23 Features You Need to Know (Early Access)

Early Access launch & disclaimer

Paralives is an open-world life sim that entered Steam Early Access on May 25, 2026 at a $40 USD base price. Abby’s session reflects a pre-launch build — expect differences as patches land.

The developers warn that Early Access ships with bugs, animation glitches, and performance dips. If you want a polished 1.0 experience, waiting is reasonable; the team plans ongoing fixes driven by player feedback.

Parafolk creation (features 1–2)

ParaMaker focuses on body variety and wardrobe depth before you ever load into Melanino.

• Feature 1 — Height adjustment: Adult Paras range from 1.49 m (4′10″) to 1.96 m (6′4″). Proximity animations (hug, slow dance, kiss) still align well; some object interactions are being polished.
• Feature 2 — Clothing layering & tucking: Vests, jackets, and coats layer over shirts with per-piece color wheels. Some tops toggle tucked vs untucked hems.

Build Mode basics (features 3–4)

• Feature 3 — Resizable objects: Stretch sofas, tables, curtains, counters, and more — resized pieces stay functional. Beds start single but can widen to double, triple, or quadruple size (still capped at two sleepers per bed in EA).
• Feature 4 — Advanced transform: Move, rotate, stretch, and squash on all axes. Deforming functional objects usually breaks their interactions — fine for decor, risky for usable items.

Storytellers & social play (features 5–7)

• Feature 5 — Storytellers: Pick Ricardo (hard), Max Sans (balanced), or Stella the dog (relaxed). They tweak background social odds and deal a random nightly card with next-day goals, buffs, or events.
• Feature 6 — Social cards: Filling the Together bar offers three dialogue cards — friendly, funny, sarcastic, flirty, sometimes with success %. Bad moods skew hostile options. Group chats include multiple Paras at once.
• Feature 7 — Request boards: Town boards and NPCs with exclamation marks hand out fetch or interaction quests paying cash and friendship.

Work & personality (features 8–10)

• Feature 8 — Custom work shifts: Teaching stays rigid; other careers let you choose shift length, workdays, and hours.
• Feature 9 — Personality upgrades: Completing mood-based Wants grants Personality XP to unlock social perks, talents, and attribute points (Physique, Mind, Creativity, Charisma).
• Feature 10 — Career perks: Promotions and raises unlock up to three selectable workplace perks.

Open world & town (features 11–12)

• Feature 11 — Seamless map: Travel outdoors without full-screen loads; entering interiors (shops, homes, parks) uses short local loading. Neighboring lots can stay loaded but hammer performance.
• Feature 12 — Community buildings: Plant/antique shop, general store, clothing, barber/tattoo, pub, pizza, café, 24/7 gym, and a castle library/town hall with secrets. Fine dining restaurant still in development.

Advanced building (features 13–15)

• Feature 13 — Gridless & curved walls: Disable the grid to draw walls, half-walls, and fences at any angle — including smooth curves.
• Feature 14 — Separators: Invisible straight or curved dividers split gridless rooms so each zone gets its own floor and wall coverings.
• Feature 15 — Custom frames & uploads: Resize frames and import local image files as in-game art or photos.

Group control & events (features 16–17)

• Feature 16 — Multi-select Paras: Box-select households or known NPCs RTS-style; mass travel, play, socialize, or cancel actions. Occupied objects trigger auto-reroute to duplicates.
• Feature 17 — Daily newspaper: Read for town news, event schedules (stargazing, outdoor movies, treasure hunts, yoga, running club, Sunday market), quest hints, and direct cash or skill rewards.

Cheats & death (features 18–19)

• Feature 18 — Cheat console: Ctrl+F1 or Ctrl+Shift+C opens cheats; type help for the list. Examples: jackpot (+$50,000), setmoney, relief all needs, plus a body-randomizer gag.
• Feature 19 — Five deaths, no ghosts: Starvation, fire, old age, poisoning, and fatigue death (empty energy kills instantly — no passing out). No tombstones or ghosts in EA; Paras vanish on death.

Museum & foraging (features 20–21)

• Feature 20 — Museum & bundles: Donate mushrooms, minerals, and treasures five at a time for cash or items; exhibits display in the museum. The ruined Community Center accepts Stardew-style bundles for unlock rewards.
• Feature 21 — Wild mushrooms: Edible fungi fill hunger; toxic types like fly agaric poison and crash bladder (hospital treatable). Black amanita can kill instantly.

Needs freeze & growth (features 22–23)

• Feature 22 — Freezing needs: Four core needs normally decay. Jester trait ignores one random need each morning; lover death or house-fire escape triggers Shock State (all needs frozen).
• Feature 23 — Growth spurts: Children, pre-teens, and teens grow taller over days — 2, 3, and 4 spurts respectively as they age.

Mod tools & homeless challenge

A built-in modding panel lets you tweak interactions, animations, success rates, and need curves without leaving the game, with full Steam Workshop integration.

For challenge runs, sell your lot and use setmoney 0 to start broke — Abby notes selling foraged mushrooms (even risky ones) as a scrappy income loop.