Interaction Menu Design + Postcard and Artwork (Patreon)

Hi there, happy Friday!

Alex here today for another Patreon post.

Paralives Postcard

Last December, we sent a postcard to Patrons on the Hero tier and up. It showcased an exclusive Paralives artwork:

Diana Benitez, a freelance illustrator, worked with us to create this amazing winter scene with our Parafolks! From top to bottom: Marvin, Maggie, Eli, Sebastian and everyone’s favourite Bernese Mountain Dog.

Next month, in June, we will be sending the next postcard with a brand new Paralives artwork. It’s really really pretty and I can’t wait for you to see it!

If you would like to get this postcard which will be signed by the whole team, make sure to be on the Hero tier or higher by June 1st. You can edit your pledge tier here: patreon.com/alexmasse/membership

You can always downgrade your tier back to what it was on June 2nd if you wish to only temporarily upgrade to get the June postcard.

If you are already a Hero or Legend Patron, make sure your address is up to date on your Patreon profile. If you are curious about all the other rewards for the different Patreon tiers, take a look at the reward page on our website. Thank you!

Interaction Menu Design  (For Patrons only. Please don’t share).

Not so long ago, we shared ideas for our interaction menu in a Patreon post. I wanted to update you on that today so take a look at this other post first if you haven’t already!

As a reminder, the interaction menu is the menu that opens when you click on a character, furniture or object in the live mode of the game. It displays a list of interactions that you can order your Para to accomplish.

The new look of our interaction menu. The interactions are placeholder and are not the real ones yet.

As you can see, we integrated the vertical menu idea and worked on its style. Our goals were to make the menu easy to read, easy to use and also, of course, to be good looking.

The style is simple and modern in order to improve readability but we added splashes of color to make it more friendly. The small icons also contribute to making each interaction a bit cuter and easier to parse than if it was just text. Another aspect of the style of the menus that we are testing for Paralives is the small hand drawn elements on top of the clean look. The goal is to have these small details bring a cozy and personal touch to the overall style.

Another thing you might notice on the above screenshot is that the name of the clicked object is written, “Computer”, in this example. Under that, you can see that we’re thinking of adding some buttons that would allow you to do quick edits to the object without having to go in the build mode. This should make small adjustments to the furniture of your house faster.

Other than that, there is also a search button allowing you to find a specific interaction by name which will come in very useful for objects with a lot of interactions.

On the left, the current state of the design that we are going for but are still improving. On the right, you can see an alternative design for the style of the interaction menu that we tested.

That’s it for today's post. We still have improvements and features to add to the interaction menu but I am happy with how it is progressing. We’re getting really close to being able to show the interaction menu, interaction queue and some interactions in a short video so it’s pretty exciting!

Have a great weekend and take care,

Alex 😊