I think the occasional non-destructive behavior when their moods are on the extreme sides of the spectrum wouldn't be bad. I didn't think kicking the trashcan was such a big deal, though I guess it can be when sickness comes into play. Paralives doesn't have to do that though. I enjoyed the flaming bag of poop, sending angry text messages, prank calls, trolling forums, etc etc. Deciding to pig out on food because you're in a bad mood is a good one.

Rimworld kinda does something like this. If a colonist is in a bad mood for too long, they'll have a mental break and do something passive or destructive. Passive things are like wander around aimlessly, hide in their room, pig out on food, drink all alcohol or smoke all the drugs. They can even fall into a coma, try to leave the colony or even "run wild" and go frolic in the wildness for the rest of their lives if their mood is bad enough. They can also be destructive, like beat up the furniture in their room or around the colony, destroy something valuable in the camp (one of the worst ones imo), slaughter the farm animals, murder someone, set something on fire, attack anyone they see and maybe other things I haven't run into.

I love for my characters to have very high autonomy so I wouldn't mind if a para took control for a few in game hours to have a mental break to go cry in the bathroom or pig out on food for a little bit before they get better. BUT... I can imagine this would become extremely annoying for people who want more control.

On the other end of things in Rimworld, when a colonist has been in a good mood for a while, they get inspired about various things. Some examples are "go frenzy" which means they'll work faster and more successfully. There's inspired recruitment so the next time they convince someone to join it'll work automatically. Inspired taming for animals. Inspired trading so next time they buy something they'll get a really good deal. Etc etc.

I could see something like that working in Paralives easily if it isn't already in there. Been a while since I reviewed all the features. But it definitely gamifies things a little which could be good or bad. Keep your para in a good mood and you get bonuses. A para in a bad mood will be a nightmare to manage.

Yeah, Ribaorld mental break counterplay generally involves preventing it from happening in the first place, and, of course, installing a brain implant that causes them to immediately go down when you throw an EMP grenade at them. So that you can then immediately put them down by tossing an EMP grenade at them when they act out. Also, put all your valuables behind locked walls so they can't access them.

Ooo that's a good idea. I didn't know EMP affects implants.

I hope there's fun and surprising autonomous behaviors (outside of taking care of needs and idle animations) but I wouldn't count on it. It's possible the fun and surprise element is going to rely on the cards you get? And you'll be controlling events by picking "go cry" or "pig out".

"Discover unique personality traits, skills, wants, needs and emotions"

Or maybe it's a given that traits and emotions will have autonomous behaviors associated with them and I'm being overly cautious/pessimistic.

The paralives' team has just updated the development page and I need to talk about it! It was a very busy month for the team.

First off, they have done a number of fixes, such as fixing bugs around pathfinding and townie autonomy. Townie-given quests were also improved and fixed.

Clothing items for jobs (uniforms) have also been created by the team. I cannot wait to see how those look like!

They also coded townies to work in shops! This is great for improving immersion!

New town activities were also added as well as newspaper articles to announce them.

There are more new things, but I won't go much into detail because those don't excite me as much.

EDIT: We will aparently be able to move whole rooms! The feature will come during early access!

Not wanting to wish my life away, but I am so looking forward to this game being released.
@Casimir those fixes and additions sound spot on.
So long as everything works, my only worry now is that the graphics seem a bit 'brown' colour wise. Maybe that's just the vibe they've gone for in this first world?