Paralives is New Game Inspired by The Sims

Electronic Arts has dominated the virtual human life genre of video games for 20 years now,ever since it releasedThe Simsback in February of 2000. Unfortunately for EA, there may be strong competition on the horizon. A new game,Paralives,has raised its head, and its insanely flexible character and house customization may make it a strong contender in the life sim market. Paralives Studio has been showing videos of early gameplay footage, and it is very promising.

For the past year, videos of the virtual interior decorating system have been showcased on theParaliveschannel. From the looks of it, the house building and decorating systemmay eventually rivalHouse Flipper.

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So far most of the development videos have been focused on the houses, but the next step in development is already here: the people. On Tuesday, May 19th, Paralives Studio released this video of Maggie herself, its first Para.

Alreadythe character customization shows considerable promise, even though so far there is only one “Para” (Paralives' name for their simulated humans). The interface to configure Maggie’s skeleton and weight distribution is similar to what EA introduced with The Sims 4, so players should already find the controls intuitive. As for Maggie herself, she has a lovely style.

Being slightly cartoonish, Paralives Studio is able to cleverly sidestep the dreaded Uncanny Valley, when a character isboth too real to be unrealistic and too unrealistic to be real, something which everyone agrees can be quite unnerving. Maggie is close, but her doll-like face and smooth skin is enough to keep her from falling into that trap.

For now, prospective players have plenty of time to get involved with the game’s creation and share their ideas with the developers. Already there is a following on Reddit of over 6,000 users and growing.

Paralivesis being developed for PC and Mac. The release date is to be determined.

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