👋Together Cards: Our Progress on Social Gameplay Features in Paralives

Hi, it’s Alex!

I’m here to talk about our progress on a crucial part of the game: social interactions! As you may remember, it works through what we call Together Cards which are choices offered to the player to drive the conversation in the desired direction. It was first explained in this post and Jérémie then shared more insights in this other post.

🔐As usual, today’s post is for Patrons only so please don’t share it, thanks!

 You can see the Together Cards in action in our 7-minute long gameplay video from last year.

⭐ General Improvements to Social Interactions

Recently we have brought two main improvements to the Together Cards.

First, instead of only choosing one of 3 offered cards each time, the player will now have a bit more options on what happens in the conversation as every character will have 2 to 3 cards of things they can say or bring to the conversation. This also solved an issue we had where it was hard to select only 3 cards to offer to the player if the group had a lot of people in it.

 When interacting in a group, every hour, the player can pick one Together Card that will be said by a specific character (each column represents the cards that a specific character can use). The offered cards are randomized based on the context, the relationship status, and more. The two characters on the right don’t have any cards because they are not household members that the player controls.

Secondly, we have added a lot more together cards revolving around the personality of your character. There are unique cards for Paras with the Overjoyed vibe trait or for Paras with the Music talent trait, for instance. Of course, social traits will also have a big impact on the kind of things a character can do and say during a conversation.

 Some examples of cards tied to specific personality traits. Read more on personalities here and here.

🎹 Join Friends to Work on Your Skills

As you may already know, in Paralives, any interaction available in live mode can be done alone or in a group. Leveling up your skills is no exception. The great thing with Together Cards is that if you are, let’s say, discussing around the piano and working on that skill together, the cards offered each hour are more likely to be about the piano. Selecting one of these cards could inspire your Paras or give them a learning speed boost in the piano skill.

 Working on skills as a group will be a great way to reach high skill levels a bit faster, as well as making friends on the way!

💖 Romancing Parafolks

I have to admit it: my favorite part of socializing in life simulation games is romancing characters! One of the improvements we’ve done to our Together Cards lately is to allow two people to flirt together even though they are part of a larger group.

 Something is going on between one of my Paras and this new stranger we just met! I hope this won’t make my other Paras jealous or something…

We added more romance cards that will be different based on the personality of your characters. Furthermore, we also created some extra rules that will make it more difficult for two people with opposite personality traits to successfully flirt with each other. For example, an Overjoyed character will have a harder time flirting with a Grumpy Para than if they had a different vibe. We aim to build upon that to have a romance compatibility system.

 Here, I’m mouse-hovering a card to see the breakdown of why the success chances are 42%. When romancing people, many factors are taken into account to know whether it will work out or not. For instance, if you know the person well or if you first set a friendly or funny atmosphere in the group, Parafolks are more likely to get seduced.

🤚 Event Cards

Another thing we’ve done is that we sometimes offer event Together Cards to the players based on what’s happening in the conversation. For example, if Paras are having a good time telling jokes and laughing, they might be offered to level up their Friend relationship label, or if the romance is high between two characters, an event card might make it official that the characters are now interested in each other.

 On the right, an example of an event card that upgrades the Friend relationship labels of people in the group.

We’d like to expand on that and test adding more event cards that are more than just new relationship labels upgrades. One idea would be, for instance, an event card that lets you select a secret crush for one of your characters. Another idea would be a card that makes two people in the group start to argue about something that happened earlier.

➡️ More Together Cards Ideas To Be Tested

There are many, many more gameplay elements we will be able to experiment with as we keep adding new Together Cards before and after the initial Early Access release of the game. Here are some of them, to share just a few:

🍫 Share snack: If you have the personality trait “Good at taking care of others” and there’s someone in the group who is hungry, you could use this card to relieve their Hunger need a bit.

🧑‍⚕️ Examine symptoms: If your character is a nurse or a doctor and someone in the conversation has a virus, for instance, you could pick this card to check on their symptoms.

💼 Exchange about work: If someone in the group works in the same field as your character, you could use this card to have a small chance of gaining a job upgrade point.

🤝 Friendly introduction: If you have the trait “Good at making friends” when meeting strangers, you could use this card to have a 50% chance to unlock the “Friend” relationship label right away.

🔥 Talk about the fire: If a group of people just went through a dramatic event like a fire, they could pick this card to talk about it and get a bit of comfort, or maybe even become friends faster because of the difficult events that had to go through together.

I hope you liked today’s post. Please share your feedback below and have a great weekend!

Alex 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