It's up

Sorry to those of you who are subscribed to this blog and my Sims 2 blog, but I want to cover all my bases. So Chapter 1, among other things, are up.

Working with Sims 3 as a screen shot tool is as frustrating as it is fascinating! Most of the time I've just gotta play and see what I can do. Sometimes it can help facilitate writing when I can see a scene in my head and not describe it.


OH, also, I found out how to get around the whole school thing. Just delete the school and the kids will forget all about it. Ingeli from Simverses (you might know her old Sims 2 'hood Windlebridge) has play tested and not found any adverse effects.

More testing

Interesting! Now I see what Morning Monday was talking about when she mentioned that sims move their head during pause. Originally that totally creeped me out that sims would move once I've paused. But I didn't realize how awesome it can be.

While Sims are hugging, I can turn on move objects, grab them, hold down alt to turn off the grid, and reposition them. Their arms move naturally, their eyes and their heads even reposition themselves. Very nifty!

They still make some uber creepy faces. Sometimes if I reposition them weirdly, their eyes roll up into their heads. And there isn't a way to make sims taller outside of aging them up.

Oh, and there isn't a reliable way to age sims down. That's a tip to anyone wanting to use TS3 to tell a story. I used Awesomemod's edit sim feature to age a couple of sims down, then had to reset sim 3 times until they looked normal. Pescado does warn that he won't offer support for it.

The other semi-nice part to not having memories is that there is less to screw up. I can copy and replace sims all I want so far as I know. I can have two of the same sims in a neighborhood or more accurately save file.

Another weird thing I've noticed while trying to get things set up, the gap between child and teen is huge! Especially since I don't know of a way to stretch the skeleton. Teens look more like adults.

Anyway, I won't show any of the test shots. I'm still working on the story, so I don't know where it will go or if I'll need those shots. So I'll just leave off with this one as a tribute to Laura because of course the first thing I did was make two sims hold hands.

Dear Sims 3,

I have to admit I haven't even fired up the game in a very long time. I apologize, but I'm not exactly sure what in the world I want to do with you!

Collecting is sort of annoying. AND sometimes you sims seem to have issues with time management. AND listening. But men look like men, and sims can be portly or thick or strong.

So I decided I would fire up the game last night and try my hand at designing sims with an idea in mind. There is possibly a very weird and unique story that could come out of this if you stop being a Prema Donna, Sims 3.

Sincerely,
Foxy



So, inspired by Marooned on Tuesday, I've decided to give Sims 3 a shot as a story telling vehicle. I wasn't really playing it for the game very much. And I really don't care what the heck happens to the sims I was playing. I really can't seem to bond to them. (Sorry Agnes, and Varina, and Amberle 2!)

So last night I made a group of four sims-- three teens and one kid (thank you Awesome Mod). In front here is Edith. She's a good sim, a natural cook, and some other stuff that I can't remember. Oops. I should take some notes.

Edith and co. live in a world that is most definitely not ours. And it's definitely not Riverview or Sunset Valley (though technically they are living in Riverview right now). It's one I started working on when I was in high school free writing for fun. Trying to recreate it with Sims 3 is going to prove difficult, but I am more than willing to change my ideas around for the game. Somehow the game and I will have to compromise!

But good pretty characters can kind of be boring. So I do need some pretty not good characters too.

That's "Michael." He doesn't really have a name, that's just what Edith's always called him. He is a mean spirited Genius who is very charismatic. That was sort of Edith's downfall. That and the fact that she's a good person.


Once I made them all, I was excited to get them in the house and see how they would react. Would Michael act the way the character in my head does?


I am happy to report that he really does. Being mean spirited and charismatic, his conversations seemed to bounce around. He spent some time talking nicely with her and then he would make faces like this:


He made fun of good people to her, which made her feel like a blockhead and gave him a little smirk.
But he seemed sorry about it. They're supposed to be friends after all, and she looked really insulted. (I didn't notice if he got a good moodlet for it.)


Anyway, there are a lot of other issues right now with the whole story (things I will have to change and elements that make no sense when jumping in), but it promises to be an interesting project for me to test my creativity and to test what can and can't be done with the game. I'm seriously giving it a good go, deleting houses and things like mad. Adding in my own sims and all that.

Of course, one problem I forgot for my actors being so young-- they still have to go to school five days out of the week. That cracks me up when I consider what Michael is supposed to be. He's really too smart for school. But there are penalties if they don't go it seems. And I haven't found any hacks yet for no school.

Agnes Crumplebottom

When I started up Agnes' lot last play session, I found her here-- at the Windfall Motel, a place meant for homeless sims to have a place to eat and rest. It's the last place I expected her to be drawn to, but then things in her life have probably never gone the way she's expected.

