TL;DR — fences at a glance
- Fences live in their own Fences category in build mode, and you place them by drawing — any length, any angle, no grid.
- The official fence tools clip also shows redrawing over an existing fence to replace it, so reshaping a run is a draw-over, not a delete-and-rebuild.
- There is no fence gate in Early Access 0.1.8b — plan an opening, or borrow a door piece, and leave the rest to a future update.
- The wall tool doubles as a fence tool: in fence mode it draws low borders, including curves — see our curved walls guide for that workflow.
- A popular community trick uses a fence ring dragged downward as a fake foundation; it is decorative, but Paras can walk the result.
Where fences live and how drawing works
Open build mode and you will find fences as their own Fences category rather than a sub-tab of walls. Pick a style, then click and drag in the lot: the Paralives wiki's build mode overview groups fences with walls and half-walls as pieces you can place freely, without following a set grid — meaning a fence run can be any length and set at any angle.
The studio's own fence tools short (July 2024) demonstrates the flow on a patio: 'place your fence by drawing it...' — you see the run stretch out live as the cursor moves. That same clip ends with '...or replace an existing one!', redrawing a picket run along a sidewalk in one gesture.
Two practical consequences: first, you never fight a grid when you fence an odd-shaped deck or pool; second, fixing a fence you do not like is usually one redraw, not demolition. Colours apply through the normal colour wheel — the creator demo below recolours a whole foundation ring mid-build.
Fence mode: the wall tool's garden setting
Fences are not only in the fence catalogue. The wall tool carries a fence mode that draws low, fence-height borders, and because it is the wall tool, those borders follow the same free-drawn, curve-friendly handling as curved walls. For garden edging — low borders around beds and paths — that is often faster than placing catalogue fence pieces.
Our curved walls guide walks that workflow step by step, including the half-height and fence-mode settings the tool offers, and pairs them with the terrain tool for organic landscaping.
Read the curved walls guideThe fence gate question — answered honestly
There is no fence gate in Paralives as of Early Access 0.1.8b. No gate object matches fence height, and none is hidden in a submenu — players who fence a pool or a garden keep hitting the same wall, and the Steam community's fence-gate threads (most recently June 2026) read as feature requests, not missed menu items.
Until gates ship, the workable patterns are: plan the opening into the fence run itself (end the run a segment early and let the path close the gap), or treat the fence as decorative and route Paras around it. What you cannot do yet is place a matching gate piece that Paras walk through.
That is an absence, not a verdict — the studio ships build tools in every major patch, and fence requests are visibly on the boards. We will update this section the moment a gate piece appears in a patch.
The fence foundation trick (creator-tested)
Paralives has no dedicated foundation object for raised houses, so creators route around it: a fence ring dragged downward reads as a foundation skirt, and the build stays fully walkable. VelvettB Gaming's demo is the clearest write-up of the trick — the steps below follow it and credit the video.
- 01
Draw the ground-floor shell first
Build a throwaway ground level that matches the footprint of the house you want to raise. It only exists to define the shape you will fence around, so keep it simple.
- 02
Draw a fence one cell outside the walls
Pick any fence style and draw a ring one grid cell out from the ground floor's walls. Most styles work — the demo has not found one that refuses.
- 03
Drag the fence's top edge down
Grab the arrow at the top of a fence segment and pull downward until the house above sits directly on the fence line. The fence compresses into a low skirt hugging the footprint.
- 04
Recolour and close the ring
Use the colour wheel to match the house trim, then finish drawing the fence all the way around the footprint so it forms a closed ring.
- 05
Delete the end segment and add stairs
Remove one fence piece so the ring reads as an entry point, then place stairs up to the porch level. Stairs will not snap to the fence — shrink and nudge them until they line up with the deck.
Steps follow VelvettB Gaming — Paralives: Foundation Hack using Fences! — watch the full demo for the pacing; the result is decorative (no foundation object is created), but Paras walk the deck normally.
Custom fences from the Workshop
Fences are also one of the friendliest things to add as custom content. The wiki's modding guide documents the whole pipeline: a fence needs a middle mesh and a post mesh (plus an optional top piece), hooks into build mode through the mouldings system, supports height resizing, and — uniquely — is priced per metre in Paradimes rather than as a flat object price.
You do not need to touch any of that to use custom fences: Workshop content ships as .para files you install once and find in the same Fences category. Our Workshop hub covers install safety and what to do when a patch breaks content.
Visit the Workshop hubWhat nobody has published yet
Competing guides guess at these; we would rather say the quiet part out loud. None of the following has a source we could verify as of 0.1.8b:
- The exact number of fence styles and height presets in the current catalogue — no official list exists, and fence pieces shift with patches.
- Whether an existing fence segment's height can be adjusted after placement, or only its colour and shape.
- Whether fence gates are planned for the 1.0 release — the studio has not said, and we will not invent a date.
Fences FAQ
Does Paralives have fences?
Yes. Fences have their own category in build mode, and they place by free drawing — any length, any angle, no grid. The official fence tools short from July 2024 demonstrates drawing and replacing fence runs.
Is there a fence gate in Paralives?
Not as of Early Access 0.1.8b. There is no gate object that matches fence height, so players plan openings into fence runs instead. The Steam community's June 2026 threads on fence gates are feature requests, which is the clearest public signal of where the feature stands.
How do you place fences in Paralives?
Pick a style from the Fences category, then click and drag on the lot. The fence follows your cursor like drawing a wall: any length, any angle. To change a run, draw over it — the official clip shows replacing an existing fence in one gesture.
Can you make curved fences in Paralives?
Through the wall tool's fence mode, yes — that is how curved garden borders are drawn. Our curved walls guide covers the tool settings step by step. Curving catalogue fence pieces themselves is not something current sources demonstrate.
How do you make a foundation with fences in Paralives?
Draw the ground-floor shell, ring it with fence one cell out, then drag each fence segment's top edge down until the house sits on it. Recolour, close the ring, delete one segment for the entry, and add manual stairs. It is decorative, not a real foundation, but it reads perfectly in live mode — see the step-by-step section above.
Can you change fence colours in Paralives?
Yes — fences take colours through the standard colour wheel like other build pieces. Creator demos routinely recolour whole fence runs mid-build, including the fence foundation trick above.
Keep building
Fences rarely live alone — these are the guides they most often pair with.