderful array of choice, can't wait for when it is up and running. In the meantime I will continue to dream for that day. All of you rock!
Sean McDorman
This level of detail and player control is quite frankly insane - I mean that in the best way possible, lol. As someone who is not versed in game programming, can you explain to me how the game still functions when so many of its variables are set by the player? For example, if the player is given control over time itself in the form of the astronomy settings, how can you program a default time for, say, making and eating a sandwich without that being changed too as a consequence?
Christina Ozeki
Oh I love this customisation idea. Fantastic! ❤️
Sarah
This is AMAZING!!!
NoNayNever
WOW!
Andrea Owens
I’m excited for the longer sunsets in game. The sunset seems super relaxing from what I’ve seen so far.
QueenWarrior4
To change the color in the games and to see ( so far ) the menu being a darker color, it's a game changer, I can't play certain games that I enjoy, the sims among others, when I am having migraines/ vertigo starting or just sensitivity with my eyes for other reasons.. So being able to change my sky to slightly darker shades on bad days is amazing! I would like if it is possible and not too difficult to have 2 save preset buttons but I mean I know that's asking a lot and you have more important things to do, but to have a good day preset and a bad day preset for the day colors/ world colors would be awesome, regardless to change it in the first place is beyond awesome and appreciated! Ya'll keep getting me so pumped up for this with every thing you share, but waiting stinks lol, of course I mean take as long as you need to make it perfect! But aghhhhh :P I can't wait because this is amazing! THANK YOU <3
JessIsMore
Can I ask if the team would add hover-over descriptions for each of the meters? I'm not a modder, but I would appreciate being able to read what each value and slider does so that I could understand it better.
Megan Santucci
oh wow that's brilliant
Megan Santucci
this is so nerdy and I LOVE IT 👩🔬❤️
Christina Renna
This is awesome and I think it's the perfect combination of allowing players full flexibility with how they play and not spending unnecessary amounts of time trying to cater every little thing to every type of player (so that you can instead focus on more important things, like Live mode!) It might take some learning, but I'm happy to have the option to customize my game however I want, without demanding too much from you guys.
RysingSun
So excited about Paralives! Keep up the amazing work, you guys!
RysingSun
From what I can tell, that's just if you want to do your own modding. Obviously there will be default settings for the game, and as they stated, you can download mod settings too.
Jennifer Huber
This is amazing! Truly! I will feel much more confident with modding my own gameplay and creating things for others with clear choices like the ones you are offering. Just amazing!
Starsickle
This is a great start, and I think you should keep this level of detail going when it comes to gameplay. Be bold and detailed with gameplay elements, and accommodate different players with systemic toggles and other controls.
Jérémie Tessier
In this case I think it's more or less what would make a "mod". The challenge could be a mod by itself and if you install it you would have specific settings! This is still a bit up in the air tho.
Jérémie Tessier
Thank you! It will probably be possible to hide or remove items from the base game catalogue, but I hope that instead people will enjoy all the items we'll create in the game, haha :D
Jérémie Tessier
As I see it "presets" are more or less going to be "mods". So if you install the pink sky mod in one of your games, it won't be in the other. It's not 100% decided how everything is going to work tho, so thank you for your ideas!
Jérémie Tessier
Thank you! Indeed, these are advanced settings more tailored for modders or custom content creators, but we will try to make them as user friendly as possible still!
Jérémie Tessier
We haven't started working on pets yet, so that's why there are no options in the control panel for them, but when we get there, we will add them!
Jérémie Tessier
Hello Vanessa! No, don't worry, these are advanced settings that will not have to be touched before you start playing the game. Modders and content creators will be able to use them to create mods and custom content, but regular users that just wanna experience the game won't have to :)
Sooner
This and being able to have fantasy-esque jobs or "appliances" would be really awesome too!
Shooketh
So ready for the gameplay reveal . Do you guys have date set for gameplay reveal?
