Don't Worry, Be Happy Challenge

Don’t Worry, Be Happy Challenge 

With all the pandemic woes, political divisiveness and outright angst, I thought it was time to try a challenge to build a town on the foundation of happiness. Here’s how it goes: 

1.  Select an empty world or empty a world you have. 
2. Create a household of your choosing. (8 human-like Sims maximum - supernaturals are okay and so are pets) 
3. Place your household on a residential lot and build them a house and furnish it. (no cheats - just use the funds given to you by the base game)  

Object of the game: Use your household’s lifetime happiness points to create your world. Here are some rules, but as always, play how you want - if you cheat, you are only cheating yourself. 

Once a member of your family reaches 5000 points you can start building. Your Sim must spend their happiness points on a reward when you decide how to spend them on your town. (This will enable you to keep track of the town spending as that Sim’s reward amount will go away.) All rewards are fair game, including the genie lamp- if you were happy enough to earn it, you deserve it.

5000 points	Community lot	Don’t spend over 10000 simoleons on this lot (no rabbit holes) Exceptions are mausoleum or fortunetelling caravan.
5000 points	Residential lot	Don’t spend over 10000 simoleons building on this lot. Make sure a Sim can eat, sleep, and use the bathroom.
10000 points	Community lot	Don’t spend over 20000 simoleons on this lot (no rabbit holes)
10000 points	Residential lot	You can build or drop any house of any size or price - but your Sims can’t move there unless they can afford it without cheats.
20000 points	Rabbithole or large community item of your choice
20000 points	Community lot	Don’t spend over 40000 simoleons on this lot

And so on . . . (building allowance remains twice that of the happiness points spent)

You can spend your points right away or you can save them up.  You can also combine the points of various members of your household. (For example, Adam has 10000, Eve has 5000, Cain has 5000, and Abel has 5000. You have a total of 25000 points, so if Adam, and two other members spend their happiness points on rewards, you can get a rabbithole. The remaining Sim can keep saving up on their points or spend them on one of the 5000 point options.

To keep with the spirit of the game:

• Don’t order pizza unless there is a food register in your town.

• Don’t sell anything unless there is a consignment register or rabbithole (like the grocery store) where you can do so in your town (no Craig’s List)

• Don’t sell flowers unless someone in your household has at least level 1 of the gardening skill and there is some kind of register in your town. (I don’t think there’s a register for consigning these, so you would need to sell them directly from your inventory.)

• You can purchase anything you can afford from build/buy modes - except rabbitholes.  (It’s okay to order from Amazon, but you can’t return anything that way.)

• You can adopt pets, but can’t put them up for adoption unless there is another resident household in your town or a pet store. (There will be service people, paparazzi, performers, etc. but they don’t count if they don’t own property.)

• You can enable roommate service if you have enough beds for them, but you can’t kick them out unless there is a vacant house for them to move to.

• You can only move to another house if you have enough happiness points to add another house to your world.

• Mods are okay as long as they don’t interfere with the spirit of the game (Things like Overwatch, Woohoo, Story Progression, Relativity, Traveler are okay.)

• It’s okay to travel to other worlds and edit those towns any way you want, but for your hometown stick with happiness points.

• It’s okay to sell items you collected in your hometown in towns you travel to if you do so at a register. (consignment, elixir, etc.)

• Once you have two houses in your town other than your own, you can move in one household if they don’t move in on their own.

• It’s okay to switch to another household if you get bored with the one you have, but spend their points first, and if your new household has points, spend them immediately if they have enough to purchase something for your town.

• You can send your kids to boarding school if you can afford to do so. 

• Think of ways to get free stuff - like dumpster diving, conjuring apples, mooching off NPC’s for instance. But don’t sell anything unless you have a register in your town. 

• Dismiss any happiness opportunities that aren’t feasible in your world (like job opportunities if you don’t have the appropriate rabbithole)

• If you find a lot where homeless NPC’s congregate consistently, have a heart and give them a community picnic table, community grill, community trash can, and community fire pit. I think you can purchase tents with your own money and set them up and leave them there if you are particularly charitable. (Make the lot a small park.)