"Welcome to my newest project.. a Townie Rotation. What is that, you ask? For the purposes of this exercise, Townies are the playable sims that EA populated the world with. (Townie can also refer to any non player character, like the people that wander the streets, but I'm talking about the ones who actually live in the houses of the world and/or were officially released the the gallery.) .. And a rotation means I'll be playing all of the EA characters in a round-robin style. I started one of these when Sims 4 first came out, unblogged, and made the mistake of creating my own sims to help populate a (then) small town. Then EA started adding expansions, and it quickly became clear to me that I should have just stuck with EA's sims and not added to the town. There just got to be too many sims to keep track of, and I lost my focus of learning about the EA townies and seeing what sort of lives they might lead. Hence… I'm restarting my rotation. I've also decided to blog this one, because I barely remember what happened in the last one, and I like to be able to look back and see where my little simmies have been." That was the premise. The problem with it? I went WAY overboard adding “official” sims from the maxis gallery to the save. I added so many that the save is basically full. I didn’t quit because the game wouldn’t run (it still runs fine).. I quit because keeping up to date with the new sim additions from new DLCS really pushed this whole thing over the edge of ridiculous. I leave this link here because … maybe I’ll go back to it? Or maybe I’ll learn from it and re-start the game with ONLY the sims that come with each world.
Read more ...
So, I made the mistake of getting bored and reading a link someone else posted to another challenge I was working on – and I was immediately intrigued. The more I read on the “Through the Ages” challenge by ericanoelle (https://ericanoelle.tumblr.com/post/188701427438), the more hooked I got, and the more I wanted to update things a little and make the challenge my own. I eventually branched off and made my own rules for the challenge, and gave it a new name. Originally I called it “Exploring History Challenge”, and a lot of people were confusing it with the actual “History Challenge” - which I assure you, is a completely different thing. I didn’t 100% know whether this playthrough was going to be be story or commentary, and I wasn’t sure I’d know from one generation to the next, either. I was just playing for fun (and to test out my rules adaptation), and going to go with whatever mood struck me at the time. I did decide to blog it, though, so that’s where this page comes in. This particular playthrough of the challenge was abandoned when I started streaming on Twitch, and I decided testing out my new “Timeline Adventure Challenge” (what I finally renamed the challenge to) rules was the first Sims save I played live on Twitch. The rules have been changed fairly extensively since this original Plumbob playthrough, but this particular challenge attempt holds the distinction of having some of the strangest sim genetics of any of my challenges.
Read more ...
This has been completed for a long time, but when I was wanting to look back on the adventure, I found that even finding the posts was difficult. So here I am, making a new page on my blog for ancient history. When I went through the full testing process, I did so with two different saves and families - one for the "Normal" difficulty, the other for "Extreme". On this page I'll collect all the posts and index them, mostly just so anyone (including me) who wants to look back at all the work that went into The Apartment Switch, can. For more information on the Apartment Switch, see this page in my Challenge Rules section.
Read more ...
I found this challenge on Mod the Sims.. (here) and liked the look of it, so I started playing. I found it 1.. too easy.. and 2.. lacking in rules for the expansions. So I’m modifying it for my uses. I don’t plan to blog the story of my “colony” (town), but I may post some build pictures and stuff as I go. I’m almost done with the first generation currently and I have 3 families (14 total sims) living in my town. Anyway, Back on topic. I wanted to write down my variation of the rules.. mostly so I don’t lose them. I ended up changing more than I originally intended to. However, it’s a fun challenge, and one that I think others would enjoy, so I’m leaving the rules up here. My attempt at the challenge was mostly done off-blog, so I didn’t take a lot of pictures, and I didn’t really start taking great records until the second generation. Eventually, I got tired of it. I think maybe part of it was due to not blogging it fully. Will I go back to it? I honestly don’t know. We’ll see.
Read more ...
This is a challenge I found recently, and knew immediately it was something I wanted to start. Each "house" is a challenge in itself, and has mini challenges to (hopefully) introduce you to things you haven't seen in Sims 4. At it's heart, it's a generational building challenge, and each house requires you to earn enough starting from nothing to build a certain value house. At certain houses, you also "unlock" venues that you can then buy or build for your growing town. The first blood related child of each generation is the heir, and the challenge stops and starts based on when that child reaches young-adulthood. All in all, this should be a fun challenge! Update: This challenge is now retired. Please see my Ramblers challenge for my currently played Drifter challenge.
Read more ...
I really missed my "Falconvale" "Nothing is Free" challenge, and I really wanted to get a new traditional "Nothing is Free" challenge going (rules on Mod the Sims here) - as opposed to my "Spectres" challenge, which is combined with an Apocalypse challenge. Plus, I had just gotten the Island Paradise expansion, so the thought of building my own Island Paradise had plenty of merit. Coming up with a story for such a world wasn't a real stretch of imagination, either... a castaway was completely obvious. So.. Castaway Shores was born. I gutted the town, and "fished" around for an appropriate starting lot, which took some doing.. originally, I picked a land-locked one, but that seemed like a stupid idea, so I moved him to a beachy lot. My founding character is a guy, named Micah McCloud. His traits are: Loves to Swim, Loner, Handy, Excitable, and Eco-Friendly. His favorite music is Island Life, he loves Grilled Salmon, and he likes the color red. With all that being said, that's pretty much all you need to know to start reading! I always wanted to go back to this, in fact, I think I still have the file. But I just don’t play Sims 3 anymore. Maybe someday.
