For over a year now, I have been working on The Sims 1 Console neighborhood, but in a TS1 PC save file! This neighborhood has every sim in it that was featured in the console version! The only sims that are not featured are the premade sims that you can choose as a premade to play as in the Challenge (2 Player) mode. But every sim from both Play the Sims, Get a Life, and even some sims featured solely in the 2 player modes are featured.
For the Play the Sims mode families, I have went ahead and moved in 3 families that were featured in the Sims 1 (Console), which are: The Newbies at Sim Lane 7, the Goths at Sim Lane 5, and The Roomies at Sim Lane 3. The Pleasant and Bachelor families are still in the family bin!
For the Get a Life families, most of them are still in the family bin. Some of the families I did take the liberty of moving into their own house. I placed Mom in her house Money from Mom, Dudley and Mimi are living together at Party Animals, Malcolm Landgrabb is living in The Last Simoleon, and Roxy Hottie is currently living in the Dream Mansion (Randy Hottie is living in the Party Guys household, but that's up to the player if they want to move him in with Roxy Hottie). The rest of the families such as Foofaraw, Thimblewitt, Peacock, Cheeky, etc. are still in the family bin. *I also want to add that Betty Roomies is absent from the Roomies household from the Get a Life family, and instead she is only present in the Newbie household.
For the 2 player mode families, the only ones I moved in was the Handyman's family and the Maid's family in their respective houses. I did also feature some Townie families that have appeared in different levels, such as the sims that appeared at The Park, as well as the "messy neighbors" from the Maid and Handyman scenarios.
I kept this neighborhood 99% CC free. The only CC I would highly recommend that you grab is the Fran Foofaraw head and body which was shared on MadRayne's discord.
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To get some time away from home, Chiffon went to the local school to teach an art class! She had a great time. She has really been enjoying painting, which may be her career as she and Mint have more children.
Motherhood is so beautiful on Chiffon! She is loving every second of it. She has really taken to Sage. She autonomously holds him a lot during the day.
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Dragonfruit has always marched to the beat of her own drum, preferring quiet afternoons chasing stories over crowded social gatherings. A journalist by trade, she has an eye for uncovering the little details everyone else misses—though her clumsy nature and famously rotten luck often turn every assignment into an unexpected adventure. Despite her playful, childish spirit, she's fiercely determined once she sets her mind to something, even if she'd rather be napping. Give her a plate of Chinese food, an indie playlist, and anything bright yellow, and she's perfectly content in her own wonderfully quirky world.
Baby number 1 was a boy, Basil, and baby number 2 was a girl, Ivory!
Neither one will be our heir due to already not meeting the skin genetic requirement. But, I love to include spares in my gameplay, so we will still see them quite a bit! I will be introducing them and their traits once they age into toddlers!
🖼️ Insights into the Aesthetic Development of The Sims by Eric Hedman, a lead animator
1. Who was actually responsible for the visual style and art direction of the base game?
The art direction and coalescence of a bunch of the aesthetics, especially the superlative UI was handled by Mr. Charles London. He played the role of confessor and traffic cop across the original game and Livin' Large and helped establish the relationship with New Pencil. We had a few external artists contribute to various bits of things like the general aesthetic of the neighborhood screen and video intro. Generally though, the main bulk of the characters were handled by Eric Chin, and a good amount of scenic art was done by Ms. Jami Becker.
2. What exactly was New Pencil's role in the project? Why is so little known about their contribution after all these years?
New Pencil had an increasing role taking existing assets of defined footprints that Don, Patrick and I were prototyping and making mimic objects and later more fully fledged objects directly from 3DS Max templates I was building. Michael Murguia, Adam Murguia, Scot Tumlin, Scott MacIntyre, John Beebe, and Greg Faillace, were all people who had deep effect on the final product. Some ended up working with The Sims on subsequent projects. Greg himself has made quite an impact at Riot games where his eye and heart make All the stuff he touches there live quite a bit more than it would without him. In the 1990s and the early 2000s a lot of the things that we take for granted like distributed apps for records and social media/archiving were not the rule. One of the reasons the Internet Archive exists is because of the necessity to keep things from disappearing off the face of the digital earth. We had a good functioning BBS at one point which was as a good point of contact with players and developers... but that got thrown away because some folks thought it got in the way for authority and control of process. It had its problems, but it was also useful. I would like New Pencil to get its Laurels more than it has.... and as I do more videos where I can talk directly about how I ended up doing things I did, I will definitely do my best to give my perspective on how people inside and outside the team and NP did their good work.
