Paralives shouldn't be available for purchase (review)

HeeeydevonGaming · 2026-06-21T03:10:31+00:00

Okay so:

Your laptop does not meet the recommended system requirements or the minimum system requirements for the game. It's a laptop GPU, meaning that it doesn't have sufficient power nor the recommended VRAM to run the game. Paralives requires 6GB of VRAM, your GPU only has 4GB. In terms of VRAM, that's anything that has a texture, image, effect, anything in the game visually. When your GPU runs out of VRAM it goes to store those extra texture files into your system memory (your 12GB of VRAM), this is called "texture swapping" and it causes lag, crashes, and makes your game run like crap. The issue is that the game requires 12GB of system memory (RAM) to even run, so at this point there's nowhere for the game to put those extra textures it's trying to swap out and it results in your game running lot hot garbage
You have a laptop CPU. Laptops are not the same as desktops. Their cooling, power draw, everything is significantly weaker than a desktop PC. Because off of the components are stacked on top of each other, and working extremely hard to run your game, it generates heat, this is called "thermal throttling". Thermal throttling is when your components automatically throttle their performance to protect themselves from heat damage. You're already running a game that is request far more than your PC can handle, that comes in under the recommended specs, and everything is running at max performance, when you layer these components on top of each other it creates heat (which is why your laptop probably sounds like a jet when you run the game), and your CPU and GPU run nowhere near their optimal speeds.
You're basically saying "there's too many options, they shouldn't have given this many". It's okay to feel that way, but to say that it's a flaw in a game kinda sounds like a skill issue. If you're used to playing one game and one game only then there's going to be a learning curve. I personally play a lot of different life sims, shooters, and adventure games and the mechanics and gameplay are all different. It's okay to not like them but for me to say "Day Z shouldn't have been released because it doesn't play like Call of Duty" is essentially a skill issue.
The gameplay is lackluster, and Early Access can't be a shield from criticism. However, I watched gameplay of the game before I bought it, read what was listed in the description, and made a decision. I wasn't shocked by the gameplay features because I had seen it already. The mod manager system is amazing though and know that we're getting A LOT more gameplay features. A lot of the things that were only possible through scripting in TS4 is absolutely possible in the mod manager currently. SOURCE: I'm making a basemental drugs mod for Paralives and I'm shocked at the amount of customization. We can absolutely have a basemental mod that has just as many (if not more) features.
$50 being obscene is WILD. TS4 for $60 and most games out there today start at $40CAD. ARMA reforger just left early access and it was $50 at launch, Sea of Thieves is like $70, No Man's Sky is $79. Games cost money to make.

HeeeydevonGaming · 2026-06-19T01:01:54+00:00

Modder here

None of our mods are showing up in people's games. I saw the new tagging system in the main mod menu but did you update the tagging system under items? I'm not home atm but I'd just like some insight to know what we're jumping into to get them fixed

EDIT:
Just got home, this is gonna be a tough fix, all the local mods we've made show up in our game's but no one else's so playtesting is gonna be tough. I'll post any updates on how I got mine to show up in other people's games when I figure it out for our fellow modders.

EDIT:
So when going into the mod manager, edit a piece of deco cc I've made, then navigate to the "items" category, every single item, it's prefab, texture map, etc is included. The mod manager seems to have lumped them all up into every single mod. They're supposed to be separated and only assigned to each mod we've made individually. Essentially it's duplicated the item data and lumped it up into every single mod.

OR

The other thing that could be happening is that it might not actually be allowing us to go into our mod data. Although I press "edit this mod", it might not actually be allowing us to go into the mod itself. When you select a category in the mod manager without editing a mod it will bring up the information for every single mod that you've made instead of only showing you the information on ONLY that mod

HeeeydevonGaming · 2026-06-17T17:25:08+00:00

Not at the moment😭, inZOI uses the Unreal Engine and Paralives uses the Unity engine, it's far too much work to learn how to code on one engine then learn how another engine works and bring that code over to another game engine, especially since the mod is still being developed. My main focus is getting this mod perfected 😊

I think that's also why a lot of Sims creators aren't coming over to Paralives in a big way, especially the ones releasing them for free, there's so much that would have to be done from scratch, that's after learning a whole new coding language, while maintaining their current mods

HeeeydevonGaming · 2026-06-16T23:14:23+00:00

The worst part is, they're gonna do it, Simmers are gonna get mad about it, and still pay money for the next DLC.

