Hmm, is this only for US? I’m trying, but it doesn’t seem to let me redeem it. 
Nevermind, I just noticed their deadline was this morning.
Wowzers, this is an engrossing game. The lion’s share of my free time over the past 16 or 17 days has been devoted to playing the game, figuring out all of the features (having all of those xpacs can be quite overwhelming to a novice), and my master plan to raise a generation of super-sims. I’ve had the urge to record my progress in this thread, but I didn’t want to pull myself away from actually playing the game to type up a series of posts. I hope to finally get around to doing so tomorrow.
That’s basically what I’ve been doing with PlantSims.
It is very addictive! And the best of the three Sims games in my opinion.
Okay, so I started with the pre-made character John Mole in Desiderata Valley. In hindsight, he seems to be a good introductory character, starting in a small but well-furnished house.
I gather that on the first day of any household, a few neighbors/townies swing by to say hi. In John’s case, it turned into an impromptu pool party. John seemed to hit it off with the lovely Calista Fuchs. Over the coming weeks, John lived the live of a rather boring bachelor. He’d make the occasional friend, but was more focused on work and self-improvement. Sometimes when he had a day off he’d invite Calista over, and before long they were dating regularly.
At this point, I was starting to have trouble cultivating and maintaining enough friendships for John to get promoted (in pursuit of his lifetime aspiration of becoming a city planner). I figured that it was time for me, as a player, to try to get John and Calista to marry, so that they could really team up. This plan made me feel very old-fashioned: Having Calista stay home and do all the cooking and cleaning and party-planning while John continues to go to work like before seems like something out of the 50s or 60s. At any rate, I decide to at least have the wedding. After consummating the marriage with some WooHoo and the guzzling of a lot of Elixir of Life (“We’re going to be young together forever!”), I check Calista’s lifetime aspiration. She wants to become a celebrity chef. The next morning, John goes to work and Calista quits her job as a fast food shift manager so she can spend some quality time with a cookbook.
Before too long, John fulfilled his dream of becoming a city planner. Calista tried her hand at gardening, which gave me my first taste of the truly outlandish stuff that can happen to your Sims. Spraying all those pesticides mutated Calista into a PlantSim. This was a big problem, because plantsimism is John’s turn-off; Calista didn’t want John to see her like that. So Calista is outside, in the rain, hiding from John. “Calista, are you okay?” “Yeah, I’m fine. Why don’t you go relax in the bedroom for a while?” John obliges, and Calista sneaks into the living room to the phone so she can call someone from the Garden Club to come over and sell her some Plantophic-C. As she’s waiting outside, lightning strikes one of the trees in the front yard. John rushes out to see the fire, and Calista quickly ducks behind a corner. “No! Go back inside! I’ll deal with the fire, you just relax in the bedroom some more!”. Confused, John goes back inside. Calista extinguishes the fire, buys ten of those potions from the Garden Club rep, chugs a potion and is cured, shoos the Garden Club rep, and goes inside to take a bath as though the lightning strike was the only thing that ruined her day.
Damn, I wish I’d seen this before! I’m addicted to the Freeplay sims on my tablet and I am looking for something stronger!
John and Calista continue to live at 153 Main Street. The house has undergone extensive renovations time and again. The kitchen and dining area were expanded so they could entertain more guests, the swimming pool had to be removed to make room for a workshop, and eventually a second floor was tacked on. The tiny property barely has room for the greenhouse out back. John changed careers, becoming an educator (eventually education minister). He also got pretty good at making robots, eventually building a servo named Andy (because I’m very creative) to help out around the house. Calista meanwhile got back into gardening (Andy could spray the pesticide on any bugs that the ladybug lofts didn’t take care of), and tried her hand at flower arranging and robotics, too. Still, all of these hobbies weren’t terribly fulfilling. Andy was a good friend, but he wasn’t family. It was time for John and Calista to have a baby.
John, having lost his parents at a young age, was determined to be there for his own child. When Bryan was born, John quit his job. In any spare time he had between feeding, changing, and teaching Bryan, John worked in a home office next to the nursery, bringing in a little bit of money selling technical drawings. For the most part, though, the Mole family lived off of their savings.
As Bryan became more independent, Calista indulged in a short-lived career as an adventurer, but quickly grew frustrated that the long hours kept her away from Bryan and John. Andy became a game designer of note, but quickly grew bored of the daily grind; despite being a robot, Andy always had a strong affinity for nature, and is most at home in the Mole family’s greenhouse tending the eggplants.
Bryan grew into a rather sullen child. While he inherited some of his mother’s playfulness, he was generally lazy and grouchy. He’d bring the occasional classmate home from school, but didn’t really make any lasting friendships (though it didn’t help that I can’t figure out how to get ahold of a kid who doesn’t own a phone). John, ever the doting father, resolved to mold Bryan into a more lively young man. Between various lessons in which John instructed Bryan in a wide array of topics, he also encouraged the boy to be kinder and more active. Calista helped nurture Bryan’s natural playfulness (but not too much). The constant attention and lessons were exhausting, but eventually paid off. By his pre-teen years, Bryan was a veritable dynamo: bursting with energy, quick to laugh, kind to a fault, and pulling straight A’s at a prestigious local private school.
