Drawing & Writing

For aspiring artists, he have easels, sketchbooks, and drafting tables (one is only accessible if you own Ambitions and isn’t usable by children to my knowledge, the other requires University and since it’s related to your major, the chances of kids being able to use it are slim) For aspiring writers, if you don’t own a computer, your sim pretty much can’t afford to be literate. Doesn’t matter how old your sim is.

What I’d like to see is a box of crayons that can be used by both toddlers and children. Toddlers could probably just sit on the floor in front of a piece of paper and make adorable little scribbles (or maybe draw on the walls, and mom or dad has to clean it off later). Kids could probably sit at a desk or table and have the crayons sitting out, or lay on the floor while they doodle. Another cute way to build up their art skill would be to have a box of watercolor paints. If not, either object could make for some darling clutter! Or we could always have some kind of art desk for kids, like one of these…

See all those paints? and pencil cups? Perfect for art clutter!

Everything is neatly organized

Don’t forget the storage! This would be perfect for a daycare!

Speaking of clutter, I’m liking the look of the clutter items from university. I’d have to find the screenshot but I thought I saw some art clutter stuff. I haven’t seen any like that since the last time I had CC in my game (long before my first expansion/stuff pack), in particular things from the Books & Co, Office Time Clutter,  and Creative Corner sets from Simcredible Designs (I also liked the look of Petala Decor and Magazine Mania from them, but those may have been more recently added). I’d absolutely love if EA made some more book clutter and art supplies to leave strewn all over the room. I like doodling and sketching in real life so if I ever wanted to make my own room I could do so. Another thing I’m a little bit disappointed in. Why was there not piles of presents as some form of clutter item(s)? Seasons would’ve been an awesome time to add those.

Now for writers… although this could be a neat object for artists too. Have you ever kept a private journal, or doodled in your math notebook? I think this’d be a neat feature for the sims. You can build skills without shelling out for an expensive easel or computer, and if you slap on some kind of ‘read diary’ interaction, sims could get upset with one another (maybe a little embarrassed) over the book’s content. The potential for new moodlets is there as well, or we could just recycle old ones, take your pick. I for one would like to see a “You read my diary!?!” sort of moodlet!

Illness & Injuries in the Sims

There are a number of players who wish for more realism in the sims, but how real is too real? How do you add realism to the game? One of the biggest changes was from Seasons, where a weather engine was implemented. Other expansions mostly added a variety of activities and interactions for sims, or in other words, stuff to do.

Along with Seasons, Illness made it’s return to the franchise (unless you count nausea as an illness, but that’s been going on since the base game as a result of either morning sickness or eating spoiled food). Thus far I’ve only had my sims encounter colds, although getting the flu is supposed to be possible (it just takes alot of neglect and I haven’t been able to do it before the ‘germy’ moodlet expires). It would’ve been an added bonus to have sims suffer from headaches (because drops in atmospheric pressure can do that, and it’s directly linked to the weather). Injuries were added instead to the Medieval spinoff series.

But what is it that makes injuries so difficult to implement?

Well, there’s the countless animations across multiple eps (not all of which the player may have installed at the time) that would need to be redone, or would they? If you consider how casts today are different from years ago (waterproof, stronger, lighter, customizable), it may be possible to work around some of the limitations.

I fractured my arm once when I was little, and ended up wearing a sling for a couple of weeks. If it hadn’t been my left hand I’d have been alot more limited, because a sling is designed to keep your injured limb as close to your body as possible in order to protect it. Years later, one of my friends broke her arm on the playground. She was fitted for a cast instead, and was still able to move her arm around because the cast only covered from her hand/wrist to just below her elbow.

When you consider casts like that, you wouldn’t necessarily need to remake animations. The only problem you might have are animations where the wrist moves, although you could also grey out certain options to keep the sim from performing them. Kind of like how pregnant sims can’t do certain things (for obvious reasons). The actual cast could be wearable in the form of an accessory.

In the case of a broken leg, a walking cast may be a substitute for a traditional cast, since they allow you to put more weight on that leg. If you choose a design like this, where the cast covers the area below the knee, you may not need to change the walking animation. Obviously though, running, jogging, and otherwise bouncing around are going to be out.

Alternatively (or possibly additionally) crutches and/or wheelchairs could be an option, similar to how canes worked in Generations. You just choose when to start and stop using them. Not the fastest or most efficient way to get around, but it makes for an interesting prop for storytelling. Plus it’s just fun to harass people with canes. These however would require additional animations.