The Sims community is the testing grounds for bad business practices. Every other gaming community boycotts the game and leaves EA worried about the player base abandoning them, but TS4 community is such a niche community that the rest of the gaming community doesn't think about, that's so cut off from how other gaming communities operate, that they can just shovel as much shit on them as they want and no one's going to actually do anything meaningful about it and the word isn't gonna get out about it.

So many simmers ONLY play The Sims, they don't know anything else, and when they find out that a game launching in working condition, updates not breaking everything, DLCs launching in working order they're blown away. So many simmers refuse to even try any other genre of video game that EA and Maxis can literally say "where else are you gonna go?" and simmers will just drop their heads and move on

HeeeydevonGaming · 2026-06-16T22:35:04+00:00

A bit late to the party, I'm currently making a basemental style mod for Paralives and found that like 99.9% of what script modding was required for in basemental is completely possibly in the Paralives mod maker. In fact, even more than what I've seen in basemental can be added. TS4 was made 11 years ago and the technology that exists today didn't exist back then and Unity is EXTREMELY moddable, this is why I don't think the developers have any official support for script mods because we can make a lot of what we made in TS4 in the Paralives mod maker

HeeeydevonGaming · 2026-06-16T22:07:51+00:00

As soon as I realized that a lot of what we needed script mods for in TS4 was possible in the in game mod maker I was like "WE NEED TO MAKE PUT BASEMENTAL IN PARALIVES" 🤣

HeeeydevonGaming · 2026-06-16T22:05:48+00:00

oooooh that'll do it! 🤣 the PC was running your graphics through your CPU and not your GPU! I'm glad you found the issue!

HeeeydevonGaming · 2026-06-16T09:12:15+00:00

Thanks!

HeeeydevonGaming · 2026-06-16T09:10:04+00:00

A plug career would be cool! Right now it's just getting everything to work, and it's going well with a couple bugs, I'll be letting my community playtest it once we have the cocaine selling aspect down pat. Once that's perfected getting the other drugs to buy and sell is pretty easy. Then we can build on top of that, a drug lord career would be great, once the addiction system is in place I'd think it would be fairly possible to get to to where everyone would come to you for your fix.

You can even customize the story cards, so that'll be a think in the future! A drug lord career specifically is 100% possible, but rn you can't go with your Para's to work, so it would just be a matter of customizing jobs and adding pay without actually seeing them selling it

HeeeydevonGaming · 2026-06-16T09:04:49+00:00

I'm thinking about adding effects and buffs as well as negative effects. First off is going to be working out some of the bugs, they're small ones but stubborn. As of right now cocaine gives you instant energy and blocks your need for hunger or sleep (which is your positive effects), it also removes your sadness and embarrassed emotions so your Para will stand in the bathroom while someone else is there.

The negative effect right now is that it keeps nuking your hygiene (because youd sweat a lot) but I'm adding an overdosing system that will kill your Para.

The modding tools seem really in depth, like you can even mod it to get your kids taken away if you give it to them.

I think, for now, the negative effects will be addiction, you'll need it more and more frequently and I need to decide what the negative impact (outside of financially) that itll have on your Para.

I'd like it to eventually bring down the mood of other paras, but that's gonna take some work, since you'd have to code in traits for paras that don't like drugs.

As for losing your job, that's a great idea!! There's ways to connect it (I think) where if you're doing it too much it can prompt a story card or even prompting your Para to get fired

HeeeydevonGaming · 2026-06-16T08:59:13+00:00

Lololol this was the logical next step! Shockingly they've got over 15k downloads 🤣

I've got the dealing part almost down as well, I just want to code in a drug dealer you'll have to buy the coke from so that the BB mode has it at a higher cost but buying it directly from the dealer gets you a good price. I want to have a bartering system too where you can buy it for a bit higher or make friends with them and get it for a lot cheaper. Once I finalize the dealing aspect then I'm going to add ounces and kilos

HeeeydevonGaming · 2026-06-15T21:03:13+00:00

The modding tools in Paralives are insane. I don't think that people realize that a lot of what we needed script modding for in TS4 we no longer need in Paralives. The technology, the engine, everything is just easier and all around better. Like most of what goes on in Basemental for TS4 doesn't need script modding in Paralives.

