A Deep Dive into our Development Planning

Hi there, I hope you had a nice week.

Alex here today to share two very very exciting news:

1. 📢 We are sharing a big project roadmap, giving you an exclusive look at our internal planning of every major feature to include in the game before its release.
2. 📢 You will notice on the roadmap that Paralives will first launch in Early Access. We do not have a release date estimate to share yet but we can now confirm that the game will first release in Early Access.

⚠️ Please read the whole Patreon post for all the details regarding these two news!

The Paralives Development Roadmap

➡️➡️➡️ ROADMAP LINK:
paralives.notion.site/f138c4f6cb234604be16fe4198d17f51

The roadmap lists all features that we have developed so far and the features that are yet to come. Some elements can be opened for more details.

The roadmap is divided into modules like the Paramaker, Build Mode, Live Mode and features are grouped by state: Done, In Progress, Before the Early Access Release, During the Early Access and Under Consideration (After the Full Release).

🗺️ Why this Roadmap?

As you know, we already have a development page on our website and frequent Patreon posts with development updates. However, we wanted people to get a closer look at the development planning for Paralives and to better understand all the work needed to make a life simulation game. Doing so, we aim to be as transparent as possible and allow people to know what they can expect from us.

📝 Important Notes About the Roadmap

• The roadmap is not an exhaustive wiki describing every feature in-depth.
• Some tasks are not described in detail or divided into multiple tasks yet because the design is still being worked on. We design the game and its features by iteration, as explained in this Patreon post.
• Some secret features are not on the roadmap so that you can later discover them for yourselves when playing the game.
• All tasks do not require the same amount of time to complete. Some can take a few days, some can take months and others are continuously worked on like the art style, for instance.
• As you can see on the roadmap, we are focusing on the most core and essential features until the release so that we can have a fun and complete experience as soon as possible and avoid losing time on nice-to-have features that could be added later.
• There are many many features and ideas that are not on the roadmap but that we are still considering for later.
• Keep in mind that many things that we do every week are not on the roadmap: learning and training ourselves, establishing production processes, studying references, reviewing the work of other team members, planning our weekly tasks, building the community, working on showcase videos, writing Patreon posts and more!
• Also, remember that we are a very small but passionate team of 10 people and it takes time to make a great game!

📌 Where We’re At

Here’s a summary of the current state of each part of the game, as you can see in more details on the roadmap shared at the beginning of this post.

• Paramaker - Core systems working: Almost all features are there but still lacking the majority of the content such as clothing items, hairstyles, babies and pets. The art style of the human characters is close to final.
• Build mode - Core systems working: Most of the features are there but the tools for stairs, roofs and basement creation are still lacking. The majority of the furniture and objects to be included at release have not been created yet. The art style of the environment is currently being worked on.
• Live mode - Basic interactions working: The players can order the characters to make a few basic interactions on some objects in the house. We are now solidifying the interaction and animation systems before moving on the features like skills, needs, relationships, schools, careers and more as well as creating a lot more interactions and character animations.
• Modding tools - Core systems working: We created in-game modding tools that we, the developers, use to integrate all our content (clothes, furniture, interactions, etc) and define all the detailed and various game parameters under the hood. Modders will be able to do all that as well upon the release of the game and share their creations with the community.

🛠️ Will the Roadmap Change?

The roadmap is not set in stone and because of the challenges of game development, some features will get changed, delayed to after the initial release or maybe even canceled. During development, some design or technical problems can come up, having a direct effect on our planning. Our goal is to be as transparent as possible with you so we will keep you updated about challenges we meet and eventual changes to our plan. Also, as we get closer to the release, new tweaks and polish will get added to the roadmap following playtests on the game. In short, the roadmap is something that will evolve over time.

📢 Paralives Will First Release in Early Access

Releasing a game on Steam in Early Access is a way for developers to launch their product while it is still being actively developed. During Early Access, anyone who is eager to play a game can try it, understanding that it might not be complete and then give feedback to the developers so they can polish it and complete it before the 1.0 launch of the game.

As you can see on our roadmap, we can now confirm that we will first launch the game in Early Access, when it’s ready! Doing so will allow us to put the game in your hands sooner, when we feel that it offers an enjoyable experience, even though it will still lack some promised and important features. Then, during the Early Access period, we will frequently update the game to add all the content and features needed to complete our vision.

When Paralives will come out in Early Access, it will be purchasable and playable by everyone, not just Patrons. We are still considering the idea of a closed beta phase for Patrons only before launching in Early Access but it is not planned for now. The exact price of the game has not been established yet but it will be around the same as other games in the same genre.

🚀 When Will Paralives Launch in Early Access?

The roadmap doesn’t display any time estimates for each feature to be delivered and for the game to come out in Early Access on Steam. Making a huge and complex game like Paralives is a colossal, long and sustained effort. In consequence, it’s very hard for game developers to exactly predict when a game will be ready. We have internal planning documents with more details and time estimates for each task so we do have a release window in mind. However, we prefer to keep it secret until we get closer to the release to avoid having to disappoint people by delaying a previously announced release date.

💖 Conclusion

I hope you liked this look at our internal planning. This roadmap will be made public next week and everyone will be able to look back at it from time to time to check on our progress. We have gone such a long way since the project started and we still have a good way to go but I feel really excited about what Paralives is shaping up to be. Thank you so much for your continuous support and I can’t wait to put Paralives in your hands!

Cheers,

Alex

EDIT - May 3, 2022: This post is now public. Feel free to share it!