Some Gameplay Stories

Make It Smooth, Make it Rough

For the purposes of FiringSquad, in the tradition of benchmarking, I tried to take The Sims to its limits to see what it would do. I created a tiny house with a couch, and a fridge. No entertainment, no toilet, little comfort. I put a guy with no skills in there. I woke him up when he tried to sleep, I mercilessly ignored his requests and complaints.

Tortured to death

After a while I gave him a phone so he could call his neighbors in the middle of the night. I wanted him to become a criminal but he was always too depressed to read the want ads in the paper. I wanted to see if he would somehow rebel against me, his cruel tormentor. Would he break out of his confines? Would he murder out of frustration? While at first I gave him the bare essentials, over time I took them all away. gradually shrunk the size of his house to a two by two square and watched all of his needs overtake him until finally he shrivelled up and died, ending life as an iconic sort of urn that other Sims could mourn over.

Characters of the same gender can engage in sexual relations, if the player encourages them

Social experiment #4: trap neighbors in Hatfield house. Unfortunately, they starve

More twisted experiments

Another time I tried to create a communal situation by walling in four neighbors with a family of five. Unfortunately, The Sims didn't take to copulating madly between the growing piles of trash. Instead, they faced me and whined about their lack of comfort and food. Even with refrigerators provided, the neighbors eventually curled up and died from hunger and exhaustion because they were unable to reach their own home to recover.

Another story

Bob and Betty Newbie really wanted a couch and the chance to chill out and watch TV. At the same time, an adoption agency called and asked if we wanted a child. Eager for new experience, I immediately assented and took the bassinet and baby instead of the couch and comfort. With a click, a swirl of flowers left a cradle and a demanding bundle in the kitchen. Unfortunately, it was only about three hours until Sim City Social Services came to take the child back. These were the first two photos in my Sims Family Photo Album: baby arrives, baby taken into State Custody. We were not ready to have kids - parents before our time.

Rich people, isolated together with espresso makers and no furniture, fight

No play and no work and this boy is bound for some discipline.

Sharing stories

As you play the game, and encounter other people that play the game, you'll find people have stories to share of their Sims. "I had this house with three people, a man and two women, like the show Three's Company" or "I had this woman who was on track to be a scientist but she didn't have enough friends so I learned to take every third day off." Everyone has their situations to describe, their tricks to get by within the system of The Sims. That's a sign of a healthy computer game, that it inspires the imagination and encourages sharing of information, online and offline. Here's Will Wright, talking about the game in an interview on CNN.com:

I would run my family, then later inform my wife of what happened in the game. "We broke up today," or "you had affair with the neighbor" or "we had 2 more kids."

As for SimSex, there's a modesty shield over the Sims when they change clothes, use the toilet or undressing for the shower - their bodies get a sort of hazy, blocky pixel overlay. The closest thing to nudity you can find in the game is tan lines and dark patches through the shower door.