Object Concept art and development renders, The Sims: Unleashed.
3. What were your main sources of inspiration for the expansion packs' aesthetics? I'm especially curious about influences such as Hayao Miyazaki, textures, visual language, and other artistic references.
Once things were chosen as topics and subjects, and scope was established we just started making stuff. The more time I had before we had to start handing the things off to contractors like NP or subsequent design/art houses the more I could provide more material for the artists and art supervisor folks to focus in on what was required. Before the ubiquity of internet art resources I generally relied on large amounts of art and design book reference. This is an admission that I used to be kinda ashamed of, but,... he goes... I am a bit of a weeb, except that I grew up around Japanese Americans, and Japanese nationals here in the SFBay Area... so they were always around me, and I them. My first college roommate was a guy whose parents both worked for JAL. One of my first crushes was a J.-A. girl in elementary school, just because she was so dang nice...and had the best lunches to trade with. :) . I was never an Otaku per se.
My own inflated ideas about Japan and Japanese culture did not survive past meeting people and knowing them as people. Hayao Miyazaki is a great influence as are Yoshitaka Amano, Hiroyuki Yamaga, Mahiro Maeda, Hiromasa Ogura, Yoshiyuki Sadamoto, Shinji Higuchi, Nobuyuki Ohnishi, Yoji Takeshige, Takashi Watabe and countless other Gainax, SanRio, and general Royal Space Force designers and artists. Also Hideki Kamiya, Mari Shimazaki, Hiroshi Shibata Masaaki Yamada....
So yes I have all the Miyazaki Art books from Japan up through Porco.... and some supplementary material....and I may have used scans from porco and kiki art for inspiration I sent to New Pencil as part of packets to inspire Old Town in Unleashed.... I will talk on this when I start making those videos.
Object and setting concept art, The Sims: Unleashed
Fun Fact: The Sims: Unleashed used Kiki’s Delivery Service (a film by Studio Ghibili) as inspiration for some of the settings in The Sims: Unleashed.
I didn't quite live in Kinokunia in Japan Center in SF, but I did like looking for the books that had the hidden gold in them. I have been accused of have a good eye.... and also that I have a sponge of a memory. (infj-audhd as I am....) I am much better medicated now. :D .... I am responsible for a lot of decision and directions during House Party and after.... I was not taken as seriously at New Pencil until Vacation... so Hot Date has some aesthetic issues that I would never have chosen as approved but that is a subject for another day and....you can see the trajectory and through line to Unleashed and Supestar winning awards and then well... I got kicked out.
4. Where did the Tiki and Art Deco influences come from? What inspired you to bring these styles into The Sims?
Me. I have a full bar and scores of Aloha shirts, and have carved tikis and made 3D rear projected and animatronic talking tiki heads and faces for special events and even a now world renowned Tiki Bar. ALSO I am a California Kid so I grew up around Deco and Art Nouveau in many of its permutations. Before the resurgence of Tiki I would spend my birthday afternoon at Trader Vics in Emeryville for their Happy Hour with my almost birthday twin Marie. A decent part of the success of the Sims Ex Pack design work, Hot Date thru Superstar is my association with Jason Leong, who took the reins on making sure we incorporated the ideas behind my templates and fevered sketches into the Where's-Waldo fever dream of our Old Town, Downtown, Studio Town etc aerial perspective masterpieces.
There is a solid hunk of nostalgia. I don't think it's a specific parody of any particular show but of
the American Dream ideal of working hard and getting ahead. In many ways that is correctly
pointing at wish fulfillment and escapism. We definitely had a set of architectural blueprints for famous TV homes as they would have occurred in "reality" vs the way they were constructed to
accommodate TV audiences and LARGE TV cameras. When we personalized things like monster
potions, alien abductions, ghosts and the grim reaper, it began to have more in common with absurdisty humor than situation comedy.
It have a very specific and distinct look on Americana phenomenon. What references did you use?
TV shows, old magazine and tv ads of the 50s 60s and 70s... You can see the style change
after Livin' Large to be more directed toward art sets that were less about pieces of kitsch on their
own, and more of a set of wall, floor and object art that supports a theme. We liberally borrowed
from all sorts of places buyt then also tried to make things that felt distinctively our own.
What was that exaggeration that made Sims 1 feels almost like a soap opera sometimes? How did
you manage to not overdo it?
