newbie, chris

Sims 1 & 2 and their satirical view on life and media:

As a person who’s played Sims her entire life, starting with the original two, I always felt there was something uniquely strange about these earlier installments. Nothing new here, and I think once Sims 4 released, it became even clearer why Sims 1 and Sims 2 feel so different. Even Sims 3, which by all accounts is still a good game, doesn’t carry the same energy. Its saving grace is that it still had a decent chunk of comedy and gameplay chaos to offer in return. 

The defining feature of Sims 1 and 2, in my opinion, is their unmatched sense of humour combined with just enough uncanny valley to keep you mildly unsettled. These games have a very specific flavour of absurdity: cheerful on the surface, vaguely threatening underneath, and always one step away from turning into a horror comedy. 

And honestly? I can’t think of many other games that pull that off so effortlessly. What game will casually mix dark humour with pop culture references, social commentary, and a soundtrack that sometimes sounds like a mall elevator having a breakdown, and still feel oddly comforting? 

The Sims at its core was designed as a satire of consumerism and modern life. It’s something the franchise has clearly drifted away from over the years, but the DNA is still visible if you look at the earlier games. 

There are obvious examples: the Grim Reaper, Veronaville, the Loch Ness Monster. All things that already push the “life simulator” label into the realm of supernatural sitcom. But the real charm is in the less blatant references, the ones that feel like Maxis devs giggling to themselves while sneaking them into the game.

Because then you start getting stuff like checks notes:

Pleasantview being very likely inspired by the movie Pleasantville, complete with overlapping names and that same “perfect suburb hiding rot underneath” vibe. And even the song Mr. Pleasant sounding like it’s narrating the Pleasant household’s downfall in real time. 

The Cowplant being a pretty obvious nod to Audrey II from Little Shop of Horrors, a very over-the-top, campy musical focusing on a florist taking care of an alien plant that promises him gifts in turn for his blood and human flesh.

The Social Bunny being a likely reference to Donnie Darko, a psychological thriller focusing on a troubled teenager… and while it may seem weird at first that they’d be inspired by a creepy bunny hallucination from that film of all things, it does make sense when you consider the movie’s greater message about fate, control, and every living thing following a set path.

Strangetown having a ton of references to The X-Files, and while Jonathan Knight doesn’t remember much of it, several devs that I’ve spoken to did point out: if it looks like it was inspired by The X-Files, it very likely was (which, again, makes sense for the time this game was developed).

The Flying Pig in Sims 2 being a reference to a literal Pink Floyd production where an inflatable pig broke free!

The many, manyyy pun names given to the premades!

Belladonna Cove including a home referencing the Baba Yaga hut, because of course it does. 

Sims 1 letting you climb a beanstalk to meet a gigantic Will Wright, because nothing says “life simulator” like meeting your creator at the top of a fairy tale plant. 

The Sims 2 GBA/DS soundtrack taking inspiration from Talkie Walkie by Air, because even the handheld spinoffs were out here curating vibes. 

I even went out of my way to watch or read a bunch of the media that The Sims was inspired by, and as different as the genres are (or as random as the references might be), The Sims almost always manages to make a satire out of it. And that’s the thing: The Sims doesn’t just reference media. It filters it through satire. It takes something recognizable, twists it, exaggerates it, and then makes it feel like it belongs in a suburban nightmare where your kitchen catches fire because you tried to make cereal. 

Even the item descriptions are basically little stand-up routines about daily life. The jokes are rarely random, they’re commentary. Consumerism, convenience culture, social expectations, the grind of routine… Sims makes fun of it all, while still letting you participate in it. Which is probably the most Maxis thing imaginable. 

And if we look at the neighbourhoods, you can actually see the tone shift depending on the references they’re pulling from. Veronaville feels oddly serious because it’s directly anchored to Shakespeare and doesn’t have quite as much modern satire layered on top. Meanwhile Strangetown is basically “what if your entire neighbourhood was one big government experiment and nobody acknowledged it.” 

And then we get to the spinoff games, which are arguably the purest form of early Sims insanity. The DS and GBA titles were completely unhinged. Who decided that Sims should become “run a hotel while fighting crime in a rat suit?” Who pitched that in a meeting and got approved? Give me their email. I need to shake their hand.

All of this is to say: The Sims was never a neutral simulation. It was a satire of real life, stuffed with references to pop culture, horror, sci-fi, fairy tales, and whatever weird niche thing the dev team was obsessed with that week. Half of it feels like commentary from that time period, and the other half feels like inside jokes.

And sometimes it literally was inside jokes. Developers have mentioned on multiple occasions things like: “Oh yeah, I remember this. X colleague brought it up, maybe ask them.” And sometimes those colleagues would even show up and join the conversation. Veronaville, for example, exists because several of the devs were massive Shakespeare fans, I even remember one of them having an entire website dedicated to it. 

Dominic Newlow is essentially the Riddler:

While I might make a full in-depth analysis about the latter sometime (because there is way more I want to share), let’s go back to Dominic Newlow for a moment… the reason I began to write this document in the first place.