Deborah Aittokallio
Thank you Alex for you and your teams Hard Hard work i like what im hearing
Halley Gearhart
I really hope there's options for my para-pets too :) some ppl like not being able to control their pets and some people do like being able to control the pets. I hope there will be an option for that
Lily Tindel
Yoooo?? Astronomy 😳😳
Chloe-oe-o
Omg the ability to change the sky colors?! I love this. In terms of the create a para and build/buy items is it possible to have a view panel so that we can see which item is what? Kind of like the Sims4Studio.
Solistia
In seeing that there's a "species" option, that makes me think it'd be great if in the future, there are multiple races of paras not unlike elves, dwarves, that sort of thing, as well as having building tools and home items that could be fantasy-esque to make old timey castles and cottages. So here's hoping!
hjs_wells
The built-in modding feature looks really cool and easy to use! cant wait to try it out
Elunæ
I didn't think, that I can be more excited than I already am. But here we are. I hope one can then download only specific settings for e. g. the sunset, not only a complete set of settings of all things. But I'm sure the team will find the right way. They're doing everything, to make it most convenient for players to play. That's what we need and that's why we are all Patreons. <3
Vanessa Albert
I am really bad with settings like that. Hope the importing will be very easy and also how to know what will be effected with all those settings. I would not like to have to study how all those settings work before I can start playing 😅
Pedro Lima
Awesome! I love that we will have so much freedom without a lot of modding/coding knowledge. Somethings I would really like to see: 1) A very robust and smart search box for the settings 2) Settings linked to save files instead of the whole system, so I can have different settings for each save file 3) Multiple labelled presets of settings, with the option to create more and import/export these presets, as well as the option to choose a preset as default for future new save files
Michael
Hopefully, there is a "Test" button where you could play around with tweaks to the settings before committing to any change?
Ayla Gwizdak
this is super exciting, I loooove customizing like this. I can't wait
Michael
I love this! I think exporting / importing all of the settings is crucial. An example use case would be a popular Paralives content creator creating a gameplay challenge on an alien world that requires many specific options (such as astronomy to affect the moons and lighting as well as custom life spans). Exporting and importing options would allow followers to have the same settings to attempt the challenge.
Emilie Hand
Evertime they post something I'm always so surprised with how much we're going to be able to do. At release. Its crazy how much were all used to these games not living up to expectations. Paralives keepa proving the opposite.
Maxayn Henderson
I love this!!! Thank you for the price change feature. I love being able to make prices close to real world or not! I cannot wait to see what people make with these tools!!
Lucie Vergnon
Wow I'm a really big fan of your work, can't wait to try all of your COOOOOL features !!!
Blooby
Omg modding tools out of the box?! That's all I could ask for! 😃
ArchitectHaizara
(Off-topic?) Love the UI! Very nice and sleek.
Katie Bellissimo
This is so fantastic I almost have no words! I can't wait to play around with this! Thank you for making accissible mod tools for those of us who want to mess around with specifics like this but don't have coding experience!
Draconicrose
Uhm. Holy shit?!
Zedef
This looks great! Would we also be able to 'hide' or remove an item we don't particularly care for to decrease the number of base game items we need?
Sims4Luxury
Hey 🤗 I would like to know if we’ll be able to share our content only by steam or not?
Ashley Strebel
That’s what i was thinking! that would be so cool to have different custom presets
Jo Landers
Definitely think saved presets for control panel that can be different depending on the save (rather than affecting your whole game, if multiple save files are an option) would be good. For instance I might have a save that's a fantasy world, with pink skies and a purple moon. Wouldn't want to have to change my presets every time I opened a save for a slice of life game, or a dystopian style game
Sara Rocha
This looks very cool. Seems a bit complicated as someone who is not very knowledgeable in this area, but even if people like me wanted to change something specific that would require using this there'd probably be tons of people online that could help you out. Great work team 💕
Tato E
Damn, the innovation!
mandalabunny
That is so cool, thank you for sharing!
Cloudì Thoughts
I’ve never been so excited for a game !!
Alexandra Lindsey
So cool!