Her sister, Cornelia Goth, gave her a call while she was here. Doesn't she look thrilled? "No, Cornelia, I don't see the sun getting ready to shine through the clouds. No, I don't want to talk about it."

Cornelia calls her often, usually at least once a day, to check up on her.

I can't blame Cornelia.



She lives alone in that large house and has so far shown little interest in getting to know any of her neighbors.



Agnes usually enjoys painting and has written a non-fiction book which did reasonably well. Her agent is now asking for something spicier, maybe a drama or a love story or both. But Agnes can feel her creativity slowly drying up in the same way as her small fortune left to her by her husband.

She felt the only thing to do was to take on a part time job at the book store.

That didn't last long. She was soon fired (my first sim ever to be fired-- what an honor), and so now she can't hide herself away in the bookstore anymore. It would just be too awkward.



Agnes has felt the need to go through some changes. I'm going to use that as an explination for her garb in the next part here. (She also wears pants sometimes with a sweater. Highly unusual for her.)


One night, she heard something from down stairs and saw something glowing in the front yard. She'd heard about it, but couldn't believe it. Her Darling had come back from the dead. She had no time to dress herself properly; she did not want to miss him.

"Darling, is that you?"

"I don't want you to see me like this!" He turned away from her as if to run, but he only stepped closer to his grave.

"No," she whispered. He'd only just appeared, and he seemed ready to leave her alone again. "Darling, why did you leave? Why did you leave me alone?"

He halted his progression towards his headstone. "I didn't leave," he said with a voice that softly echoed on the air. "I was taken before my time. By the Reaper. I only come out at night to check in on you, my dear."

"The Grim Reaper?" Agnes had read books on death which had taken her into the myths and the Grim Reaper. "There's a way to beat him, I know there is. I read it in a book once."

Her darling shook his head, "You and your books."

But he stayed and listened to her until the sun almost came up.

Dissonance

"Are you even listening to me?"

"Nah, I'm pretty tired."

He just couldn't be mad at her. For one, his problems with his latest love interest was definitely not her fault. And two, it was just impossible. The second he thought he was mad at her, she would give a smile or a hearty laugh with a raunchy joke.

It was a little weird that she slept in his bed. Nothing ever happened, accidental or otherwise. "I hate sleeping alone," she said. "You know me and Mom always shared a room. My room's too quiet."

It was rather inconvenient, but he said "no" to her as well as he held a grudge with her.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Things with Cycl0n3 were going great. He even came over to the house when Kamil was at work.


He went to work in the afternoon and was gone usually until late. Varina couldn't stand the quiet house, so she invited Cycl0n3 over.


One thing lead to another, and they were soon giving her new (used) bed a good test. This was certainly something she could NOT do with Kamil in the house. Suddenly she was glad for his late night shift.


Things became weird the night he came home and caught her saying good-bye to Cycl0n3. Cycl0n3 was completely oblivious with his casual, "'ey, man. See ya later."

Varina was starving, so she made a stack of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Kamil sat at the counter reading his charisma book. He didn't say a word to her when she sat down next to him. For a short while, she imagined it would all be okay. Maybe she was making too much out of nothing. Why would Kamil care if she had someone over? He was always going out for drinks with his girls. And he was always talking about his girl problems with her. (Like that Patricia Wan-- she was nothing but trouble.)

"So what was that?"

"What?"

"I thought we agreed we wouldn't bring people home."

Anyone else overhearing the conversation wouldn't understand, but she knew exactly what he meant. He hadn't brought over any of his girls. Of course Varina was always home working on her paintings, so it was a rather nice courtesy he was extending her so she wouldn't have to hear anyone shouting his name and their deity of choice.

"Well, it was quiet. And you know I can't be in a house like this by myself."

There wasn't much more to say after that.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Good night!" Varina hopped off the barstool, tossed her dish in the sink, and skittered off to her room before he could even attempt to come up with something to explain his behavior. He wasn't even sure what was going on with himself. Maybe it was all Patricia Wan's fault.

He raised a finger in the air after Varina had closed her door. There was plenty to say, but he really wasn't good at these things. Maybe Cycl0n3 was just using her. She shouldn't rush things with him. And why was this the first he was hearing or seeing about this guy? Shouldn't he be the first person that any love interest of Varina would meet for approval since he was her best friend and roommate?

He went to his room to grab his guitar then back to the living room to softly play. The rough strings brushing against his fingertips always helped focus him in a spot where the thoughts couldn't reach him. Maybe it was better this way. Things usually fell into place in his life. It was how things worked. But if things were being difficult, then clearly he was heading in the wrong direction. The next time he saw Patricia Wan, he would end it completely (after seeing if he could get a few simoleons off of her first). Then maybe he'd treat that cute new girl at work out to a few drinks or a movie.


