I wanted to create this discussion to show how many creepy or scary things there are in The Sims series. Whether it's an intended gameplay feature or a bug, there are things that leave some players unsettled, creeped out, or even scared, especially when caught off guard.
I'm interested in seeing what other players are scared or creeped out by. Share your thoughts and, if you want, illustrate them with pictures, descriptions, your experiences, videos etc. I'd really love to see what we collect here eventually.
Every The Sims game is welcome! Even the console versions, MySims, The Sims Stories, The Sims Medieval, mobile versions etc.
Let me start this off. I'll put videos under spoilers so it won't take much room.
The Sims 1
- Those scary soundtracks that play during death, danger, fire, and ghosts. Imagine having sims sleep peacefully at night when suddenly a burglar or a raccoon comes accompanied by that danger theme. Definately jumpscarish. I'll put a video showcasing those sounds under this spoilers.
- The fact that Grim Reaper acutally has a skull that can be seen. The next games remove it, leaving the hood empty. But still, it has creeped me out. You can find many images and videos of it on internet.
The Sims 2
- Ghosts haven't scared me. However, those noises that can be heard near gravestones at the time ghosts can roam around (midnight to 6:00 AM), those are different things. The video I put under the spoilers has caught part of it unintentionally. If you listen closely before the scene ends, you may hear strange sounds. Those are part of the gravestone sounds. I remember hearing someone also saying they heard howling, but I can't find it right now, so it might be a false memory...
- The fact that it's easy to corrupt your neighborhood or even the whole game. While most of the time it can be easily avoided (don't delete sims and gravestones), at other times it's just a unfortunate occuring (grand vampire bites Mrs. Crumplebottom, turning her into a vampire and corrupting your entire game). One of the sympoms of a corrupted game/neighborhood is the squggly lines that can appear in bubbles, memories etc. Fortunately, it's stretched out X with numbers, so the corruption squggly lines are horizontal and only has black, red, and white colors. However, knowing this, sometimes vertical sqiggly lines (of compressed need bubbles) that pop up showing a sim noticing a hidden object can easily scare us (fortunately, they are not a sign of corruption).
More about corruption here: https://sims.fandom.com/wiki/Game_guide:Avoiding_corruption#Known_symptoms_of_corruption
The Sims 3
- Meteors! Yikes! First it is really really rare (0.01% randomly, 0.1% with telescope). So it will definately catch you off guard. And to add insult to injury, it plays a jumpscarish music when the shadow appears, and you have limited time to get your sim away from the shadow or otherwise they'll die. That really sends heart racing. I'll put one of my tutorials as a video under the spoilers showing the meteor part. Imagine that happening when you least expect it.
- Yet another rare event, this time it's 1% chance and it can be increased by another 1% by heavy rain or being near a hidden island. Kraken is a sea creature that can swim by boats and houseboats. Really unfortunate sims on small boats (not houseboats) find themselves being dragged underwater with their boat, destroying in process and making sims resurfacing panic (fortunately, it can't kill them). It will also catch you off-guard. At least you'll get reimbursed by mail the next day. Thank you for thalassophobia! I'll include another tutorial under spoilers.
The Sims 4
- The ocean threat in Island Living. While it may seem lazy: a dark cloud pulling sims underwater, for me, it makes it scarier. What is it? Sims' bubbles may show that it might be a kraken, a shark, a sea monster, whatever. If it happens randomly (usually in Mua Pel'am some hours after a shark encounter), it can drown the sim. This has caused me thalassophobia and I started to have dreams of sending my sims swimming only to immediately be pulled underwater and drowned. I'll include another tutorial under here, only I'll correct that encountering a shark and surviving the ocean threat will now make sims scared.
- I don't know what else to put here. So relating to the previous point, the fact that it's possible to encounter sharks in Britechester. It is also possible to be pulled underwater in Foxbury Institute neighborhood. Is it a failed student experiment that accidentally let a sea monster get away or is it a bug. It's up to you.
