Playing in the Upside Down — Share Your Experience

SheriGR

Once I started a 2nd game for testing new builds and popped in some of my saved household things got rather bizarre sometimes when going back and forth. Feels like the new ones are living in the 'Upside-Down'. (alternate dimension)

Anyway... I would LOVE to hear some stories of others' experiences doing this.

For instance, when I first started my 'new game' I added a library upload of my main/original couple and moved them in one of the homes, but altered their names so I wouldn't be quite so confused. I have auto-populate empty homes in place, and wondered why some of my sims from the other game were showing up. Took me a bit to realize that another library save of this couple was living in this world (because their names were different) and some of my other sims were appearing because they had moved into the neighborhood or were populating the world from my saved households. I figured out the nuances of it, but it was really strange until I tweaked a few things. Also, now when I go back to the other game, skills are different, children are different ages and other weird stuff.

GalacticGal

I have not done what you've done, however, since we brought home Beagle puppies (as in two) at the end of August, I'm stuck on my main floor. It's slate and easier to clean up any oopsies. They're starting to get the hang of house-breaking, but in the meantime, missing my game which is upstairs on my main gaming computer (in a loft office with CARPETING), I put that game save on a flash drive and installed Origin on my laptop and then installed my same game save. What's weird, is of course, I've gotten the family farther in the game than what's on the computer upstairs. On Saturdays, my sweet hubby has volunteered to 'watch' the pups while I go upstairs for some down-time.

Trying to realize that I'm playing a game that isn't as far along as the one on my laptop has been a tad confusing. This is my Ancestral game save and my sixth great-grandparents aren't married yet upstairs, and so therefore their younger siblings born in their second year of marriage weren't required just yet. I found myself a bit 'lost' as to what was going on in the first household. Luckily, I did figure it out, but haven't played up there much. Hubby has had to be other places these past two Saturdays and this Saturday it looks as if work is calling --- again. Ho-hum.

At least I can play on my laptop. Saving grace. Good luck on your storyline, it sounds interesting.

SheriGR

@GalacticGal ...Congrats on the puppies! They're a handful but so darn cute, huh? We raised Miniature Schnauzers for years and I had a kitchen full of pups several times. You have my sympathy and some envy as well. I would much rather train and deal with small-dog puppies. My son had a Rottweiler 'puppy' that I did 'doggie daycare' for when young, and that rascal ate my boxspring! My computer was in the bedroom, and I would be sitting there and hear a 'riiiip' and scold him. An inch at a time he did some serious damage . Made me appreciate little dogs even more.

Yes... playing an alternate game takes some adjustment. Before I realized that Sims could turn up from my saved households I was a bit freaked out to see my two 'patriarch/matriarch' Sims' twins turn up at the park while they were there watering the plants. Hahaha... WHAT??? That's just not right...

As to your (sort-of) duplicate games...

I would assume you can keep your same 'Sims save' going on both computers (In my post I was referring to creating a new game within the same game install - in the 'main menu' area). I would think that all you need to do to keep the same game going on each computer is copy your "The Sims 4" folder from the computer that has the game saves that you want on both computers and use that folder to replace (not merge) the "The Sims 4" folder in your other computer. (To find the folder, go to Documents > Electronic Arts > The Sims 4). You could transfer the folder between computers via Dropbox or a flash drive, etc., but you would have to use the folder that you had been playing most recently to save and replace this folder in the other computer whenever you went form one computer to the other for this to keep working. Hope that makes sense.

Not sure that would work well for you at this point, though, unless you want to choose one storyline or the other, as once you drop your folder in and overwrite/replace the other that will end 2nd storyline/game saves.

GalacticGal

I think I'll just keep plugging away at both games. Most of the time I'm down on the main floor and can only get upstairs to play upon occasion. I just have to remind myself where I left off on which computer. I have restarted this ancestral game save so often, it's not that big of a deal. I just thought I'd share since it was closer to your situation, or so I thought. And I prefer a flash drive, as that's handy.

SheriGR

@GalacticGal I figured you knew how, but just in case you or someone else reading this didn't want 'different versions' of their game, I thought I'd mention it. Hope you don't mind.

