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The Living Off the Grid Challenge -- Let's share our stories
SimPoseyYum
Posts: 995 Member
I recently restarted the Living Off the Grid Challenge created by @lotlot80. My first attempt at this Challenge went haywire, so I'm giving it another go.
The basics of this Challenge are that the Sim lives at one with nature. "No phone, no light, no motorcar, not a single luxury" (points if you can identify that quote
). S/he lives off the land, gardening mostly.
My Sim, Flora Freespirit, is doing... ok... so far. I'm probably making things a bit tougher on her, because not only does she not have modern amenities at home, she shuns those things everywhere. She has stayed mostly on her own lot because other homes and facilities ( gyms, bars, museums) all use electricity. She is currently in Week 2. I assume, by the end of the week, she will travel to the parks and other open areas to supplement her gathering activities.
I just realized I have no pics of Flora herself, but here is one of her humble abode, Nature's Nook:
I like Flora's home because it has all floor-to-ceiling windows, so there's plenty of light. It's a good thing she's not shy, because she's always on display when she's in there. I gave her a bit of modesty in the bathroom, though -- the windows are all along the top of the room.
Speaking of the bathroom, I took a bit of liberty with the Challenge rules (I hope that doesn't disqualify me). The rules state that you must have a house and an "outhouse". I attached the bathroom to the main house. Doesn't have lights or even a door -- just an archway.
So far, the hardest parts of the Challenge are fun and food. You'd think gardening would provide fun for a Gardening/Outdoors Sim but it doesn't. And many of the things that DO provide fun require electricity. Other things that provide fun take up a lot of time which she really doesn't have. With regard to food, it's difficult to keep her fed with no kitchen. She has a grill on the back patio, but it's soooo expensive, not to mention wasteful! Each meal is a group meal costing at least §32 and leftovers must be thrown away because she has no refrigerator. I usually throw it away while she's asleep because it would break her natural little heart to see how much food goes to waste.
I'll post updates (and a picture of Flora) as I go along. In the meantime, I'd love to hear from others who are also trying this challenging Challenge!
The basics of this Challenge are that the Sim lives at one with nature. "No phone, no light, no motorcar, not a single luxury" (points if you can identify that quote
). S/he lives off the land, gardening mostly.My Sim, Flora Freespirit, is doing... ok... so far. I'm probably making things a bit tougher on her, because not only does she not have modern amenities at home, she shuns those things everywhere. She has stayed mostly on her own lot because other homes and facilities ( gyms, bars, museums) all use electricity. She is currently in Week 2. I assume, by the end of the week, she will travel to the parks and other open areas to supplement her gathering activities.
I just realized I have no pics of Flora herself, but here is one of her humble abode, Nature's Nook:
I like Flora's home because it has all floor-to-ceiling windows, so there's plenty of light. It's a good thing she's not shy, because she's always on display when she's in there. I gave her a bit of modesty in the bathroom, though -- the windows are all along the top of the room.
Speaking of the bathroom, I took a bit of liberty with the Challenge rules (I hope that doesn't disqualify me). The rules state that you must have a house and an "outhouse". I attached the bathroom to the main house. Doesn't have lights or even a door -- just an archway.
So far, the hardest parts of the Challenge are fun and food. You'd think gardening would provide fun for a Gardening/Outdoors Sim but it doesn't. And many of the things that DO provide fun require electricity. Other things that provide fun take up a lot of time which she really doesn't have. With regard to food, it's difficult to keep her fed with no kitchen. She has a grill on the back patio, but it's soooo expensive, not to mention wasteful! Each meal is a group meal costing at least §32 and leftovers must be thrown away because she has no refrigerator. I usually throw it away while she's asleep because it would break her natural little heart to see how much food goes to waste.
I'll post updates (and a picture of Flora) as I go along. In the meantime, I'd love to hear from others who are also trying this challenging Challenge!
1
Comments
"shuns those things everywhere" .... that is going to be pretty hard to do.
BTW, more people would see this post (your progress on the challenge) if you switch to title around to read like this:
Let's share our stories -- The Living Off the Grid Challenge
Thanks again
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Doing well with the Challenge, but I'll say it's really hard! Lots of firsts for me. First time not paying attention to whims. First time not spending ANY rewards points. First time not caring about making money. And of course, trying to find other ways to keep Flora entertained without TV or computer.
It's also tough trying to keep needs met. Really tough.
With regard to shunning electricity everywhere, it's not as bad as I initially thought. Flora's nearly finished with the Challenge and her only exposure to electricity-using facilities came when she had to use a public bathroom at the park (she was desperate!). Given that she's always at home before nightfall, she hasn't even been out when the electric street lights come on. She's a totally solar gal. With planning (and a little luck), it CAN be done.
I titled it that way to highlight the name of the Challenge. I wanted to give the Challenge top billing
As for the title, I just thought since my challenge isn't that well known yet, people might not care enough to take look at a thread that began with just the name of my challenge. If it began with "Asylum challenge" (just an example), they probably would.
Anyway, good luck on the challenge.
