The challenge
Take four children, each with a different childhood aspiration. Try and complete all the aspirations before the children reach teen. The lifespan must be set to normal.
The household must start with the normal amount of cash. This will restrict your ability to buy skilling objects for the kids; you may take them to community lots to skill. You may not create a lot that has *all* the possible skilling objects. So the library is good for the computer and a chess set but less so for creativity. The park has chess sets, monkey bars and a jungle gym but no computers.
You may have either one or two adults. Their ability to help with skilling tends to be limited.
Create the family - with all four children - in CAS. You can set each child to whatever childhood trait you like including traits that will assist them with their aspiration.
The points
10 points for each child that finishes the first tier of their aspiration.
20 points for each child that finishes the second tier.
100 points if they complete the aspiration goals
Special bonus - 200 points if the Whiz Kid completes their aspiration - the combination of things that aspiration requires makes it difficult.
5 points per child that has a B average
10 points per child that has an A average
-10 points if their grades fall to D
-50 points if their grades fall to F
You lose the challenge entirely if the social worker comes.
Recommendations
You can set up the house however you like with the starting cash. But consider
- With 6 Sims total - you may want two toilets - it will make traffic management a bit easier
- You need a drawing table and an instrument for the creative aspiration
- You need a computer for the motor aspiration (monkey bars are available in the park.) Consider buying 2 computers so the other members of the household have one to use
- Your mental aspiration will need the chemistry set and they could use a chess board at home - playing chess can build the mental skills of two of the children at a time
- Your social aspiration can have a talking toy or a dollhouse - but they can learn by talking to the family or calling/texting others.
You can open up the aspiration panel at any time to remind yourself not only of the goals for the current tier but what will be coming up next.
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So this is my base idea. Any comments, questions?
Comments
I should try it once or twice on normal and see how far you can get on average. Or let others try and report back.
You can set up the rest of town as you like. Just don't play any other households.
Also, sometimes family members register for social butterfly sims so that should help.
Yes, but the whiz kid aspiration requires an A, so that has to be achieved. Looking forward to see what your tests reveal.
Do have two adults unless you want a real challenge. There are some things that adults can be doing in the background, like making meals. And some of the things the kids need to do require a parent.
I'm not quite done with day one, my social butterfly is on the 2nd set of things. So is the rambantious scamp.
The Whiz kid with 5 chess games and reading to by adult for 3 hours won't be done on day 1. Neither is the artistic protegy (lost the inspired mood before he got in the three drawings.)
Additional recommendations
The household should have
In addition to the normal stuff a Sim family needs
I had a starting amount of 30,000 - built a new home - added beds for all the kids. So far, I haven't run out of money but the house isn't going to win any superior building awards.
Test family
Rambuntious Scallion only has 2 more hours of video gaming before he goes to tier three
Whiz kid has only just really started on tier 2 - those chess games and 3 hours of reading time take effort to arrange.
Artistic Protegy - is partly completed tier 2 but has a lot of work to do.
All four children are sitting at the top of a C average. On Monday, they should all make B
Derek, the artistic child only needs one point to push him to the final tier. The final tier requires drawing 5 different things on the drawing table, playing a musical instrument for 10 hours and max creativity.
Julie, the Whiz kid, needs to do her homework one more time while focussed to move the the third tier. Once she’s done that, she needs to craft potions, get an A and max her mental skills. We can work on mental skills all Sunday since that is going to be time consuming. But she has a hard week ahead.
Rumbunctious Scallion Zane is on the third tier. He needs three more points in motor skills and a high score in the typing game to get there.
Social butterfly Kay always is on the last tier. She only needs three more social skill points. But she needs 5 child friends and 3 adult ones. Unfortunately for Kay, they have to be new ones. Her siblings and parents aren’t counted. This could be tough in a single week.
I didn't do prioritising right for the Whiz kid - there is no way that she'll finish in 5 days.
- I'll have to be lucky for the social butterfly - I didn't realise that the last tier had to be all new friends.
- The creative child and the motor skills child will have no problem getting their aspiration.
I don't think any of them will have the time to get an A. All but the social child have a B.
Not to mention, you don't have to get every aspiration to do well with the points. As long as your kids do all right in school, you should get points.
I do have to try again. The Social butterfly is likely to fail because the friends she had didn't help toward the final level - which I did not anticipate. Also I took too long to get the Whiz kid up to the second tier - she'll never finish in time.
All four children completed their unique aspiration within 10 days. They all achieved four levels in all four skills before tackling their aspirations. The family never 'travelled'. All educational items were bought by the parents who worked from home.
I continued playing and gave the children a new aspiration each time they fulfilled another one.
My score is 1450. It could have been higher, but the children never skipped school. They were all A grade students and each child remained that status until their teen birthday. Also, the children could have used more 'mood solver' potions to boost results further.
Thank you for this challenge! It was fun and I learned a lot. :)
I'm glad that you liked the challenge. I found it interesting to try, though I did fail my Whiz Kid on the first attempt. Nice to know it's quite achievable.
20 points for each child that finishes the first tier of their aspiration.
40 points for each child that finishes the second tier.
200 points if they complete the aspiration goals
But I'm not that dedicated to following the rules of other challenges myself so if building a nice house makes you happier - then by all means build a nice house.
I moved the family onto the empty 50x50 lot in Oasis Springs. They didn't have much money so they have bare walls and bare essentials. I'm having to get creative with use of community lots for the kids to achieve each stage of the aspiration. They also had 5 bucks to their name once I had finished building and "decorating" (understatement of the year!). 12 now that the mother caught a fish worth 7 bucks.
Huge thanks to @TMan2203 for the tip about getting the kid inspired. It is now after midnight and I have stuck a note to my monitor which says "wear chicken hat to get inspired". Please pray that I actually remember what that is supposed to mean by the time I wake up and look at those words of wisdom in the cold light of day.
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It's great to hear about someone taking the challenge - and doing a Let's play as well. The way I game, Let's play would be really *really* horrible.
I will therefore contemplate methods of making this harder for those that want a more difficult challenge. (You can always try to have the 4 children finish a second aspiration in the meantime.)