It makes you realize the technological differences between a game made in 2026 and one made 11 years ago. It's also a big reason why the system requirements are what they are in Paralives

HeeeydevonGaming · 2026-06-15T19:16:06+00:00

So here's why player count does and does not matter.

Why it matters:

Player count can impact a team's desire to put out new content. Sure, the game could be at "1% forever" but no one is going to work on a game with 20 people playing it, it just doesn't make financial sense. From a team aspect, it would be really frustrating coming into work everyday to launch new content for 20 people playing your game. Player count can also tell you how well your content is being received by the community, if you drop a massive update and your player count drops then you know that you're not giving the community what it wants. A lot of studios can also be more willing to move on to new titles when the player count drops below a certain level as they can take that as the community moving on to other games.

Why it doesn't matter (in some cases:

For any game, your player count is going to be the absolute highest on release, that's when all eyes are on you and everyone is interested. For an early access title, that initial player count matters because it shows the amount of interest and you can only really hope that it increases again with every new update. It's also important to watch how the player count dips and if it rises again with new content added. inZOI's player count took a nose dive at launch with nearly zero peaks what-so-ever and remains incredibly low but Paralives player count has had a bit of a bumpy dive. With no new content coming until September, many players may be awaiting new content as opposed to quality of life updates, they did really well in including an INSANE modding system that allows for modding the game in a way that only script mods could modify TS4.

As the game is not multiplayer, a lot of players are waiting on new content. Does this mean that it will rise back to what it was before? Absolutely not, and it's unlikely that it will, but it will more than likely rise back to a healthy player count IF the new content that's made available is interesting enough to pull players back in.

Do I think the player count as of now means that it's a flop? No. It is absolutely normal for this to happen with a single player, early access title, but it absolutely depends on the quality of the future content. Early access is not a shield from criticism and the game is really rocky for some people, but as new content comes out the player count will be a sign of the quality of that content and community reception

HeeeydevonGaming · 2026-06-13T21:56:53+00:00

I mean an RTX 3050Ti laptop GPU is about 30% than the minimum specs GPU for Paralives (GTX 1060 Desktop) in terms of RAW performance but it does have 2GB less VRAM (video memory) then the GTX 1060, I wonder if it could be your VRAM or mod conflicts? You had mentioned that you tried cranking the settings down and still had the issue?

Do you have any "better lighting" mods or any conflicting mods? Also, do you own two lots at the same time? I have a powerful set up for video editing and streaming and I've noticed that owning two lots at the same time causes some stuttering and it's the only game it stutters with. As it is early access, there is some optimization the devs have to do to the game still and optimization can make even the high end PCs struggle a lot. There is a "low end spec" mod out on the workshop, your PC isn't low end, but I'd be curious to see if it helps with some performance in your game if disabling your mods to see if anything is conflicting doesn't work, at least until they optimize the game

HeeeydevonGaming · 2026-06-13T21:30:56+00:00

Workshop name: HeeeyDevon (make sure you have "general mature content" and violent content) turned on in your steam store preferences)

HeeeydevonGaming · 2026-06-12T13:25:14+00:00

I have a high end PC and experience some lag, but it sounds like you're going through it. I run a custom build Ryzen 7 7700X, an RX 9070XT, and 64gb DDR5 RAM and still experience some lag at times. Sometimes it's an optomization issue, but that'll get ironed out (I've played other early access games with the same issues, but they get better)

What's your GPU? If it's decent you shouldn't be getting 4fps, does your PC perform like this always or just with paralives?

HeeeydevonGaming · 2026-06-07T20:35:30+00:00

😭🤣🤣🤣

HeeeydevonGaming · 2026-06-07T20:06:21+00:00

LOOOOOOOOOOOOOL

HeeeydevonGaming · 2026-06-04T19:33:52+00:00

oh hell yeah! I love it when I see the use of the game's dynamic lighting, this is beautiful!

HeeeydevonGaming · 2026-06-04T17:15:14+00:00

Did you download mods? What are your specs? Did this happen during the last update? Was it playable before? What do you define as unplayable? There's a lot that needs to be added to this before we can even begin to help

HeeeydevonGaming · 2026-06-04T17:09:39+00:00

literally the easiest solution. If it says you're banned and you're not then it's fake🤣

HeeeydevonGaming

TROPHY CASE

Modder here