The next big factor is how long a sim would take to heal. Some injuries (like my fractured arm) can heal in a week or two. Others take a bit longer. Factor in how long the player makes sim lifespans, let’s say ‘they’ve got ‘short’, and you obviously aren’t going to want an incapacitated sim for very long, particularly when they live alone. Albeit, the new roommate feature coming with University could help this issue if the player is willing to put up with NPCs in their household.

If I had to hazard a guess though, I would say that an injury shouldn’t take longer than a day or two to recover from. Remember, it takes a sim mother 3 days to go through all 3 trimesters (male sims who’ve been abducted only suffer for 2), so 3 days could be like 9 months.

Sims 3 Store Content Reviews: Pizza Oven and Teppanyaki Grill!

It ended up costing me closer to 40 dollars CDN on sale (yikes) but I caved and got the World + 1900 simpoint bundle via PayPal. While it was an okay deal, the tax on top was what did me in. 20 dollars on sale but 35 dollars with the simpoints (a  20 dollar world plus nearly 20 dollars worth of points for 35 bucks was more attractive than a code in a box and nothing else even if I did like the box art) plus tax came so something like 39 dollars, but enough math, let’s get to the goods!

The pizza oven comes with about a dozen unique recipes (more than the teppanyaki grill) and every sim in the household gets a positive moodlet when it’s in use. I was lucky enough to have a couple of cold slices in the fridge to curb the resulting craving that ensued!

No longer will your sims need to order a pizza at the next party, you can have two different kinds (albeit they look smaller than the kind you order on the phone). Who cares? We can make our own pizza now! Also, who else is waiting for an orange cat to attempt to scoop up the lasagna?

Forever Alone… now in a Calzone

The Teppanyaki grill was a gift (thank you Tek), and the set is worth every penny. Not only do you get a selection of new recipes (if you like to designate a culinary sim in your families, this is the perfect gift for them), the items you get are nicely designed and fairly well made, and you get an assortment of new animations related to the grill. I haven’t seen too much glitching from this one either *knocks on wood*

Now all the sims needs is Korean BBQ and we should be absolutely set! 😀

Your sims can also try to Juggle Eggs or attempt the Onion Volcano trick

You may also be pleased to know that in a lot full of nothing but store items and regular game items (I hand picked the ones that seemed to pull my sims’ attention the most), that was accidentally struck by a meteor (not to mention it was the first time this occurred in my game, naturally or no), the grill was the only object in the kitchen area that survived without so much as a scratch. The counters surrounding it (and their contents) all burned up. Now THAT’S good workmanship!

TS3 Wishlist: Part 1

I’m happy to say that quite a few of the things from my original TS3 wishlist have already made it into the game, but I only just happened upon the old list recently on my old technomagic rant blog. Anyways here’s a few of the things that came up…

Handheld Game Console

If we’re getting into stuff like MP3 Players, a portable console doesn’t seem so farfetched. How easy is it to picture a sim plunked on the couch, staring at the screen and mashing buttons? It’s not all that different from the regular game playing animation. If you wanted to go a step further you could let the sims buy additional games for their console (it would come with a default one) and maybe some for the PC/regular console too. If nothing else it’d let you choose whether you want the skateboarding or car racing one. Otherwise it’s just randomly chosen.

Vending Machines (Confirmed in University)

This could be simple to add in theory, click on the machine, choose your flavour in the pie menu and the sim presses a button. Maybe it only costs a couple of simoleons but it could help their hunger bar a little. Maybe add a beverage for vampires if you have late night (from what I do know about code, there used to be old HTML/Javascript tricks to prevent newer code executing on incompatible browsers, so in theory you may be able to find another way to do it).

Fountain Drinks & Smoothies

Like the kind at McDonald’s or some other fast food place. Actually fast food places wouldn’t be so bad as venues, they’re a cheap place to eat, kind of like the coffee shop in Showtime VS the Restaurant. We got the ice cream maker and deep fryer, maybe we can have restaurants that serve food from them? Heck, genies and party guests as of seasons seem to be able to produce any kind of food installed in the game, why not use this mechanic to add recipes to the restaurant menu depending on which eps/store content you have installed?

And here’s more of the stuff we’d (or at least I’d) like to see expanded…

Fruits and Vegetables for the Garden

Call me a Harvest Moon fanatic, but if we added bananas, we can add other things right? For example, we have limes. Do we have lemons yet? (yes) Any nuts or berries? How about other kinds of fruits and veggies? And of course with all this we’d need more recipes to use them with. Oh hell, let’s give sims the option to microwave instant rice and noodles while we’re at it (and order some chinese food). Popcorn might be good too! (mad love for the teppanyaki grill and the pizza oven ❤)

Bar Food

Personally, I’d like to see Nachos, Shrimp Cocktail, Onion Rings and Hot Wings as food outside of a bar, assuming we even have onion rings (and I mean as a recipe that can be learned and executed by sims as part of the cooking skill). Poutine would seem like a classic too. Just have them served in those cardboard boxes with red checkered wax paper. there ya go!

