💼 How Jobs and Careers *Work* in Paralives (Patreon)

Hi, It’s Alex!

Today, I’m gonna tell you all about how Parafolks will be able to find a job and progress in their career. This post is for Patrons only so please don’t share it, thanks! 🔒

👨‍🏫 The Basics

• 📃 Find a job by seeing job ads in front of workplaces in the town or by looking online
• ✨ After each day of work, upgrade your job with interesting perks
• 🏦 Apply to work elsewhere for career progression opportunities

💼 Upgrading a Job

My Para just got enrolled as a Game Designer at Paralives Studio Inc! (It’s just an example, it probably won’t be an actual job in the game! Also, the salaries seen in this post are still to be tweaked so don’t make much of these numbers yet.)

In our game, a job can be upgraded every single day after a work shift. This allows players to evolve their job and career in the direction they want.

Here’s the same job but after many days of work and upgrades.

After each day of work, you can select one of three job upgrades for your Para (the right panel).

1 - [Green] Upgrade the rank of the job: This will increase your salary.

2 - [Blue] Unlock an expertise or upgrade an existing one: This will increase your salary and these can be seen as bullet points on your resume so they are transferable when switching to another job.

3 - [Red] Unlock a new extra: Extras don’t give more money but they give various perks that allow your Para to have other reasons than just money to go to work. For instance, if you are in the party planning committee, your Para will socialize while working and if your Para is tasked with watering the plant at the office, they will slowly increase their gardening skill while working!

Some expertise and extras can combo with the personality of your Para to offer boosted bonuses. Here, the money gain is displayed in purple to indicate that it combos with the fact that my Para has a lot of points in the Mind stat. See this Patreon post about personalities for more info about it.

👋 Changing Job to Progress in Your Career

Just like in real life, you might start your career at a workplace that is great for new workers but has limited growing opportunities. That’s why you will be able to find and apply to jobs in different workplaces and this will be a great way to progress in your career, get a big salary increase and unlock greater perks.

Some interesting opportunities for my Para, one at the same company she’s currently at and three at another company in the same field of work. (The thumbnail images are just placeholders. They will be showing the actual workplace buildings)

To get a given job, a Para must be qualified for it. Each job will check various things to determine if you are qualified. This can include previously gained expertises, skills, relationships with people that work at the company you’re applying to, etc.

➕ More Details on Jobs and Careers

• Rabbit holes: You don’t control your characters while they are at work. The reason is that it would be a ton of work for us to implement each job in an active way and it’s hard to make jobs not feel like doing boring tasks over and over. It’s possible that we reconsider this later though, after the release of the game.
• Non-linear progression: Job progression won’t be linear in a given field of work. For instance, the upgrade to being a nurse won’t be being a doctor. Our system allows for more flexible and realistic career paths.
• Multiple jobs: You can have multiple jobs at the same time if their schedules are not conflicting. A student will also be able to have part-time jobs.

That's all for today. Tell us what you think about jobs and careers in Paralives so far!

Bye,

Alex

Edit - February 7, 2024: This post is now public, feel free to share it!