I’ve missed having custom paitings available in the vanilla game. Would be nice if the devs could find a way to put them back in for 4, starting with keeping them off the exchange, which should limit copyright and/or ratings problems.
Ack I missed out! In terms of creative play, Sims2 has been the most fun for me so far. I always wanted all those expansion packs, too.
Always diligent with his homework and the additional studies his father pushed upon him, Bryan was, for a while, spread quite thin. I checked the game’s wiki article on homework to find out just how important it is to get homework help from an older sim, and noticed this: "If Seasons is installed, students will do homework faster in the fall, or after drinking apple juice. " I thought, “Oh, that’s good news, I have apples on hand. Hmm. There’s a whole wiki page on juice. I’d better check it out…” My jaw hit the floor when I saw that eggplant juice gives a random skill point. Andy had already harvested a great many mouthwatering eggplants. After staying up all night making and drinking pitcher after pitcher of eggplant juice (and taking one very cathartic bathroom break), Bryan was practically a polymath. Homework was a breeze, high school was actually less demanding than elementary school, and John’s additional tutoring had run its course. Suddenly finding himself with plenty of free time, Bryan could finally truly enjoy life.
It was during a family outing at the Spark! Sports Park that he first saw her. A girl about his age, with long red hair and a beautiful smile. He knew right away that he had to talk to her, but just as he was about to introduce himself, she said goodbye to her companions and left without so much as a glance in Bryan’s direction. Bryan tried to enjoy the afternoon at the park, but his thoughts were elsewhere. Who was she? She had been wearing a private school uniform, but not from his school. No chance of meeting her there, then.
In the coming days, Bryan kept suggesting more family outings, particularly to the sports park. John and Calista thought this was a bit odd, seeing how Bryan didn’t seem to have all that much fun playing soccer or shooting hoops once they were there. Bryan gave some vague explanation about wanting to try things outside of his comfort zone. His attention span didn’t seem to keep him anywhere for long, though. “C’mon, let’s go to Spark! and shoot some hoops.” “You know, you’re right; we have been coming here a lot lately. Plus they only have half a court for basketball. How about we check out Greaves’ Greener Gardens?” “This place is pretty, I guess, but I think I could use some exercise after all. Let’s go back to Spark! and play some soccer.” John just shrugged. It was a nice day for a drive, at least.
There she was! Just as the Mole family strolled into the sports park (again), Bryan saw the red-haired girl do a cannonball into the pool. Bryan turned to his father. “You know what, soccer sucks. I’d rather go for a swim.”. And with that, he left his somewhat exasperated parents standing at the park entrance. “In his defense,” said Calista, “soccer does suck.” “Yeah.”
Okay, Bryan, here we go. Maybe I can get her attention with a sweet dive; that’ll be a good first impression. What if I mess it up, though? Don’t worry, it’ll be great.
(Splash)
…Did she notice? She’s not looking this way now. Should I talk to her? Nobody else in the pool is talking. Maybe I should ask her to play Marco Polo, that’ll be a good ice-breaker. No. What if she thinks Marco Polo is for little kids? She’s looking at me. Smile at her. She smiled back! Don’t stare, she’ll think you’re creepy. Just keep swimming and play it cool. She’s getting out of the pool. Is she going for the diving board, or is she going to leave? I haven’t even talked to her yet! So get out of the pool and talk to her, you idiot.
“Uh, hi. I’m Bryan.”
“I’m Willow.”
The poolside chat went well. The next day, Bryan invited Willow over; they talked a bit, danced a bit, flirted a bit. It didn’t take too long for Bryan to get a real date with her. It didn’t take too long after that before they were going steady.
Ah, Willow Kody. With a playful glint in her eye and music like laughter, she was Bryan’s dream girl. Where Bryan was vigorous and disciplined, Willow had a borderline manic hunger for life, and would always wear herself out in the name of having fun. She and Bryan would go out nearly every night (sometimes twice a night) and try something new. Sometimes it would be a visit to the hottest new dance club, sometimes it would be a fancy restaurant, sometimes a modern art museum. The only real constant was that the date would eventually degenerate into a public make-out session that bystanders would describe as “nauseating, but kind of adorable in its own way”.
Bryan racked up scholarships left and right. John even bought a pool table so Bryan could sharpen his skills and earn the Phelps-Wilsonoff Billiards Prize. It also helped his social life; once word got out that the Moles had a pool table, it seemed like half of Bryan’s class wanted to hang out with him after school. Bryan cultivated quite a few new friendships, but everyone always came second to Willow.
After graduating from high school, Bryan and Willow both enrolled at Académie Le Tour. They moved in together into a cute little house on campus, paid for by Bryan’s scholarships.