Read more ...
This was my latest attempt at a Sims 3 apocalypse Challenge. I still want to do one, but it’s probably going to have to be a Sims 4 one. I don’t think I got nearly as far as I wanted to in this challenge, but it was still fun, and since I still have all the pictures, I figured I might as well leave it on this blog. Enjoy!
Read more ...
From my original page on this story: "First of all, I know it's mis-spelled. I did it on purpose. Poetic license! Second, the title will be explained in due time. I came up with the idea after downloading a beautifully evocative world called "Silent Hill" (yes, based off the games) from the Sims Exchange - found here if you're interested. I promptly tossed the idea out and kept looking. Hours later, after coming back to the idea many times, and finally having a brainstorm session with my husband where the story was fleshed out some more, I finally decided this was what I was going to go with. I really wanted to get another "Nothing is Free" challenge going (rules on Mod the Sims here) .. and this time I wanted to START with a story, not the challenge itself. (I started with the challenge last time, and then had to come up with a semi-lame story after the fact when I decided to start blogging it.) However, this was where the complications showed up. For the story to work, I'm going to have to get a bit.. well.. creative. The world is a lovely sad and ruined world, perfect for a lonely sim who thinks they just might be the last sim alive to try to rebuild humanity... er.. simanity. However, that means the play is going to be a bit more complicated. I've always wanted to try an Apocalypse challenge (rules found on it's wiki here) .. but never been brave enough to actually start one. I read over the rules fairly carefully, and if I modify several key things (the big one is going to be the fact that there ARE no rabbit holes to start with in the world - and I'm going to make a really tough choice to also force a NO OTHER SIMS! in the world to start with as well.) Not to completely spoil the story, I will let you discover that as we go.. but this challenge could very well end before it begins if the random chance gods of sims don't help me out before my founder dies. (yikes!)" This is the only Sims 3 game I’ve attempted to go back to since Sims 4 came out. I still have the save file, but the issue is still the same. I was going to need to force the save past bugs with cheats, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to just for the sake of the story. Maybe someday.
Read more ...
This was the challenge that launched this blog. "Play notes: Falconvale is played based on the "Nothing is Free" Challenge Rules, which are found here on ModtheSims.com. It's the brainchild of the brilliant Avalikia, and basically takes the old Build a City Challenge for Sims 2, and makes it more suited for the Sims 3 playstyle. There have been other "morphs" of the BACC for Sims 3, but most simply take the old rules and plop them onto the Sims 3 game engine - which isn't the same style of gameplay at all... and to play the Sims 2 style you need extensive mods to change the aging and gameplay style back to the sims 2.. which seems sorta silly to me. This Challenge seems to be the best way to run BACC for the Sims 3 game engine, and I fell in love with the challenge as soon as I read it. That being said.. welcome to Falconvale." Unfortunately, this save file ultimately got corrupted by an invisible friend bug, and I was never able to recover it. Loved it while it lasted, though.
Read more ...
"Yes, this is my second Drifter Challenge.. Yes, I'm also crazy. That being said... I was inspired by some of the great storytellers blogging their Drifter Challenges with an actual story-line and I wanted to see if I could do it too. Bear with me as I dust off some creative muscles I haven't stretched this far in quite a while. (My other stories take little creativity, being very game-play-driven.) We'll see how this goes!" ... That’s the original introduction to the story. However, so much has changed since then that I feel like I need to add some more information to it now. I love this story. It’s a Drifter Challenge that I chose to write as a story. I had big plans for it when I started it, but some of them fell through, unfortunately, and it caused the writing to pretty much completely stall out. At this time, I do not know if I’ll get back to this story or not. That being said, it’s still a nice read (what little of it there is)... and I, hopefully, will be able to figure out a new direction to take the story since the one I had in mind didn’t pan out.
Read more ...
This save came about when Realm of Magic came out and I had the bright idea to do a version of a "Supernatural Orphanage". Which - basically - is a family based on one kid from each occult. At this time, there's four occults, plus human, so there's five kids. For some insane reason, I started all the kids out as toddlers... and I only gave them one parent. Why??? Who knows. But I was clearly not thinking straight. I moved them into one of my favorite shells I've ever made and started decorating. I ran out of creative energy at about the same time I hit the basement, hence the fact that it's currently unfurnished. I plan to play them through adulthood - and beyond. I want to follow their families, see how different they all are. I survived the five toddlers, got them to the child stage.. And then just got overwhelmed with too many challenges, and this is one of the ones that got cut. It will be back. If you're interested to see what actually happened with this family, check out this page. They moved to the big screen!
Read more ...
