Gameplay

Freedom

You can play the Sims however you like. You can use the game as your twisted labratory of virtual suffering, or as your polygamous partner permutation party. You can try to create characters that excel at their careers, or you can precisely decorate a house that no Sim will ever see. There's a lot of freedom in this game, and accordingly, you could define it within a few different genres.

The game has ways of giving you cash.

Nurse - but there's even more excellence ahead!

TMS - a new genre?

The Sims plays like a sort of time management strategy game. If you want to delve into the richness of the consumer world in The Sims, you'll have to proceed in a career, make friends and make money. You have a certain amount of resources and environmental variables, and very little time, much like life. Career seems to be the obvious way to advance through the game, but you could theoretically decide to play a family science strategy simulation instead - The Sims supports that.

The Sims has arcade elements to it as well: between the various physical and emotional needs of your characters, and the oppressive clock, I found myself playing a sort of arcade game of clicking and choosing and waiting and clicking again to maximize the short time to most fully develop my character. As a result, she would go dashing out the door each day to work, just two minutes away from missing her car pool. I used to let her take her time to do things, but if you keep the pressure on, you can bend these Sims to your will and make them stronger! Yes!

Bob can't seem to take a neat shower

Build your own Old Boys Network.

Interior Design

As their needs change, you'll find you need to adjust their housing accordingly: make a bigger living room for more comfortable furniture and higher tech entertainment; add another floor for a child's room; put in a swimming pool for exercise and fun. Or if your family is now feeling richer, panel the living room and dining rooms with wood and cover the floors in marble. Expand your gardens to include a hedge maze and fountains. All this house architecture, interior design and landscaping adds a lot of depth to the game; Will Wright, the game's designer, imagined that some people might enjoy it as a kind of architecture game. In that way, The Sims most resembles one of those "Design Your Home in 3D!" programs.

The Sims also shares elements with role-playing games. Assume the roles of young professionals and work to improve their skills and equipment. There's no fighting in the Sims though, only the modern capitalist drive to succeed and surround yourself in quality consumer goods.