Dominic Newlow is a fascinating character, so much so that he’s been living rent-free in my brain ever since I discovered him years ago. And over time, my interpretation of him has shifted dramatically. Part of that is because he’s obscure enough that fandom perception is… well, limited. Considering I was the first person to ever make fanart of this guy and one of the very few to speak openly about him, I didn’t exactly have a lot of existing content to bounce off (finding content for him is like trying to find water in the Sahara Desert). So I built my own interpretation, which originally was far more silly, with just enough sinister undertone to keep him interesting. 

And frankly, that early interpretation made sense, because Dominic is like trying to categorize a man who simultaneously wants to be taken seriously and wants to wear a superhero costume unironically. 

Then, after taking a break from the lad, it took watching a friend play through the game for my perception to shift once again, and likely now for good.

They pointed out multiple things that I either hadn’t considered or simply hadn’t thought about in years, one of these being that he’s very likely inspired by Saturday morning cartoon villains. Think DC and Marvel, and no, I’m not talking about the edgy superhero era that came with the live action movies from the early 2000s. I’m specifically talking about anything before the year 2000. The era where villains had dramatic laughs, themed gimmicks, and plans that were about 30% strategy and 70% theatre. Dominic is less “serious evil mastermind” and more “Saturday morning cartoon villain who thinks he’s Lex Luthor.” 

And once you consider that possibility, suddenly everything about him makes sense.

At first I wasn’t fully convinced… but then they drew parallels to the Riddler, and while going through some of the art his concept artist made it was quite obvious he too enjoys superhero media. And at that point the puzzle pieces started locking into place. Because Dominic is incredibly Riddler-coded, and once you see it, you can’t unsee it. 

For those unfamiliar with the Riddler: he’s a character created by DC for the Batman franchise, and as his Wikipedia page will say: “The Riddler is depicted as a criminal mastermind in Gotham City. He has an obsessive compulsion to incorporate riddles, puzzles, and death traps in his schemes to prove his intellectual superiority over Batman and the police.”

And tell me that isn’t Dominic.

A man who constantly tries to prove he’s smarter than the player. A man who makes puzzles and schemes he considers brilliant. A man who lays out the trail of breadcrumbs just so you can follow it, because what’s the point of being a genius if nobody is forced to witness it?

And unlike most villains, Dominic’s ultimate goal isn’t even power in the traditional sense. It’s recognition. Control. Validation. The ability to say: “See? I’m real. I matter. I’m not just a toy.” while he proceeds to take over your body, so he can live out an actual life.

Dominic can be serious. He is a doctor, after all. He knows how to present himself as intelligent, respectable, and above the chaos. But the mask slips constantly, and the longer the story goes on, the clearer it becomes that the “aristocratic mastermind” persona is less his identity and more his costume. He simply wants to play pretend, take over the reins, and do what he wants because he’s sick of “playing by the rules.”

And I mean that literally. Because the moment you find his lair, he is dressed like he robbed a discount supervillain aisle.

Let’s put it all into perspective for a moment, shall we?

At the start of the game, when you first meet him, he’s already giving you this smug attitude. He conveniently places a phone next to the empty lot that used to be a garage. Not only does he dance around giving you answers: he straight-up stole the garage, your car, and the literal mechanic. That’s not a mastermind plan, that’s cartoon villain logic. That’s “Sims 3 patch notes: Kleptomaniac Sims can no longer steal Subway Stations from lots” levels of absurd. 

Then, when you finally return to Paradise Place and confront him again, he still refuses to be helpful. He keeps just enough of his doctor persona intact so you’ll still treat him as a respectable figure… while also demanding that you sell him secrets. What does he need those secrets for? God knows! Because even after you give them to him, he still refuses to tell you where your car is.

He basically pulls a “Thanks for the information, loser,” and teleports away.

It’s like some kind of high school bully who refuses to give back your lunch after you pay him.

And this is where any remaining seriousness dies completely.

He teleports to his “hidden” lair, and I say “hidden” very generously, because it is visible to almost any unseasoned player. And when you enter, Dominic is in full supervillain cosplay: plumbobs, a fanny pack, a caplet (couldn’t even commit to a full cape), and the kind of outfit that screams “I have a monologue prepared.”

He then demands you call him Doctor Dominion from that point on, because of course he does. Nothing says “I am to be feared” like renaming yourself mid-plot. And he acts like he’s finally found his perfect worker ant, ready to carry out the plan he cares about so deeply.

But… did he just sit there waiting? For how long? How long was he planning to wait here? Did he practice the laugh? Did he design this outfit in advance? Did he order it online? The questions are endless.

And honestly? Considering he likes 60s spy movies and dresses like he’s on his way to Comic Con, it’s not even far-fetched to assume he’d be obsessed with old comic books too and designed the costume all by himself based on that.

From that point onward, he’s just teleporting everywhere, throwing tasks at you, watching you run around like a little pawn, and the further you go, the more ridiculous the plan becomes. 

