Confessions of a Sims 3 Addict

 Seeking Fame and Fortune in Bridgeport Amber, Puzzle, and Roman are "spinoffs" from my Deery Meadows game.  Amber was a teenage mother with an imaginary friend she managed to make real (Puzzle).  Once Amber came of age and graduated high school, she and her son Roman and Puzzle set off to Bridgeport to seek their fortunes.  They found a one bedroom apartment which worked well for two young girls and a toddler.  Puzzle went into the film industry while Amber joined the architectural design industry. Their main living area is below. Amber has been gaining fame for her art and home design, but she has been stiffed by her clients twice now.  The first time was when she put a basement laundry room in the pink house in the middle class neighborhood.  The owner was a lady who worked the concession stands in the park and was never available to come look at the finished project.  The second was a teenage girl (from the Littler household) in the wealthy ne...

Trilleena’s Backstory Trilleena is the daughter of Jughead Jones and an alien.  Jughead was abducted in Riverdale which resulted in her existence.  As Trilleena grew, she noticed that no one in Riverdale looked like her, with the exception of her birth-mother whom she only saw at her birthday parties and a few other events. This caused Trilleena to turn to her imaginary friend for solace.  As a teen, Jughead’s wife, Katie, kicked Trilleena out of the house, and she went to live with her grandfather HP Jones and his family. (HP had married into the Bagley family and his wife was a vampire.) HP died soon afterward and Trilleena stayed with her step grandmother and half-cousins until she became a young adult and could move out on her own.  As a teen, she found and befriended an awesome bird called a Sixam (Maxis spelled backwards). This bird, along with her imaginary friend(not yet real), moved to their own place in Lunar Lakes.  Will Trilleena find what she is loo...

 Be Happy World update: Tommie and Kerry Furst have had a child and named him Damion. Since I'm not a big fan of babies and toddlers, I thought it a good time to check in on the neighbors.  Shannon Olivares lives in a cottage I made and sparsely furnished.  He was working as a cashier in the mall and was never home for the Furst family to visit. Once I took over his household, he came home with the desire to be a home designer.  I bought him a drafting table and added more furniture to make his place more homey.  His favorite color is black, so I redecorated to give him the kind of place he would appreciate. He had two job assignments.  One was to change the outside of Quinn Whiting's house by replacing windows and doors.  This was kind of frustrating because I built Quinn's house - a Mediterranean style house - with a certain aesthetic in mind and modelled it after a real house that is near where I live.  Part of the attraction was the windows....

 For those new to Sims 3, here is a brief tour of some of the types of restaurants and stores you can create that aren't rabbit holes. (Link to 9 minute video below - sorry if it looks dark, it didn't look that way when I recorded it.) NOTE: In the video I say that the food and book registers can be found in the community objects section of the build/buy, but it later occurred to me that they probably came with World Adventures, so if you can't find them and you don't have World Adventures, that's why. It was one of the first expansions I bought, so the registers have been with me a long, long time.

Sims 3 apartments with neighbors There were a couple different people on Facebook asking about how to make apartments - multiple ones in the same building and have people move into them.  This is how I do it.  (I apologize for the initial darkness of the video - it was night in the game - but bear with it and it will be light when the neighbors arrive at 9am) In the video you will see it's a case of trial and error.  In the end, the apartment building became a "house" but still functioned as apartments. In another case in the same world, I have a place labelled as an apartment and has three households living there, but I have control of all three households, so basically they are the same household but three distinct, unrelated families.  I'm pretty sure that I could switch households in the example shown in the video below, change to apartment, and switch back to the household; however, if I recall, doing so would give me control over everyone. Therefore, if you wan...

 Trump in Greenland      After a humiliating defeat from the Presidential election followed by that nasty incident with the Capitol Building, Donald Trump finds himself divorced, broke, and alone.  Seeking a place to lie low and nurse his wounds, he stumbles across a picturesque and quaint little town on the tip of Greenland. As he settles in, he falls in love with the town.  He must OWN this town!       Needing a means of support - at his age, he refuses to go to work for anyone - he gets a very talented dog. This dog finds not one, but two Tiberium gems! Using this money along with money he generates from picking flowers, etc., Donald manages to first become partners with three businesses (Vault of Antiquity, Grocery Store, and Book Store.)  Then he scrapes together enough to buy a yacht/dance club called “The Neptune.” He moves from his humble starter home and builds a bigger house up the hill. He gets Bonehilda to keep house, th...

  The Witchy Life of Venus Rucker First a bit of background on Venus: Venus is my legacy Sim from a challenge called “Deal With It Dumpster” where the Sim starts with nothing (but an empty lot because that is required) and must get what they need from dumpster diving,skills, limited collecting and the kindness of strangers.  (I tweaked the rules a little to make the challenge doable.) She lived in Hidden Springs.  Her name is Venus Rucker, and her traits are Avante Garde, Daredevil, Inappropriate, Mooch, and Shy.  Her life’s ambition is to be a gold digger. She built herself a small but cute little house of 3 rooms: bedroom, bathroom, and main living area.  She also built a garage to store the excess furniture that won’t fit in the house. I have decided that since toilets, fridges, and counters aren’t available in the dumpster, and I haven’t seen them in the junkyard, if Venus collects ten on any one type of furniture (couch/loveseat, chairs, end tables, etc.) S...

  I've been playing in Wild Wild West with my vampire family this past week. The disadvantage to vampires is they can't go out in the sun for long and therefore can't take advantage of the beautiful scenery. For those who haven't played in this world, I took some pic of my favorite lots. This is a large world, and there are parts I haven't explored yet. This is "old town." I'm turning it into a vampire haven. My Sims bought a derelict bar and remodeled it. Downstairs is a bar that includes a mechanical bull, a karaoke stage, and poker table. Upstairs is my Sim Grover's art studio. He sells his paintings and his wife Chrissy plans to sell Vampire Sunscreen and Jars of Friendship. They had a dog, Betty, who dug up some special items, also for sale. Betty recently passed away and they have a new dog now. Across from the bar is the Snake Oil Salesman (elixir store). In the trailer you can find the chemistry station, alchemy station, cauldron, a...

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:   Select an empty world or empty a world you have.  Create a household of your choosing. (8 human-like Sims maximum - supernaturals are okay and so are pets)  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 r...