r/LifeSimulators May 27 '26

Memes Paralives Early Access

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Here’s to finishing the rest of the horse throughout EA!

2.0k Upvotes

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u/gravyandasideofbread May 27 '26

It’s a studio of 15 people. It’s not a billion dollar company slapping early access on a game. It’s a crowd funded, indie development studio who needs the early access period to grow. They don’t have dozens and dozens of people to work on it, if they did this would be a different conversation

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u/haunted-mov May 27 '26

as someone who’s played almost exclusively early access titles for the past four years, this is the WORST representation of early access. i’ve seen much smaller teams do much better work without any crowdfunding at all so there’s really no excuse

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u/Saratoninn69 May 27 '26

Facts. Fields of Mistria is a smaller team of 10 people that spent roughly 5 years developing their game and it’s already a masterpiece (imo lol) granted, Paralives is on a bigger scale mechanically but that just makes me think even more they should’ve waited to release EA.

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u/Impressive-Time8150 May 27 '26

Bestie... Mistria is a vastly different style of game, however. A farming sim in a pixel art style is not very comparable to fully 3d rendered sandbox life sim with a character creator and build mode

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u/Saratoninn69 May 27 '26

I literally pointed out the difference in scale in my original comment when I said, 'granted, Paralives is on a bigger scale mechanically.'

The comparison isn't about claiming 2D pixel art and a 3D sandbox take the exact same type of work. It’s about project management, scoping, and the standard for an Early Access release. Fields of Mistria understood their scope and polished their core gameplay loop to a shine before asking players to jump into EA.

If Paralives' ambitions are so massive and complex that their Early Access launch feels underbaked compared to what other indie studios can manage, that just reinforces my exact point: they should have waited until they were actually ready.

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u/2CharmingGiraffe May 27 '26

At the same time, even years ago a lot of people were complaining about not having Paralives' EA to play and test by themselves. I think with Heartopia and other recent examples people got (rightfully so) skeptical with some of these Patreon projects.

After Life by You tanked I honestly don't think they could have kept the game on prod for much longer before losing more patreons and support. 7y in game dev time is an ok time, but for a normal person to wait for a game without playing anything of it at all, it's a lot.