Some people think we over did it from the start. There is a good explanation video that
addresses this on my SimsStuff Playlist
We had very simple characters but we knew the machines of the day were going to throw a lot
of the frames out, so the poses were broad pantomime and very focused one sim to the other
except where the Sim addressed the player to complain their were hungry, etc. Even then, you had
to know what was going on, so we did our own checking and rechecking what could be done at the
scale. The expressions are closer to silent film acting or dance than standard human or animation
acting.... Until Sims 2, 3 and 4 when it was 3D and you could move the camera.
I want to know everything about 60s catalogue feel of a buy-menu, satire descriptions, retro-ads
colour palette, general consumerism touch on everything. It so special and unique.
It was mostly only partially organized and done piece by piece until House Party....and then
came to fruition in Vacation.... However people were really able to lean into the sarcastic/sardonic
catalog descriptions and a lot of the initial really crappy old and decrepit house items and scenic
elements felt appropriate to show "rock bottom" working class stuff. The height of the descriptions
came from Sean Baity.... and somewhat Claire and Roxy, but Sean was Jaded and cynical enough to
really make those "puppies" sing.
Chiffon headed out on the town to the local bistro to get some Goopy Carbonara when she went into labor. Mint was at her second day of work when she got the call. She unfortunately had to leave early which hurt her work performance.
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So you might have heard of this little thing called the Not So Berry Legacy Challenge for The Sims 4. This a conversion of those rules for The Sims 3! You can read the original rules to the challenge here.
Do you like the rainbow? Do you like the idea of playing with berry Sims but hate berry Sims? Do you want to mess around with aspects of the game you’ve never used before? Boy, do I have the challenge for you!
Welcome to the Not So Berry Legacy Challenge, a ten generation legacy with a focus on bright colors and new experiences.
Basic Rules:
Each heir must represent the color of the generation (i.e. hair, makeup, clothing), but brightly colored skin is not necessary (these aren’t actually berry Sims, that’s the joke). This is optional, but it is a big portion of the fun.
The colors of the spouses don’t matter as they aren’t part of the challenge. Unless otherwise stated you can do whatever you please with them.
Every generation is supposed to complete both the career and aspiration of the heir unless explicitly stated otherwise.
Keep the lifespan on normal.
If you play this challenge and want to share it, go ahead and post with #notsoberry so we can see!
My good friend @alwaysimming and I created the original version of this challenge for The Sims 4. We wanted to make something that forced us to play with parts of the game we’ve never explored before. I tried to capture that same goal for The Sims 3. All of the generations follow the same theme as they do in TS4, but with a few slight differences to fit the limitations of this game.
One installer. Every essential fix, mod, and tool for The Sims 2, set up for you in a few clicks.
I got tired of hunting down the same "must-have" fixes every time I reinstalled The Sims 2 (to the point where it has kept me from playing), so I made a tool that does it for you! 🥳 You choose the fixes, mods, and tools you want, click through, and it installs them all — with automatic backups and a built-in undo, so nothing is permanent and nothing gets lost.
It works with both the 2025 Legacy Collection (Steam and EA App) and the older Ultimate Collection.
⚠️ One heads-up: I only own Legacy (on Steam) and the Ultimate Collection, so I haven't been able to test the EA App or Epic versions of the Legacy Collection myself. They should work, but if you run into any issues on those, please let me know and I'll push out a fix!
Most importantly, none of this content is mine. Every fix, mod, and tool belongs to the creators who made them — I only automate installing them. Full credits and links are in the guide that comes with it. Please go support these people 💜
⬇️ Download: SFS | GitHub
📋 Want to see exactly what's included first? Here's the full list of every mod, fix, and tool, with credits: https://github.com/familyfunds/sims2-essentials-setup-tool/blob/main/GUIDE.md
More details under the cut 👇
What is it?
The Sims 2 Essentials Setup Tool is a single Windows installer (.exe file). Instead of downloading, unzipping, and hand-placing dozens of separate fixes, you run one program, choose what you want from a checklist, and it puts everything in the right place for you.
There are three quick presets so you don't have to think too hard:
Recommended — the sensible default set.
Complete — everything.
Custom — start from a blank slate and pick only what you want.
What's included
Everything here is curated to work together and this isn't a random pile of downloads. I checked every package against the others for conflicts (comparing the actual game resources each one touches), dropped or swapped anything that clashed, and set the load order in the few cases where two mods needed to coexist. So you can tick things freely without worrying that two fixes will quietly fight each other.
