We’re being given a new drop of Paralives News with a sneak preview of the games development as they show off new child animations in the latest public Patreon post titled Animation Showcase: Children’s Activities.
This fresh suite of animations is crafted specifically for child Parafolks, highlighting everyday play and interaction in ways that bring the game’s younger characters vibrantly to life.
These animations include scenes of children sitting on their knees, building and destroying sandcastles, playing hopscotch, and drawing on the floor. Players also get to see idle behaviours and interactions with toys like plushies, giving the children in Paralives more personality and depth.
In the post, Paralives team member Alice said she was excited to show off these animations and that they were a lot of fun to make. However, in the post, she also highlighted that everything is still a work in progress, but they can’t wait to add more to this life stage as development continues.
We’ve been hard at work making sure our animations look good across all Parafolk sizes. This is especially challenging for interactions involving physical contact, like kisses, handshakes, and slow dances, or interactions with objects such as couches, beds, and chairs. It’s a technical hurdle, but we’re making good progress!
Alice from Paralives.
A look at the new Paralives animations
An overview of each animation
Let’s take a look at all the new animations on display in this recent update.
Sitting on knees
We can see two children go from standing to sitting on the ground together in unison.
Building sandcastles
There are two variations of this animation shown in the video, so the interaction should not feel stale.
Getting up from their knees
A smooth animation showing how child Parafolk will stand up from the floor.
Kicking down a sandcastle
What’s the fun in building sandcastles if you can’t destroy them? This shows off a child Para giving their sandcastle a swift kick.
Playing in a sandbox
They can build and destroy sandcastles inside the sandbox as well as at the beach.
Playing hopscotch
There are two variations of hopscotch animations shown off in this video, so not all interactions will look the same.
Idle child
There is also a variation of the idle animation, one showed off swinging arms and the other stood with the arms crossed.
Playing with plushies
We can see three unique interactions with the plushies, with one child hugging the toy, one holding it above their head, and one bouncing it on their knee.
Drawing on the floor
All three children sit drawing a picture on the floor. Hopefully, in the future, we can also see the drawings have some variation, as at the moment, all children are drawing the same picture.
You can watch all of these new animations here.
What do the community think?
Initial reactions to this update have been pretty positive.
Looking at the most recent Reddit thread discussing this update and the comments on the public YouTube video, one of the most common things people say is how much these new animations make child Parafolk feel alive. People love how cute the children look, and some say they’re pleased the release got pushed back if it means we get more content like this in the game on day 1.
People also speculate whether we will get age variations like adult Parafolk being able to play in the sandboxes and build sandcastles and whether these will look different, as well as if the different skills and personality traits of the Paras will impact the animation or interaction.
Other comments included suggestions for little tweaks to the animations displayed, like adding a little burst of sand to the sandcastle kicking animation to make it look more impactful.
There were also comments highlighting some issues they found with the animations when watching back, such as knees not bending smoothly and objects snapping into place unnaturally. However, as Alice was keen to point out, all of the animations are a work in progress.
What can we expect next from Paralives?
At the end of the public Patreon post, Alice also added what they’re working on next.
In other animation news, we’ve also added a lot of new animations for various activities, including some previously missing misc actions like “knocking on a door” or “washing the dishes”
We will be adding more cooking animations soon, followed by more personality and emotion-related ones. Naturally, any features that are a priority for Early Access will be completed first.
Alice from Paralives
Hopefully, we get to see these new animations and updates soon, and we can’t wait to see more unique animations and in-depth updates from the team.
What do you think of the latest Paralives news and animation updates? Let us know in the comments below.
You can also read all of our other Paralives articles on Sims Community here if you want to look back at all of the latest updates the team have released.
