💼 News on Jobs and Schools (Patreon)

Hi, Anna here!

Today I’m going to talk a bit about what’s new in the jobs and school system!

I hope you’ll find that as exciting as me! Starting with the most exciting thing to me… Schools!

Please don’t share this post because it’s for Patrons only, thanks 🔐

How Will Schools Work?

The core mechanics of going to school are quite similar to the ones used for jobs that we already explained in this post. School happens in a rabbit hole (i.e. you won’t be able to control your Para during their school hours), you get upgrade points after each day of school that you can spend to get “expertises” or “extras” in order to customize the school experience of each Parafolk.

Some things are a bit different though:

• (Sadly) you don’t get paid for going to school
• “Expertises” in this case are subjects: math, literature, physical education…
• Some of them are mandatory classes that you don’t choose, some are optional and can be obtained by spending upgrade points.
• You can increase your grade in a subject by doing homework
• There is no main rank to upgrade. Instead, there’s an average grade that can be increased or decreased by working on the specific subjects.
• “Extras” are mostly extracurricular activities and clubs

As kids, I have always felt like the subjects we are good or bad at were a big part of our personality (that and the type of music I listened to! Where’s my metalhead science geeks clique at?), along with the extra curricular activities and options we choose. I think this is one of our main design pillars for schools and that is why we found it interesting to separate these different subjects into different things to upgrade instead of having a unique grade to work on. It’s not only about the challenge of being a good student, it’s also about making choices about what your character likes. You can make a perfect A+ student, a student that passes every subject but isn’t interested in spending too much time at school, a student with bad grades that gets involved in cool activities instead of focusing on school work… I think the possibilities of telling interesting stories for kids and teens can benefit a lot from this kind of system!

Looks like this Para prefers to focus on the track team rather than their math homework!

🤓 Improve Your Grades

When being enrolled at a school, your character starts with a few mandatory classes and a neutral grade (C) for each. You can work on your grades by completing homework for that subject or spending an upgrade point on it. Homework is generated every day and comes from a random subject. You have a deadline to complete it, so if you want you can wait a few days and do multiple homework at the same time, so you can enjoy the rest of your week nights! (or you can also wait for the last moment like I did for my whole school life… Don’t recommend it though) Not doing homework won’t penalize you, it is only used to up your grades without spending an upgrade point!

For now, you’ll be able to do your homework on your computer and we might add other ways to do them later on.

Sometimes, one of the subjects can suddenly (and randomly) become “in danger”. It means this subject starts to get a little hard for your Para and you have to get their attention on it (only if you want to!). When a subject starts being in danger, it means that its grade will start decreasing by one letter day after day. It stops being in danger when you do homework or spend an upgrade point on it.

Some extras can affect how much homework your character gets or how often the homework is generated. They could also affect how often and how much subjects are considered in danger.

🤖 Try Some Optional Classes and Extras

You can add optional subjects to your list. These subjects cannot lower the average grade, they can only improve it, so it’s only there as a bonus!

You can also add extras that have various effects:

• Clubs that makes you socialize with other fellow members
• Extracurricular activities that makes your Para progress in a skill
• Tutoring that helps with homework (but might make your Para stay a little bit longer at school!)
• More or less chance to get homework (homework can be a good thing, it’s an extra opportunity to raise your grades!)

🎓 Graduate!

When the time comes and your Para gets ready to get into the work market, you will be able to translate your hard earned grades into real work expertises for your future job. That way, you might be able to jump start your career by applying for better jobs right away!

What’s New for Jobs?

✨ New Extras

Here are some new extras we integrated recently into the job system:

• Extras that increase the chance of having a second upgrade point per day of work
• Schedule modifiers: stay at work for more or less time, with or without an impact on your salary
• Chance to get to know your colleagues during work hours and level up the relationship you got with them
• Have your work pay a part of your bills

📆 Work Schedules

We need cooks every day, but your Para can choose between a week or a weekend schedule!

When applying for a job, you might be able to choose which work schedule suits your Para best. You can choose different hours or different days. It might get very useful if you want to have multiple jobs or activities, so they don’t overlap each other! You will also be able to change it by spending an upgrade point.

There’s now an option to change your working hours and days by spending your daily upgrade point

🎲 Job Offers

There is now a hiring poster in every lot that is occupied by company buildings, where you can find multiple job offers that vary each day. They will be randomized among a pool of available jobs, which means that there can be multiple offers for the same job. The starting rank and application points required to get the job will be different depending on the offers. If you don’t have enough points to apply that day or want to get a higher paid job, you can just wait for the next day to get more exciting opportunities for your Para!

Don’t worry if you are not qualified for a job, there should be other ones more fit for your Para!

We also added a new way to get application points: domains. Now when applying to a job, all of your experience in a job of the same domain will count! The number of points counted is the highest rank you got to in any of your past jobs for this domain. In the picture above, you can see the “service industry” domain counts for one point in the application.

I hope you liked all of these features for the jobs and schools gameplay, I am very curious to know what you think about all of it!

Have a nice Friday!

Anna