Sim stuff

I was curious about how such a shit idea would be executed. My curiosity got the better of me so I found the first episode and watched it. I want that time I wasted back.

There was a lot of waffling. The time spent on the actual creating was too short - 90 minutes for the first challenge and 5 hours for the second. For such a short amount of time you didn’t get a sense of the energy or time spent on the challenges, or any feel for the individual simmers. 

At first I thought the idea of team challenges might work, with a builder, a stylist and a storyteller. But to have every challenge team-based, then the whole team getting sent home is grossly unfair so you don’t see the individual talent at all. I feel for simmers stuck with someone overbearing who controls everything. How does this showcase the talents of individuals? Simmers don’t play the game in groups so wtf?

I didn’t get anything from the programme at all (certainly not any enjoyment). I’d rather watch Lego masters.

So I did remember to take snapshots occasionally so since I have nothing else at the moment I’ll share those.

My main family is Serenity Spring and her husband, Richard Cooper.

There he is proposing.

She was pretty happy. It was a dismal, dark house though.

They had kids.

A boy, William and a girl, Willow. Willow was pretty tubby. (They had moved into a better house by then.)

The other family I have is Sharna Lovelace,

and her adopted daughter Maliyah,

who’s not particularly well cared for.

Anyway, as there is very little room to expand in Sims 4 (how do you do generations?) I killed off Willow, who was by then a teen.

Serenity was older by now too, and found the body of her daughter.

William has moved out, but as he couldn’t afford to buy a house (and their being no apartments), he moved in with a couple. His ambition is to be rich and live in a mansion so first step on the way was to encourage flirtation by the wife. The husband was insanely jealous, divorced her, and moved out.

Instead, I hate to admit, I’ve been playing Sims 4. It’s fast to load and the toddlers are cute. I also like the holidays function that came with Seasons. However, I don’t feel like taking pictures of the Sims. Why is that? I don’t feel connected to them at all. Perhaps I’ll make the effort. I even built a house in Sims 4 but can’t be bothered uploading to the gallery as it means I have to go online and get yet another update first.

Joe loved cars and loved tinkering with them. He figured he’d work on old cars and sell them. This is Joe’s house (an unplayed copy). He found it very easy to sell one cheap car at a time and a couple of toys for the kids. Such a simple business. One day he hopes to buy a bigger house with room to sell more cars and perhaps an attached toy shop.

So I swapped downloads folders and started up my Medieval hood. I spent a one day rotation familiarising myself with all the Sims. It’s a more story-based hood though and I’m at a loss where to take them next. The whole royal household is in danger of dying from real sickness so I’ve held off playing them again just yet. Luckily the prince is at uni so if necessary he’ll be the next king. 

No-one liked my floors enough to download, but that’s ok. They were just sitting in my folder anyway. I’ve been recolouring some cc walls but won’t bother sharing, I don’t think. Perhaps it’s time to upload some of (Andreas’) recent creations, although there’s a ton of cc in some.

It’s been a while since I uploaded anything to share. I recently did a couple of floors and thought I’d share some older ones as well. So I present 8 floors in total:

The herringbone

Outdoor paving

Slate flooring

A terrazzo floor

For  indoors, a couple of rather colourful linoleums

I’d also made a floor to match Maxi’s patterned bathroom wall tile

And lastly, in case you want that industrial playground or warehouse look, some asphalt.

The download file will include the six below plus the bathroom floor and asphalt. Choose whichever you’d like.

So my next project after redesigning the parks was to attach a university sub-hood to Belladonna Cove (since Andreas’ son will soon be old enough to go). I attached Crystal Springs as a blank canvas. I’ve never created a university hood from scratch (apart from create a few university buildings). The trouble with Crystal Springs though, was this massive space in the middle. Neighbourhood deco to the rescue.

It’s not perfect but it’s a darn sight better than empty space.

The last redesign was Central Park West.

Before:

Another stage area, large playground, a random diner plonked in front of the toilets(!), pond and big toilet block.