It was a few hours later when a half asleep and partially terrified Varina climbed into his bed. "I had a nightmare," she said before she crawled in and fell asleep."

He was still vaguely aware of her in the early morning as the sun fell on his covers.

******************

The thing with Patricia Wan is that she was in a relationship with their boss, Hank Goddard. Well, I installed the Indie Stone story progression mod (which is now compatible with Awesome mod), and so while I was playing a pop up told me that she had gotten married. And Kamil wasn't even invited to the wedding!

Meanwhile, I've been watching their wants for clues. The picture where Kamil looks like he thought of something to say just a little too late, he was actually licking his finger and doing the "Hot" animation while thinking of Varina, but he didn't have any wants related to her. He did want to woohoo with Patricia though. His wants now are seeming to turn more towards a new person of interest who I know nothing about yet.

As for Varina, her wants are pretty cute. She hasn't had any romantic wants until she got the want to woohoo with Cycl0n3. Otherwise, she just wants to be his friend and talk to him alot.

Scenes from the lives of the Silverrings

Trigger bonded with Felicia the day before she was to age up. He caught that butterfly just for her, and can't wait until the day they can both go hunting for bugs.


The party was HUGE. Trigger knows a lot of people, more than I expected! But the adults seemed to care very little about Felicia's aging up.
Trigger was the most excited (and only one celebrating).
Tada-- little Felicia as a toddler. I think she takes after her father the most. It'll be hard to tell until she gets older though, I think.
The family sitting down to breakfast.
I love taking the toddlers outside in Sims 3.

Felicia is a genius virtuoso. Too bad that when she's a kid she won't be able to play any instruments like the piano.



Also, in other news, remember my original test family with Maggie and Norm? Maggie's dream was to become Leader of the Free world. I am proud to announce that all on her own, she has managed to do it! She reached the top of the political career. Amberle read it in the paper. I was doubly happy that it was a sim I knew.

Cyclone

"All right, so I've been thinking..." Varina says as she opens the fridge to pull out a stack of ready made waffles. Kamil doesn't say anything in protest. "I said that I've been thinking. This is the part where you should protest or even sneak off to your room." She glances back at Kamil who sits at the counter on the cheap bar stools they were lucky enough to get for cheap.

But he says seriously, "What about?"

Varina shrugs, surprised that he wants to hear her thoughts. "Ok, so I'm not liking this work thing. I'm doing pretty good at the painting. I think I'm just going to focus on that."

She's prepared for him to protest-- they don't have a lot of money. They don't even have a couch yet. "Can I see one? You haven't shown me any of your paintings, you know."


So after breakfast, once he's changed into his one fancy suit, she lets him see her most recent piece.

"It's pretty good, if I do say so myself-- and I do because I, like, will have to sell it and stuff."


Something is clearly wrong now. He leans in a little too close, closer than he ever has before. "It's really good."

"So you don't mind my quitting to devote proper time to it?"

"Nah. I'm due for a promotion. We'll be fine for a while."

"Uh... ok..." Something is definitely wrong.

He heads off to his room, and she just shakes her head. Boys! Or at the very least Kamil who suddenly seems to think he's interested in her-- the girl who's like his sister. Maybe she's reading too much into it, but she's known him for a while and seen his moves and that was definitely a move.


Since she's quit her job, and Kamil heads in to work, Varina has plenty of time to herself. So of course she wants to visit the art museum! It's on her way out that she runs into a surprise. (It's upity Mr. Sword from this post-- at the bottom of the post.)




"You must really like art. This is the second time I've run into you here."


Does he ever! They stand around talking about art and making funny faces until the sun sets. She finds out that he's single and a little absent minded.

"So how can I be sure that you don't have a girlfriend? What if you've, like, just forgotten about her?"

He grins cheesily at her, "Well, then I'll just blame you."

The sun finally does set and they're still there, standing on the sidewalk in front of the art museum before they finally say good night.




The next day, they meet for lunch. She hasn't said a word to Kamil yet. It all seems too soon for her to say anything; she doesn't want to jinx it. But there was that weirdness between her and Kamil. Maybe she was only imagining it, but still she feels she should tread carefully.

**********

Kamil totally hit on her. I was surprised. I don't think that's a side effect of the Awesome mod. That was pretty neat. So I sort of want to give them more time to hang around and see what happens.

Cycl0ne was a surprise. I think he's just stalking her now, but they really hit it off easy. Maybe it's just because she is rather charismatic (and darn cute with her blue self).