animations

“What does flirting actually look like?” is one of several, quintessentially Friday-afternoon questions raised by the latest development footage for Paralives, the upcoming life sim with its heart set on stealing yours away from The Sims.

We last covered Paralives in October last year, when the devs confirmed an early access release in 2025. That early access launch date, 8th December, is fast approaching, so it’s high time we treated this would-be Maxis-feller to some fresh scrutiny. If only to stop ourselves thinking about The Sims 4’s harrowing suite of imaginary friends.

So: what does flirting actually look like? Paralives thinks it looks like smiling and making eye contact and maybe leaning in a bit closer than you otherwise would. Maybe fluttering your hands around in a delicately come-hither way. Witness the simmering emotions in the below development video, just published on the developer’s site. All the animations are created with reference to the moderately context-sensitive Together Cards you’ll play to direct conversations.

Watch on YouTube

As in most other departments, The Sims prefers to play things slapstick. I myself adhere to the Mr Darcy/Kaguya-sama approach to flirting, which consists of looking steadily at a ceiling corner while making no sudden movements. You know, kind of like how you’d defuse an argument with a bear. If it’s really going well, I’ll storm out of the room and stop speaking to that person for months. Believe it or not, this method has worked at least once.

The video also includes some animations for how Parafolks, as they’re called, talk to children. The devs are currently working on bespoke animations for kids, looking at what they can carry over from the adults, and what needs to be “made from scratch”. This aside makes me wonder after the possibility of a life sim in which kids pick up body language from parental figures. Similar to this scene in The Invincibles.

Alice Bee (RPS in peace) compared Paralives favourably to what we then knew of The Sims 5 in 2022. I like the looks of it rather more than I do this year’s other big Sims competitor – burbanite frightfest InZOI, which Jay Castello summarised in our early access review as “an endless series of vapid, corporate-feeling interactions that never lend themselves to interesting storytelling”. Paralives is a smalltown affair, and much less glossy – check out this antique shop, for example.

I do worry it might be wholesome to a fault, though. The game’s Steam page blurb is bracingly unromantic: “You live and then you die. But at least do it in a nice house!” The action in-game, however, seems very feelgoody-two-shoes, notwithstanding the obligatory option to shut your characters in doorless rooms.

The Sims has been a success partly because it has quite a pronounced nasty streak born of understanding the sociopathic tendencies of certain players – The Sims 4 has whole expansion packs dedicated to death. I’d like to see some of that energy in Paralives, and a little less parafolksiness. At the very least, they could let me romance people by giving no outward impression that I am conscious they exist.

This being an article about life sims, I will spare a thought for the cancelled Life By You and its shuttered creators, Paradox Tectonic. The game’s former publishers Paradox Interactive are still interested in making a Sims competitor, but have said they need to “start smaller” next time.

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