For one, the only unique dialogue this guy has (which I’m pretty sure is also some of the only unique-sounding dialogue in this entire game) is him laughing in the most dramatic and flamboyant way possible.

And then we get to the Beelzebeef situation.

Dominic needed an actual Cow Demon Goddess for his plan. Why? Presumably because he thought demonic milk would allow him to break free of the game and enter the real world. Which is an insane leap of logic, but it’s exactly the kind of insane leap of logic you’d expect from a man who thinks he’s a genius.

He also started an entire cult for it. An entire cult. Complete with structure, roles, and a leader - despite the fact that he is technically the leader. This is not the type of stuff any “efficient, evil, mastermind” would have pulled, especially when combined with all the other stuff he does on the side. This is “I’m bored and want to see if I can start a cult for fun” behaviour. It’s worse when you consider that he likely didn’t even need all of this to get his hands on Beelzebeef. 

And honestly, that might be the most important key to understanding Dominic.

Because what Dominic seems to enjoy most isn’t the end goal. It’s the process, the chaos, the theatricality. The power trip of pulling strings and watching Sims dance.

He already believes he’s above everyone else. He believes he’s the only sane one in the simulation, the only one who isn’t a scripted NPC. So naturally, he starts testing what he can get away with. Not because it’s necessary, but because he wants to see the limits.

And that’s where the darker implications come in.

Because while it’s unclear how much of the town’s chaos was caused by the previous player and how much was caused by Dominic, later analysis makes it seem like most, if not all, was done by him.

What else did he do because “Mr. Evil Supergenius” (something the devs literally called him, and likely how he perceives himself) didn’t like how the player played with him?

Mind-controlled Circe Beaker into having an affair with him. The most obvious example.

Hazel Dente’s dead husbands? Likely done by Dominic. Absolutely ridiculous on paper, yes, but so is everything about him and we already know he’s very much capable of mind controlling people into doing his bidding.

Vidcund handing Tycho over to the Men in Black? Also likely done by him.

And then the question becomes: Why?

Why would Dominic go to such extreme lengths to ruin lives, cause tragedies, and warp the entire town’s history?

And I think the answer is… painfully simple.

He was bored.

He wanted to see what he could do with his device. He wanted to test the boundaries of control. There was no narrative reason for Tycho to be handed over. There was no practical reason for Hazel’s husbands to die. There was no strategic reason to force Circe into an affair. He did it because he could.

Which is, ironically, exactly what a Sims player would do.

And that’s where Dominic becomes fascinating, because Dominic isn’t just “a villain in the Sims.” Dominic is the Sims player archetype turned into an actual character. The embodiment of “what if the person causing the chaos in your neighbourhood wasn’t you… but one of the Sims?”

Because when Dominic talks about his old life, he constantly describes it like a prison. Forced to go to work. Forced to build skills. Forced to get promoted. Forced to improve his house. Sleep, eat, repeat. It’s basically a Sims version of a capitalist 9-to-5 nightmare. The kind where your only reward for success is more work.

And Dominic hated it. Not disliked it. Hated it.

He also explicitly implies that the player wasn’t listening to him. Which suggests his previous Watcher wasn’t fulfilling his wants, likely resulting in aspiration failure. And since Dominic is implied to be a Knowledge Sim, that might seem strange at first, because Knowledge Sims usually enjoy skill-building and career progression…

But the key detail is that he wasn’t just working. He was being forced. Forced into routines, forced into upgrades, forced into decisions he didn’t make. If he started with very little, then his entire existence may have been nothing but “work harder, improve more, repeat.”

And Sims do become miserable if you only focus on one thing. Dominic just became self-aware enough to recognize the pattern.

So when he found a way out - or at least what he believed was a way out - he snapped.

He threw a fit because he decided he was done being a puppet.

And what does Dominic do with freedom?

He doesn’t run away. He doesn’t start a peaceful life. He doesn’t even try to fix anything.

He tries to become the Watcher.

Because Dominic simply wants to be in control and do what he wants.

He starts playing with everyone around him. He tests the limits. He breaks the system. He cosplays as a supervillain. He gives himself a dramatic title. He creates a lair. He recruits followers. He makes you run errands like a henchman.

Not because it’s logical.

Because it’s fun.

He likely does not want to be a doctor. It’s possible he never even wanted to be a doctor to begin with and was simply forced into it. With him liking spy movies, playing piano, and having a million books, it’s very possible he would’ve loved the Intelligence career a lot more.

In his eyes, you forced him into it and made every decision about his life without his consent.

While Dominic is certainly a great candidate for angst, let’s also take a moment to remember that this is the same guy who created this entire scheme because he was unhappy with how his previous player handled him. 

One could almost laugh a little when you think about it, because to some degree, it’s hard not to find that a little relatable. Many of us are stuck in repetitive lives, forced into routines, jobs, expectations, endless upgrades with no satisfaction. Every day the same, every day scripted.

And when Dominic found an opportunity to break out of that loop, he grabbed it with both hands.

He snatched that chance to be true to himself, to chase happiness, chaos, and whimsy…

HAPPY APRIL FIRST