I was feeling lazy by this time, so kept the toilets and stage area but made it slightly narrower as I thought it was too large. I moved the playground to the right next to the pond but made it much smaller. In place of the playground on the left I made a large building encompassing a games shop where teens could hang out, a menswear shop, and a bar with dance floor.

The stage area:

The basically unchanged toilet block, screened from the stage by a hedge fence:

The playground:

And the pond:

I was getting really tired by this time, so didn’t do too much landscaping.

The shops:

Game shop:

In the back is a room where teens can watch TV with a small toilet adjoined.

Menswear shop:

There are a few sporting trophies as well.

Finally the bar/disco:

I haven’t taken any interior pics or floor plans but can do if anyone is interested.

Next up was the “entertainment” section of Central Park.

Apologies for quality of before pic. I forgot to start Fraps and turn off the grid lines. As you can see it’s equally as dire as the rest of the original park. A large stage area, a handful of chairs, toilets, and chess, plus the weird “entrance” building.

I actually kept the design of the entrance but centred it. The top half was made into a formal garden. The toilets were moved to the bottom left and Sims have to go through a sort of maze to get to them. In the bottom right I made another smaller garden with coffee cart and a small “rotunda” where Sims could perform singing or poetry or whatever.

I think it’s an improvement.

I had never made a formal garden before and it took a long time, but I’m pleased with it.

The “maze”:

In the middle is a living statue podium.

And lastly, the small garden and performing area.

The entrance:

The whole central park area in Belladonna Cove is pretty dire, as I mentioned. Next up for redesign was central park east.

Before:

Pretty horrific.

After:

Now there was a swimming pool, skating rink, and outdoor ball sports to add to the rebuilt toilet block and redesigned playground.

The diner:

The indoor swimming pool:

Skating rink with ball sports practice in the background:

And the playground with nearby toilet block:

It was looking much more appealing.

As I mentioned in the previous post, my new founder, Andreas Voss, needed somewhere nice to get married so as a budding architect he had some interest in the re-design of central park in Belladonna Cove. That whole park area is dreadful and the other three sections will also need work.

Anyway, before the redesign:

After:

It’s still a work in progress. I haven’t yet done anything with the upper left quadrant (and the toilet block is missing its roof for some reason...).

Andreas got his wedding venue:

A new cafe, which still needs landscaping:

A corner of quiet repose:

Andreas with his new wife, Briar:

It’s been about 18 months since I played Sims 2. Too long. Too too long.

I’ve given up on my Veronaville neighbourhood and have started afresh in Belladonna Cove. My new founder, Andreas Voss, will be a city planner, and is already starting by redeveloping the awful central park district. I will post some pics when I take some decent ones - a before and after.

New founder is now married and his new wife is pregnant. Time to expand the one-bedroomed home.

So I downloaded Sims 4 when it was free to do so recently. I played half-heartedly, not really liking it. I went back to it because I wanted to see what toddlers could do. I had already made a Sim called Serenity Spring. Instead of going through the rigmarole of finding a partner for her, I created another Sim - Richard Cooper, and moved him in. It didn’t take long for them to get to know one another, and Richard proposed.

Serenity, as you may have noticed, is already pregnant.

Serenity started off as a freelance botanist but that got tedious so I got her a job as a writer. Richard is into computers so I got him a techy job.

I saw the option to “Elope” and clicked on it before the baby was born, imagining that they would go somewhere but no, they just got married there and then, like the Sims 2 option to just ‘get married’. Disappointment. Interestingly, Serenity kept her surname.

The baby came soon after. 

I named him William Cooper - unimaginative, but I had just been looking at my family history with generations of such boring names and it was in mind.

Overall, I find Sims 4 frustrating. I had to google how to do the simplest things. 

It looks dreary, and the graphics are pretty basic. My Sims can’t afford to move out of the one-bedroomed house yet. Perhaps putting in bigger windows will make the indoors brighter?