Summer of Inspiration: Artist Date Week 12

One of my earliest memories of the Sims is sitting around the family computer with my cousins and sister in the kitchen of my aunt's home. My older cousin would be the main player as we hovered around her, watching the lives of her Sims characters unfold.

Occasionally, she will pass the reins to me, but only for a brief moment.

Sims 1 was unlike any other game I've ever experienced. The ability to control every facet of a character's life, from the home they lived in to the career they pursue, scratched an itch in my storyteller brain. I genuinely believe that how you play the Sims says a lot about a person. Unfortunately, I'm a completionist and love playing my Sims based on their aspirations by making sure that every goal is achieved.

Lately, in an attempt to release the need to maximize and optimize every aspect of my life, I am embracing that in my gameplay as well. Instead of hitting every goal, I allow myself to embrace the chaos and welcome flexibility into my gameplay.

This summer, my friend and I co-created a legacy challenge, making up our own set of rules and achievements for each generation.

The ultimate goal of the legacy challenge is to play 10 generations of Sims in a single family tree. You start with a main Sim, find a partner, and build a family with them. Once they have kids, you can pick who the next main Sim is, and they will represent the second generation. These challenges are typically used to inject some structure into the vast world of possibilities within the Sims gameplay. I find myself either getting too invested in my Sims to the point where I stop playing because I don't want them to die, or I get bored and move on to the next Sim.

One of the most challenging aspects of our legacy challenge is playing the game on the short lifespan setting. That means people grow up and die way too fast, which makes hitting the achievements each generation and finding a new partner extremely chaotic and unhinged. It's proposing within the first two dates level of unhinged, but that's part of the fun!

Playing Sims allows me to tap into the childlike wonder and imagination that I feel adulthood has kicked out of my system.

When I was in primary school, I could write pages every evening of a fictional world I could so vividly picture in my mind, filled with distinct characters. All I had to do was sit down, and the story would flow out of me with ease. The only trouble I would have is finding the words to illustrate a scene, which was solved by reading, where I kept a list of phrases and descriptions that I loved.

Lately, when I attempt to write fiction, I find myself getting stuck and feeling limited within the confines of my imagination. I miss the vastness of my imagination I possessed as a child, which I genuinely believe is still within me, but needs a little coaxing to emerge. Playing Sims helps by tapping into my inner child, allowing me to reconnect with the young mind that wasn't afraid to let a story flow onto the pages of a notebook that I would pass around class for my friends to read.

Incorporating play into my day has been crucial to nurturing my creativity. When I play Sims, I allow myself to fully immerse myself in my imagination because Sims is essentially a virtual dollhouse. Without imagination, Sims gets pretty boring really fast, because it's an open world where you can do anything. You need to inject a storyline for it to be fun.

Aside from the legacy challenge, I'm also learning how to build homes that bring me joy in the Sims. I tend to use the pre-made homes or build a square box and call it a day.

After seeing the attention and care put into building and decorating a home by other Sims players, I'm floored by their creativity and amazed by how their minds can craft the homes of their dreams by using cheats. I never imagined that such beautiful homes were possible in the Sims, but creators such as lilsimsie and Caryn & Connie prove otherwise. I'm slowly learning little hacks for building beautiful homes, but so far, I've truly enjoyed the process of building a home from scratch.

Long gone are the days of building square rooms and leaving them as such!

I can use having limited funds as an excuse, but my generation one Sims had the most painfully boring home. Everything was angular and basic with no charm or character. There wasn't even any landscaping around the house!

There's clutter for personality and realism, landscaping to add more depth to the lot, and an abundance of plants, leaning into the theme of a gardening family. It took me a couple of hours over the span of two days to build, decorate, landscape, and edit any blunders, but it was well worth it. My only wish is to take a screenshot of the home in better lighting, but it is what it is.

Sims has brought so much joy into my life, up till the recent announcement of PIF, Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners acquiring Electronic Arts, the Sims parent company, for $55 billion on September 29th. Why is this concerning?

The Public Investment Fund (PIF) is the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia, whereas Silver Lake and Affinity Partners are owned by Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner. lilsimsie made a video addressing this and what this means to the Sims gaming community. I also recommend listening to the ICYMI podcast episode on the potential risk of censorship of LGBTQ+ characters.

I hate to leave this on a sour note, but it's also a reminder that we need to fight for the world we want. One way is through our wallets. Many people on the Sims subreddit are boycotting the game by refusing to buy any more expansion packs.

I have no idea what the fate of the Sims is, but I'll be watching this acquisition closely.