I think there are many similarities to how we are playing the alternate/parallel/here-and-there overlapping games. I, like you, find it rather interesting to find many ways to challenge and use the 'ancestral' game and households. Funny part is once you've played a different version a while, it grows its own dynamics and nuances and you no longer want to delete it. I was happy to find out recently how to make a 'new game' that was separate from the other. Not sure if I mentioned it but my main purpose was to test builds there and gradually build Newcrest. I didn't anticipate bonding with it.

It's nice that both of your computers can handle Sims. I have a ginormous, beefed up iMac now, but no laptop. The laptop I had was nice but couldn't handle my work well enough. I kept crashing it. I mean REALLY crashing it. I learned to start from factory reset on a regular basis, operated on it a LOT... and now this darn iMac runs like a mule, so I can't even enjoy some sarcasm about it. Years ago I had to switch to my husband's Mac (laptop) when Mac didn't play so well with others. I LOVED this guy's video about that part... Very, very true stuff: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ks-N4rI_1RU


Then after all of my Mac rants, when I was looking for a computer that could handle my photo editing well, I landed on Mac. It was going to cost me as much to put together a photo-editing computer. Requirements are like a good gaming computer.

simm621

I do this sometimes. I'll play a sim through most of their life then change saves and play another sim but place a copy of my other sim into that world.
For instance, I had a scientist sim who became a vampire and kept getting abducted by aliens. He was married to Cassandra Goth and they had four sons and he got pregnant a few times through abductions. He had an alien/vamp hybrid so I saved them to my library in case anything messed up. I then decided to play an alien on a different save and placed the copy of my sim and his hybrid son into that save and he met up with my alien and had a child with her.
In that world he only had the one son and never knew Cassandra which felt weird every time I interacted with him knowing who he was in the other save, and it was just as strange going back to his save and him not having the child and the relationship from the other save.

SheriGR

simm621 wrote: »

I do this sometimes. I'll play a sim through most of their life then change saves and play another sim but place a copy of my other sim into that world.
For instance, I had a scientist sim who became a vampire and kept getting abducted by aliens. He was married to Cassandra Goth and they had four sons and he got pregnant a few times through abductions. He had an alien/vamp hybrid so I saved them to my library in case anything messed up. I then decided to play an alien on a different save and placed the copy of my sim and his hybrid son into that save and he met up with my alien and had a child with her.
In that world he only had the one son and never knew Cassandra which felt weird every time I interacted with him knowing who he was in the other save, and it was just as strange going back to his save and him not having the child and the relationship from the other save.

Wow, now that is some seriously complicated storyline! I have been a bit apprehensive about playing the aliens and going to Sixam and all of that, though by 'patriarchal' dad (see pic below of him being abducted at his 'Scientist Lair' home) and two of his adult sons have moved into a ginormous home I made (long story - I thought a challenge on the forum was for Sims 4 but it was Sims 3, so I made it a bit more earth friendly and moved my Sims into it instead.) My son says his guy is a scientist and talks with them at the lab, etc. I changed one of the household to a scientist career and am checking that out. (Hey, if you want a giant Astronaut/Scientist Lair with an indoor observatory and the types of plants that will soon make you a millionaire, you are welcome to it... it is in my Origin gallery - same username) . I would love to hear your alien experience impressions/stories. Maybe it'll push me over the line to pursuing. Heck, they are Space rangers and have two Space Rockets in the back yard ready to go!!! What does it take to go to Sixam?

It's so true the offspring (missing or at different stages of life) or missing spouses in the alternate stories make it feel like you just can't quite put Pandora back in that box, huh?

Hermitgirl

I play multiple saves with mostly one main character per save ... the premades that come with the game often serve different purposes around my main sim or family though. I guess since they are always secondary characters (and I rarely age them up even) it doesn't confuse me much. For some reason I like to move into the hood with Johnny Zest on starting characters so since he's the neighbor and basically first convenient social meeting they have he's been through a lot in various games already. Poor Johnny.. he's been a test subject numerous times. Best friends to a cop and just friends to a few others. Pregnant by an alien. The first victim of a few black widow type challenges. Moved in and used as non-paid help for a domineering crime boss... I gotta admit though seeing him in these many different ways and the lives he's had to live have made me appreciate him, but he's still the same Johnny basically.
It gets tricky when you let them start having kids..

loubyloulou

Lol, I thought this thread was going to be about Stranger Things sims

SheriGR

@loubyloulou You're not wrong about the Stranger Things reference... I just don't mean quite that literally. More the concept of an alternate/parallel world. Good catch!