Claw Machine (Confirmed in Supernatural)

To me, this seems like the kind of thing EA might consider anyway (and they did), but the concept is simple. Make a claw machine that for a few simoleons gives you a shot at a toy. Maybe you get one, maybe you don’t. Or (just like in my experience irl) maybe you get more than one. Your sim can inspect their prize and either shrug, get excited, or maybe they shake their head (have it be a random thing, like with whether or not they like artwork or stuff they look at). These ‘toys’ can then be treated as collectible clutter items. Which is somewhat realistic. Or when you’re done with them or get doubles you can start gifting away your prizes. Or maybe you want to display them in your room instead (great for kids’ rooms).

Pool Toys (Confirmed in Seasons, still possible in Island Paradise)

Really, these are just essential for having a pool. Where are the diving boards and pool sides? Inner tubes might be a fun thing to play with too, or floating loungers (that sims can FLIP xD). I think noodles are trademarked though, damn… otherwise I liked those floating fountains and of course.. water guns! (supersoakers are trademarked but not if you call them water guns xD)

Also, kids need more toys in general. Aside from chess, maybe there can be boxed board games (checkers, the kind where you more around the board/monopoly/life, mahjong, Chinese checkers, simple puzzles, whatever else you could think of, I’m sure EA can think of ways to do enough variations), maybe card games? (Poker, BlackJack and Go Fish is all I ask! You can play with multiple sims too – thank you casino?) other than that there could be stuff to put in their rooms like music boxes, jewelry/makeup boxes and whatnot for girls, and other plush things for boys. There’s actually a long list of clutter items I could think of and that’s just to try and make on my own. And last but not last, there needs to be at least a boat for the bathtub, tub toys besides the duck.

 Now for the updated list, although some of these things should have been available in previous expansions…

• Upright Pianos – Yeah they really should’ve had these in Late Night!
• Bass Guitars – I guess they went with Jazz Bands for the Late Night scene but simmers want options too!
• More (electric) Guitars! – This is just me personally but I feel we should have at least a guitar that looks like this or even this!
• Pro Bars –  I’ve heard every reason why we won’t/shouldn’t get them in new expansions, but the fact is that EA has done some EP hopping before. I’m still not convinced that it’s not possible for them to consider it, even indirectly.
• Modern elevator designs – Well if we’re going to run any kind of hotel or resort, a new elevator design couldn’t hurt, and since hotels tend to have multiple floors anyhow, it might even fit in with the ep!
• Escalators – These just go with elevators ok?
• Punching bag – Both standing (look up wavemaster, they make them in different sizes) and hanging (also in different sizes)
• Gymnastic skill – Mats, balance beams, horses and bars plz!
• Yoga mat – People seem to want this anyway…
• Exercise bike – My home gym is not complete without one!
• Dance skill – Ballet, Tap, Jazz, Ballroom? etc.
• Faithful trait – Because let’s face it, flirty or overly friendly sims are just too much of a hassle!

I haven’t run dry yet but there are a couple of features that need more fleshing out so I’ll just dedicate those to their own blog posts later on.

In Game: HMO Sims at the Fall Festival

 

Well I was hoping to post something Seasons related before University came out, there’s still plenty of time for a recording so I’ll keep my fingers crossed. Anyways as per the last topic, someone pointed out that since Pro Bars are a big part of Late Night (the whole mixology skill) the chance of them coming back wouldn’t be so hot. Plus, alot of the store content gets around that by having ‘hidden’ skills.  I’m still holding out hope since they did bring back an entire life state, right? Also, who’s ever been to a resort without a bar?

In game today, I sent the gang to the fall festival. Festivals are a great place for performing sims like Nami, Toue and Vani to make money because they tend to attract more of a crowd than any old park. And of course, food and a washroom are (usually) close by. Today’s participants were Vani, Ben, and Beard. One of the townies took the 4th spot.

Anybody noticing a Gothic theme here?

On your marks… Get set…

Is that the repoman?

She was hungry 0___0

Me, cheering them on…

Uh oh turnip… better hang onto that bull!

Until I was struck by an inexplicable craving for pop!

But just watching them makes me puke… I really hope she doesn’t have puke on her face… for everyone’s sake!

How can she still be hungry?

Ben appears to… regret nothing? Ben enters the haunted house… …and can’t handle scary things after eating (that pie filling does look like blood)

I’m hoping to do a recording soon, whether it be for livestream or a formal Youtube episode. In the meantime, stay tuned for more shenanigans!