Over 140 hand-picked fixes and mods, grouped into:
Anti-corruption & core — the safety-critical stuff that keeps your neighborhoods healthy.
Bug fixes — dozens of fixes for Maxis bugs, from memory issues to gameplay glitches.
Helpful gameplay mods — quality-of-life tweaks that just make the game nicer to play.
Essential tools & systems:
CEP (Color Enable Package) — downloaded straight from MTS at install, see the note below
The Scriptorium
Radiance Lighting System 2.5
GunMod's Camera Mod 3.1
Rugs off-grid
TS2 Extender 0.8.1 (fixes only, optional extras off by default)
Objects.package corruption protection
Missing content restore (you supply your own Ultimate Collection or disc files — EA content is NOT bundled):
Restore IKEA Home Stuff (works on both Steam and EA/Epic — it sets up whichever your game needs)
Restore Missing Music
Missing Holiday Items
Neighborhood setup: clean/empty stealth 'hoods, or fully disable them, plus the MATY no-townie-regen mods.
Startup cheats: 45° object rotation and quarter-tile placement.
Third-party tools: SimPE, Mootilda's HoodChecker / LotAdjuster / Sims2Pack Clean Installer, and Body Shop for the Legacy Collection.
Backups & undo
This is the part I care about most: before the tool changes or replaces any file, it backs up your original first (to C:\ProgramData\The Sims 2 Essentials Setup Tool\backups). To undo anything, just run the tool again and choose Undo — you get a checklist and can roll back everything or only certain pieces. It does not add itself to "Add or remove programs"; it stays fully self-contained.
Requirements
Windows (I tested and created this on Windows 11)
The Sims 2 Legacy Collection (2025) or Ultimate Collection
For the "Missing" content (IKEA / Music / Holiday), your own UC or disc files
How to use it
First, a friendly nudge: back up your Sims 2 "Documents" folder. The tool shouldn't touch your saves, neighborhoods, or downloads — and it automatically backs up anything it does change — but it's always better safe than sorry. Just copy your Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2… folder somewhere safe before you start. (Besides… when was the last time you backed up your saves? 😉)
Download the .exe. It's unsigned (normal for community tools), so if Windows SmartScreen pops up, click More info → Run anyway.
Right-click the .exe and choose "Run as administrator" — it needs admin rights because it writes into your game folder.
Pick your edition, confirm your Documents folder, tick what you want, and click through.
That's it. To undo later, run it again and choose Undo.
A note on CEP
CEP isn't bundled in the installer — Numenor asks that it only be hosted on Mod The Sims. So if you tick it, the tool downloads it directly from MTS at install time. None of Numenor's files are redistributed here. That does mean CEP is the one thing you can't install while offline — but everything else in the tool works completely fine with no internet connection.
Credits & terms
Genuinely, all of the credit goes to the creators — Numenor, LazyDuchess, GunMod & the Radiance team, HugeLunatic, Mootilda, cyjon, Pescado & MATY, TwoJeffs, Nopke, simler90, LordDarcy, MidgeTheTree, hiloyt, CroconawSims, and so many more. The full list with links is in the included guide.
While I've reviewed everyone's terms of use in detail to make sure I wasn't breaking any rules, I'm only human and I could have missed (or misinterpreted) something. If one of your mods or tools is included in this installer and you'd like me to remove it, please shoot me a message and I'm happy to do so.
The tool itself is free and open-source — you're more than welcome to review every file and exactly what it does on GitHub. It's not affiliated with EA or with any of the creators above.
Missing something? Suggestions welcome
Think I've left out a crucial bug fix or a genuinely helpful mod? Send it my way. If the creator's terms of use allow it, I'm happy to look into adding it.
A quick heads-up on my philosophy, though: I originally built this for myself, and I like my game as close to vanilla as possible. So mods that change gameplay in a big way, or add features that were never in the base game to begin with, generally aren't ones I'll bundle. This isn't meant to be an "everything" list, but I'm always glad to consider suggestions, so don't be shy about sharing what you'd love to see!
Poor Chiffon is getting left behind. Mint was starving! Chiffon just wanted to get key lime pie, again. This pregnancy she is craving mac and cheese and key lime pie. What a mix!
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When Mint got home from work, Chiffon was still asleep. Mint spent some time working on reading pregnancy books to prepare for the baby. Originally, she wanted to read Murder in Pleasantview again, but Chiffon really wants her to read pregnancy books. She obliged her wife, because a happy wife is a happy life.
