Sims competitor Paralives shows off new character creator

Paralives is an upcoming indie life sim that looks set to give The Sims 4 a bit of competition, and the team behind the project has just released its first look at its new character creator.

The video reveals what the "Parafolk" will look like, and shows off how you can customise their appearance with various sliders and colour wheel options. Not unlike the Sims, you can alter the physique of the character and also change up their height. Using a colour wheel, you're also able to give your character a fresh new dye job by changing the shade of their hair, with roots and highlight options included.

Dependent on Patreon funding, Paralives is described as a "dollhouse simulation indie game" set in an open-world neighbourhood. Due to release on PC and Mac with five different Pateron tiers available for backers to choose from, the project is still early in development with no set release date.

Despite being in its early stages, there's already a lot of interest surrounding Paralives. With over 7,500 patrons, the game is earning $20,000 per month as of writing this article, and 125,000 people have already added the game to their wishlist on Steam.

Building dream houses and doing a hearty session of interior decorating is one of the most appealing things about The Sims, and Paralives looks set to rival the life sim in this department too, with a whole array of building options to play around with.

"Building a dream house requires a lot of flexible tools. In Paralives, builders are not limited to a grid," the game's description reads. "Players can build walls of any length and at any angles. Your perfect house contains curved or slanted walls? Paralives has tools for that. You want to recreate your real-life home? Use the in-game measuring tape to recreate the exact dimensions! You can also fully customize object colors and textures as well as the size of windows and furniture."

While we could be in for quite a wait to see more of the game in action, it does look promising and it'll be exciting to see how it continues to shape up in the future.

Here are more games like the Sims to help you live your best virtual life.

Heather Wald is the Evergreen Editor, Games at GamesRadar+. Her writing career began on a student-led magazine at Bath Spa University, where she earned a BA (Hons) in English literature. Heather landed her first role writing about tech and games for Stuff Magazine shortly after graduating with an MA in magazine journalism at Cardiff University. Now with almost seven years of experience working with GamesRadar+ on the features team, Heather helps to develop, maintain, and expand the evergreen features that exist on the site for games, as well as spearhead the Indie Spotlight series. You'll also see her contribute op-eds, interview-led features, and more. In her spare time, you'll likely find Heather tucking into RPGs and indie games, reading romance novels, and drinking lots of tea.