Alpha 2.53 has been released, just in time for Valentine’s Day (almost). I started talking about the dating portion of the game in the last update. After some tweaking over the past week, here is how the family portion works.

Family

You can start a family even if you’re not married by activating the ‘Yahoo’ action with someone. All you need is a high enough relation.

Every time you Yahoo, your fun increases and there is a chance of a baby appearing. Once a Yahoo is successful, a new Family section will appear on the Social window.

Your newborn child’s relation with you is an overall measure of how well they are doing. If you don’t play with them or can’t afford their expenses, they will suffer. If they suffer too much, Child Services will take them away and you will be very sad. On the other hand, if you have high relations with your child on their birthday, you will get a happiness boost from seeing them grow up well.

Speaking of which, if you relationship with your spouse (husband/wife) falls low enough, you will get a few warnings. If you ignore the warning signs, you will be divorced. Divorce has severe consequences, just like in real life. I won’t spoil the surprise and let you discover it for yourself.

As your children grow older, they will become more expensive to raise. As you become wealthier, the cost will also increase. This is to simulate things like sending them to private school, polo lessons and whatever else rich children do (I have no idea).

When they finally reach 16 years old, you can kick them out of the house. At this point, the game calculates how many good and bad birthdays your child experienced. If they had a few good birthdays, you will get a permanent boost to happiness. This can be very useful in generating a steady trickle of lifetime happiness, especially if you manage to raise multiple children well. On the other hand, too many bad birthdays for your child and you get a permanent happiness decrease.

If your child has experienced too many bad birthdays by the time they reach 16, all is not lost. You can keep them at home to try offset the negative impact by giving them some good birthdays before they leave. However, note that the cost to raise them will continue to increase the longer they stay at home.

Modding Changes

There are also some changes that allow multiple overlapping mods at same time. The old system should still work so your current mods won’t break, but creators will have to update their mods to take advantage of the new system.

Changelog Alpha 2.50 – 2.53

• Expanded default names list
• Added Social section to profile window
• Added seeking date actions
• Added gift giving mechanics
• Added relationship score for each person
• Added relations change from dating
• Added call mechanics
• Added end of week social warnings
• Added child expenses calculation
• Added child actions
• Added location travel to date
• Added propose, marry and yahoo actions
• Added failure to pay child expenses consequence
• Implemented child being taken away for neglect
• Implemented child birthday happiness effect
• Implemented divorce mechanics
• Implemented forced childcare if no spouse
• Added Relationship Roundup subscription
• Added spouse expenses
• Added family statistics
• Added more portraits
• Removed log file being overwritten when game updated
• Spouse earnings now increase along with your wealth
• Spouse earnings are more random each week
• Added permanent happiness change event depending on child development
• Added combine tag for modding
• Modified all city location data to be compatible with new location modding
• Fixed broken possession unriding vehicle
• Removed Steam check for loading mods from mod folder