The Paralives team has shipped another patch for the Early Access life sim, this time overhauling the vacation system, adding long chair animations, and squashing over 20 bugs. The July 16 update weighs in at roughly 54MB on Mac and is available now through Steam.
This follows the July 2 patch that introduced Steam Cloud and slashed save file sizes, and continues the cadence of biweekly fixes the team has maintained since Early Access launched in June.
New features
The headline addition is a revamped vacation day system. Paras now start a new job with vacation days and accumulate more while working. You can ask for days off or paid leave over the phone, and the rate varies depending on which Storyteller you've chosen. It's a small but meaningful loop that gives employed Paras more scheduling flexibility without micromanaging their calendars.
Long chair animations round out the other visible new feature. Paras now have proper sit-down and stand-up transitions on long chairs instead of the placeholder snaps.
A few smaller additions also landed:
- Paras now render correctly in mirrors (previously they could disappear or display incorrectly).
- The "Ask if Single" interaction no longer counts a Romantic Interest as a relationship, so flirty Paras won't get false positives.
- Hitting personality level 12 (the cap) now changes the level indicator color, and experience stops accumulating to make the ceiling obvious.
- Each household's voices can now be heard during the tutorial train sequence.
Bug fixes worth knowing about
Several of these fixes address problems that could corrupt or confuse save files:
- New Paras are correctly deleted from save data when you exit without saving after creating them (nicknamed "Goodbye Charlie" by the team).
- Story card notifications no longer vanish if you save and reload while one is on screen.
- The "Big House 2" Life Goal can now actually be selected without the game assigning "Big House 3" instead.
- Item stacking no longer risks a crash.
Quality-of-life fixes cover a wide range:
- Mac players can now add custom images to assets, catching up with PC users.
- Bulldozing lots no longer briefly freezes the game.
- Paras can no longer propose to themselves in Together Cards.
- Children won't acquire wrinkles when aging up from the toddler stage.
- The mushroom pasta meal no longer randomly scales to enormous size.
- Hopscotch properly cancels when a Para needs to leave for school or work.
- Library lots that exceed your actual lot space can no longer be placed.
- Adults can no longer receive Wants to level up Speech or Potty skills.
- A non-existent "Outdoorsiness" skill no longer appears as a level-up prompt.
- Computers no longer display Among Us on their screen by default.
- The "Make 200 Paradimes" Want now properly tracks buying and selling items.
- The "You Have Many Plans for Tomorrow" story card correctly offers 3 random wants.
- Town event skill bonuses now function as intended.
- Paras properly unload from Melino at town exit points.
The patch also includes assorted clothing display corrections, localization string fixes, typo corrections, and a curtain scaling adjustment.
Known issue: time drift
The team flagged one ongoing problem: in-game time gradually slows down after roughly 70 in-game days. A fix is in progress, but for now you can adjust the time-per-minute setting in your Storyteller configuration as a workaround.
To grab the update, open Steam and check your library for pending downloads.