I dabbled in The Sims 3, but got turned off by the constant prompts to buy stuff from the EA Store. The Sims 2, on the other hand, has none of that and I’ve found it to be quite compelling as a result.
I’ve been playing Don Lothario in the Pleasantview neighborhood. He’s in the Medical career track (and appears to be quite good at it) but his Lifetime Aspiration is to make WooHoo to 20 different Sims. He’s engaged to Cassandra Goth but for some reason can’t quite manage to WooHoo her. On the other hand, he’s done it with the Caliente sisters Nina and Dina who live next door. He’s done it with the maid Kaylynn. He’ll hit on random women who happen to walk by. He’s recently discovered how make public WooHoo in a photobooth or changing room, so any shopping trip can become quite an adventure.
Romance sims are an aspiration point bonanza, the little sex addicts. The downside is that after a while they shouldn’t go out in public for fear of getting slapped. At home, their trash is always getting kicked into the street.
Disabling Shop Mode in Options -> General Settings should turn that off rather than you. You should be going in General Settings anyway to disable Memories; they leak.
Seems like infants are glitchy, or maybe my installation has become corrupt. Would I go through Origin to re-install?
How do you mean by glitchy? You’re not supposed to be able to control them or see their motive bars, if that’s the apparent problem.
(Err, that should be: “What do you mean by glitchy?”)
Bryan and Willow got engaged on their first day at university. I felt the need to reload and figure out how to lock doors when a cheerleader burst into their bedroom uninvited and started cheering during their very first WooHoo; I’m sure they appreciated the sentiment, but it really spoiled the mood.
Playing house with Willow was quite a shock to Bryan, who until then had seen her through rose-colored glasses. It turns out that she was only “on” for a few hours out of the day; the bursts of energy she had always summoned during their dates would leave her feeling drained. After class, she’d usually want to just lounge around, maybe read a book or do an assignment, then either turn in early or sleep in late the next day. Her laziness also affected her attitudes toward personal hygiene and housekeeping, leading to a few Odd Couple-type arguments. Apart from that, though, she was still the same playful, kind, and adventurous Willow that Bryan had fallen in love with.
Before sending him off to university, Bryan’s parents (and Andy) had put together a care package to help him and Willow hit the ground running. Most important were the snapdragon bouquets made by Calista. Next in importance were the juicer and the big bag of home-grown produce (for those times when they’d need a pepper punch energy boost). Thirdly, there the robots Andy had built: a sentry drone and an uninitialized servo (I actually forgot to set up the sentry drone, and only remembered when a burglar showed up).
The first semester had a bit of a rough start for Willow. She hadn’t had the rigorous tutoring that Bryan had grown up with, and soon felt insecure that she couldn’t keep up with him. They were both biology majors, and she had ample opportunity to see how the subject matter came more easily to him than to her. She used a ReNuYu Senso Orb (which was eventually nicked by that burglar) to reprogram herself with the knowledge aspiration and resolved to catch up. I changed her turn-ons and turn-off while as was at it; her turn-off had been swimwear of all things. Bryan’s care package made things a lot easier than they could have been, but to this day she insists that she still gets the occasional flashback to her marathon session of guzzling eggplant smoothies and gags at the memory. Learning the various life skills required some quality time with the bookshelf. Willow put on the so-called “freshman 15” during this time of sedentary study; knowledge aspiration wants like “learn how to make spaghetti” and “eat spaghetti” can be problematic when snapdragon perfume keeps one’s hunger gauge full, especially for a sim who hasn’t studied physiology. Once she had studied physiology, a few hours of yoga helped her become slimmer than ever (if only it were that easy in real life). Willow’s hard work eventually paid off, and she felt as though she was on more or less even footing with Bryan academically. Each semester, starting in the second semester of their first year, Willow and Bryan would race to see who could finish their term paper the fastest; Willow often won.
The rest of their time at Académie Le Tour was more fun. Their studies were almost an afterthought, as achieving a 4.0 GPA usually only took one day of work out of each semester. They explored most of the campus together. King’s Music Hall was their second-favorite place on campus, and they found that jamming together with the guitar and drums on the main stage was a good way to impress people and earn some tip money (at least until some dork with no talent would pick up the bass and muddy up their song). They made a lot of friends, and each got into the exclusive Volauvent Society (mainly to prove that they could). They were far from a campus power-couple, though. Most of the time they were content to stay home and enjoy each other’s company. Curling up in bed with your sweetheart and watching a cheesy werewolf movie beats hanging out at the students’ centre any day.
Sometimes they won’t move onto the child stage. I can get around that by moving house, although that’s drastic. Lately the parent might will get stuck in the changing or bathing animations. I can cancel out of it, and calling a nanny seemed to help with it.
Oh, I didn’t have any of those problems. Though the “bring to cake” sequence on an infant’s birthday can reportedly take a while for some reason.