The
Eight-Sim Challenge has been floating around for awhile, and there are
a few variations. The basic idea is that you make a family with 8 sims
and keep them alive without any hacks or mods or cheats. :-)
It's been a long time since I've played without hacked objects that make life easier and more pleasant! :-) I went through my Downloads folder, Objects, Globals, and the folders for every expansion pack and took out my mods, moving them to a safe place. I left in the Maxis objects; I figure those are legitimate. My Downloads folder looks so empty!
Custom heads and clothes are okay, since they don't give the sims any advantage; they're only cosmetic. Custom walls and floors are okay, too, as long as they cost at least as much as the cheapest Maxis wall and floor. I use SimWardrobe's SimWallCat to increase the price of a few walls and floors that I know I'll want to use that were priced too low.
To prepare for playing, I've put my UserData that I was playing before in a safe place and put into the game UserData from right after finishing the tutorial, so Neighborhood 1 is pristine.
But of course, the Maxis-made sims have no interests -- Maxis forgot to go back and give those sims interests when Hot Date was released -- and sims hate talking about something they have no interest in, which means that the Maxis-made sims hate Every Single Topic of conversation. Look, poor Bob Newbie is interested in NOTHING, yet before Hot Date came out, my sims used to have great conversations with him:
There's an easy way around this, though; play a Maxis-made family and take them to a community lot, and the game will generate interests for them.
I took Bob and Betty to Old Town, and they now have interests:
I played every Maxis-made family for two minutes, just long enough to take them to Old Town and back again, so the game would generate interests for them. I also carefully copied down those interests onto a sheet of paper, so I would know who wants to talk about what. :-)
Lastly, I made two families to serve as friends for my main family, since the Maxis-made sims are not enough to get to the top of any career. Since I'm not playing those families -- the Friendly and Neighbors families -- I cram eight sims into each family, for a total of sixteen new potential friends. (Of course, I only plan to make friends while playing the Eight-Sim family; playing another family to make friends with them would be kinda cheating.) I make sure each of the families I made has a phone, and I'm all set to play.
At the last minute, I decide to permit the invisible ceiling lamp from Simlogical. It costs just as much as the Maxis ceiling lamp, but it doesn't obstruct my view of the sims. It gives the same light for the same price as the Maxis object, so it doesn't give any advantage to the sims; it only helps the player see what the heck is happening.
Ready? Okay! Time to make a family of EIGHT sims and try to keep them all alive with NO cheating. :-)
Onward to Day 1
If you decide to play the Eight-Sim Challenge, yourself, I'd love to hear how it went for you! I don't get mail here at Corylea.com, but you can leave a comment in the thread for the Eight-Sim Challenge at ModTheSims or at Reddit.
Back to the list of Sims 1 mods
It's been a long time since I've played without hacked objects that make life easier and more pleasant! :-) I went through my Downloads folder, Objects, Globals, and the folders for every expansion pack and took out my mods, moving them to a safe place. I left in the Maxis objects; I figure those are legitimate. My Downloads folder looks so empty!
Custom heads and clothes are okay, since they don't give the sims any advantage; they're only cosmetic. Custom walls and floors are okay, too, as long as they cost at least as much as the cheapest Maxis wall and floor. I use SimWardrobe's SimWallCat to increase the price of a few walls and floors that I know I'll want to use that were priced too low.
To prepare for playing, I've put my UserData that I was playing before in a safe place and put into the game UserData from right after finishing the tutorial, so Neighborhood 1 is pristine.
But of course, the Maxis-made sims have no interests -- Maxis forgot to go back and give those sims interests when Hot Date was released -- and sims hate talking about something they have no interest in, which means that the Maxis-made sims hate Every Single Topic of conversation. Look, poor Bob Newbie is interested in NOTHING, yet before Hot Date came out, my sims used to have great conversations with him:
There's an easy way around this, though; play a Maxis-made family and take them to a community lot, and the game will generate interests for them.
I took Bob and Betty to Old Town, and they now have interests:
I played every Maxis-made family for two minutes, just long enough to take them to Old Town and back again, so the game would generate interests for them. I also carefully copied down those interests onto a sheet of paper, so I would know who wants to talk about what. :-)
Lastly, I made two families to serve as friends for my main family, since the Maxis-made sims are not enough to get to the top of any career. Since I'm not playing those families -- the Friendly and Neighbors families -- I cram eight sims into each family, for a total of sixteen new potential friends. (Of course, I only plan to make friends while playing the Eight-Sim family; playing another family to make friends with them would be kinda cheating.) I make sure each of the families I made has a phone, and I'm all set to play.
At the last minute, I decide to permit the invisible ceiling lamp from Simlogical. It costs just as much as the Maxis ceiling lamp, but it doesn't obstruct my view of the sims. It gives the same light for the same price as the Maxis object, so it doesn't give any advantage to the sims; it only helps the player see what the heck is happening.
Ready? Okay! Time to make a family of EIGHT sims and try to keep them all alive with NO cheating. :-)
Onward to Day 1
If you decide to play the Eight-Sim Challenge, yourself, I'd love to hear how it went for you! I don't get mail here at Corylea.com, but you can leave a comment in the thread for the Eight-Sim Challenge at ModTheSims or at Reddit.
Back to the list of Sims 1 mods