With Paralives being days away from coming out in early access, now is a great time to learn about Paralives relationships and all the different relationship levels and labels your Parafolk can have.

Developing Paralives Relationships

To build a relationship, you can have two or more Parafolk perform any interaction together while in a group. As they spend time together, their bond gradually changes and grows.

Instead of relying on a long queue of perfectly orchestrated and micromanaged social interactions like in other life simulation games, relationships evolve simply through shared activities and experiences, as well as together cards.

Together Cards

Together cards are how you interact with your Parafolk and control the conversation’s direction. These are the main ways you will be able to have input into your Paralives relationships.

The colour of each card is linked to the direction the conversation will go.

• White together cards: Neutral conversation
• Pink together cards: Flirty interactions
• Dark blue cards: Learn information about the person you are talking to, like their job.
• Green together cards: Funny or happy interactions
• Red together cards: Mean or negative interactions

Babies and toddlers also have a unique blue card for their conversation options. Picking these in conversation will level up their language skill.

Relationship Labels

Love interest, friend, and family labels can be added in Paramaker when you create your family, and the team have confirmed that more relationship labels will become available as early access continues.

Outside of the Paramaker menus, relationship labels can only be unlocked through the storyteller and their input into the relationship.

If you perform a bunch of interactions in a row from the same type of together card, the storyteller you have chosen will pop up and give you the option to add a relationship label or level up a relationship.

Levelling up your relationship will unlock new together cards, so when they pop up it’s a good idea to take it.

To check on the relationship labels and levels between any two Parafolk, you can find all their information in the Relationships tab.

You can also have relationship labels which might seem conflicting, like lover and enemy or friend and enemy, so relationships can be as complex as you want them to be in Paralives.

Friendship

Forming friendships in Paralives is really straightforward and doesn’t require too much input, unlike romantic and negative relationships.

As long as Parafolk spend time together in a group, whether chatting or doing an activity, they will build a positive connection.

The higher your friendship level the more dialogue options you will unlock, including things like the ability to tell inside jokes.

Romance

Building romantic relationships in Paralives involves elements of chance, as well as the together cards and activities.

Personality Impacts Romance

When creating your characters in the Paramaker, you can assign them specific personality traits and perks which impact socialisation. Selecting the Good at Romantic Relationships perk gives your Parafolk higher success rates and unlocks unique together cards.

Chances Of Flirtation Success

Flirtation success depends on a host of factors, including how close your Paras are, the vibe of the conversation, and how the Paras are feeling.

Hovering over the target Para’s icon will show you how likely you are to succeed and provide a more detailed breakdown of the factors influencing your chances.

Once you select an interaction and target, a spinning wheel animation will indicate if you were successful or not.

If the flirting wasn’t successful, there is a good chance that your Parafolk will be embarrassed or sad.

Proposing

Proposing comes with a unique animation depending on if the Parafolk being proposed to agrees or rejects their partner.

Understandably, a failed proposal is going to make them feel embarrassed.

Marriage

At the time of writing this guide, it’s not possible to plan a wedding, so look out for a special yellow together card in the options to elope. Selecting that will start a quick wedding sequence.

There’s something very vintage Sims about proposing and then immediately getting married in the kitchen!

Making Enemies & Fighting

Where’s the fun in a life simulation game with no enemies?

Negative relationships are just as easy to create as positive ones. If you want to make someone enemies with another Para then just select the red together cards whenever they come up.

Insults have the ability to be personal, with options like “mock for being a clean freak” or “mock low charisma”, so the options you choose for your Parafolk in the Paramaker and their personality traits are all fair game.

Some options, like poking, have a unique animation too. Selecting this option, you’ll see your Para square up to whoever they’re arguing with and poke their chest, before being shoved backwards.

Do enough of these negative interactions, and you’ll be sure to escalate your Parafolk’s relationship to enemies in no time.

From Enemies To Friends

Having a friendly interaction with someone you’ve made your enemy takes a bit more work.

At first all conversation options which are remotely friendly will be very surface level – my Parafolk chatted about pianos for about 4 hours – before you start getting prompts to tell jokes and compliment each other, and eventually your storyteller showing up to give you the option to become friends.

Paralives relationships are much more complex than the simple conversation style and levelling up system would lead you to believe.

The together card system also takes all the forced micromanagement out of your choices and gameplay, giving you some control but also leaving some choices up to the Parafolk and storyteller fate.

Are you looking forward to levelling up and exploring Paralives relationships and all the different dynamics? Let us know below!

We’ve also written lots of different Paralives guides, which you can find on our dedicated page here.