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So, here we go with scoring:
- Gardening Collectables -- collected 14 @ 100 points each = 1,400 (cuttings from the wild don't count, darnit)
- Gardening Skill -- achieved 10 levels @ 100 points per level = 1,000
- Fulfilled Freelance Botanist Aspiration = all 4 sub-aspirations = 7,100
- Fulfilled Angling Ace Aspiration = 4,000
- Missed 2 bedtimes @ -100 per missed = (200)
- Aging -- spent 17 days as adult @ -100 per day = (1,700)
- Number of times using phone -- 0 times @ -1000 per use = 0
- Number of rewards used -- 0 times @ -1000 per use = 0
Total score = 11,600Had fun doing this one. Thanks again @lotlot80. I hope some more folks try it!
Pics to follow.
I never got a pic of Flora when she started, but here's one of her in the park after a few days getting things set up at home:
And here's another of her home, Nature's Nook. One of the reasons she liked this location was its proximity to fishing. She could fish almost from her back deck!
One of the hardest things for me (player) was getting her to bed by 9:00. It seems criminal to me (bona-fide night owl here
Who knew an exclusive diet of veggie burgers could lead to weight gain? I mean, veggie burgers??? Really? That's literally ALL she ate for the entire challenge (and half the time, she didn't even finish them):
But all those veggie burgers paid off in skills:
More pics in next post.
So, here we go with some bottom line images. Maxed out Gardening Skills:
Fulfilling the Freelance Botanist Aspiration (there was a long delay between when she completed the Aspiration and when it actually registered, even though the timestamp in the two photos is the same):
Maxed out Fishing Skill:
Fulfilling the Angling Ace Aspiration:
As I said in an earlier post, the hardest part was keeping needs in the green without electricity. Flora had to grill all her meals and grilled meals are, by default, group meals (and very expensive). You'd think Gardening would provide fun, but it does not. Talking to plants is a very slow way to build social. And for some reason, Flora often didn't get completely clean in the shower, so she had to take 2 (sometimes 3) showers to get a fully filled bar.
The other hard part was finding Gardening collectables. Perhaps it's me but I found them very difficult to find. And once I found a few, they were View only.
Overall, it was a very fun Challenge. I learned a LOT. Two major things I learned: our Sims are at the mercy of electricity (as are we, probably) and Sims 4 gardening is sooooo labor intensive! You'd think it would at least provide Fitness skill, because poor Flora worked her tail off -- yet her tail continued to grow and grow
As for food and exercise, I impressed. I didn't think of these when I play-tested this.
@SimPoseyYum I'm happy you enjoyed the challenge.
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> Thanks, I just saw a you tube video to get cuttings and then graft instead of waiting to harvest. Love the info that I got off the URL you gave me. I have been grafting a lot but not the right plants lol. Yes, I am in western NY and not far from Buffalo. I have 3 feet of snow and on the 2nd storm now. Haven't had work for 2 days so have been playing a lot of the Living off The Grid challenge. I think once I have acccomplished it all I may continue on with this sim.
I am in buffalo as well right in the south side and we have 6 ft i have been playing sims for 3 days cause we havent been able to even go out of our houses. I think i might just have to start this off the grid challenge.
Are there any rules on spouses? I'd love to start the challenge as a little family of two naturalists for some extra fun.
@cultures
When I created these rules, I never really thought about the spouse aspect, so there are no points associated with them. However if you choose to start a family, that's perfectly fine. I don't see how that would interfere with the challenge, except it may make it either harder or easier, depending on whether you utilize the other household members to do things or not (like finding collectibles).
For example, after I officially play-tested it, I played it with a family, but without keeping points, just for fun, and I had my Sim garden, and her hubby fish. Playing it like this was easier than playing it alone because my Sim had help completing the required tasks.
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Yeah I was thinking that I would separate the activities so that one fishes while the other gardens! I also think it'll be easier to deal with the social need as was mentioned.
I think I'm also going to try and max as many skills as I can without the use of electricity for another little challenge (:
Although I will be cheating a little bit and using a fridge.
That sounds great, I may revise the challenge to include families. I'll give you credit for the suggestion.
On the other hand, that extra "little challenge you mention though, I won't be adding since people seem to be having a hard time with this challenge as it is.
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Im thinking about doing it too
> @SimPoseyYum So glad that your trying my challenge again. I actually like to make challenges that have replay value, so that's great. Hope it goes better this time and can't wait to see your progress. Don't worry about the outhouse rule, I only came up with that to use the new build tools.
>
> "shuns those things everywhere" .... that is going to be pretty hard to do.
>
>
> BTW, more people would see this post (your progress on the challenge) if you switch to title around to read like this:
>
> Let's share our stories -- The Living Off the Grid Challenge
>
>
> Thanks again
This challenge won the poll I took on what to try, so here I am. Thank you for creating this!
> I just started challenges, this will be my fourth. I don't like to give up and I do hope I can tackle as much of the list as I can and perfect the challenge I want to add too. I know this is a few years after you made this, but I'm game!
I was meaning to say third.