Sorry if I took some points you might want to share, but if you wish, you may add to that, add a story etc. Feel free to do the same to the other peoples' comments.
PS: Sorry about my little professionalism. I really felt like a journalist writing this. But still, I'd love to see what you bring to this disucssion.
Comments
Sims 4 the pet death animation hits a little too hard home. Same for the dead parrots in Sims 2 and the dead lizards in Sims 1 that players have to actively clean out and then dispose of in a trash bag. I don't know what I did wrong, but I could never keep the lizards alive and eventually stopped having them because of the disposal method.
Ah, Squirrel Infestation quest with Burn approach.
I agree with The Sims 4's pet death. It seems like pets are made equal to sims (if sim die with old-age effect, so will pets) instead of The Sims 3's sims becoming ghosts and pets getting sent into portals. Well, when Cats & Dogs first came out, the animation was absent. Pet just lied down, just patiently waiting to be reaped by Grim Reaper. Then suddenly (I don't know when) it was added.
I've read that even in The Sims 1, small pets will eventually die even when you take good care of them. Thus it seems like they're dying by old age. Fortunately The Sims 4 introduced a way to stop rodent's aging, but you still have to feed it...
https://youtu.be/xL0T3t4TDis
If you find any other YouTube videos telling about scary things in The Sims series, feel free to share them.
Hmm... That is a hot take. I can't say I disagree. I usually take The Sims 4 as an experiment.
Anyway, from the comments I've looked under the video, one thing was brought up.
In The Sims 1, you sometimes get prank calls, which are harmless but can be scary if you don't know it.
Here's the list of prank calls: https://sims.fandom.com/wiki/Prank_call#List_of_prank_calls
Some are tame, for example "Wrong number. Sorry." or "Do you canoe?", but there are a lot of unnerving ones, like "You have been chosen. They will come soon." or "The drop off has been made. You've been warned.". Honestly, The Sims 1 is the creepiest...
Oh, and I've looked up some The Sims iceberg pictures. These are things I've found on them:
The link: https://sims.fandom.com/wiki/Corrupt_file_on_The_Exchange
Here's some more I've found. Some may not be scary to you, but if it's scary to some, it deserves a spot.
Indeed. A message to players that they shouldn't kill children. Just let them grow up first. It was mentioned in the video I shared in this discussion. I'd say they lack the floating animation and due to being part of a hidden household, it gets those dangerous NPCs to come pick them up. So, if you have graves of children, move them to a community lot.
Here's a list of things that might be scary to some players.
More about Grim Reaper: https://sims.fandom.com/wiki/Grim_Reaper
More about those gnomes in The Sims 3 here: https://sims.fandom.com/wiki/Mysterious_Mr._Gnome
More about them here: https://sims.fandom.com/wiki/Nanny
More about sharks here: https://sims.fandom.com/wiki/Shark
More about fires: https://sims.fandom.com/wiki/Fire
More about grand vampires: https://sims.fandom.com/wiki/Grand_vampire
More about scarecrows here: https://sims.fandom.com/wiki/Scarecrow
One time, I was playing a regular household, and I decided to get the alchemy thing for fun. I had one of my sims start placing random things (mainly old newspapers) onto it and turn them into gold. Eventually, I thought it would be funny to try to turn a gnome into gold. Unfortunately, this is when the spell backfired, and my sim got turned into a golden statue and died. The statue remained even after his death and sometimes I would see it in my peripheral vision and get spooked. I’m still weary of gnomes in The Sims to this day.
I was always scared of the Sims 2 ghosts, when they floated around the house and scared my Sims. And that what happened yesterday to me made my fear even a bit worse.
So, when I was younger and played the Sims 2, I always sold the gravestones. Since I never really had ghosts in my game, I didn't know that the ghosts can become angry.
One of my Sims (Ashe) had a boyfriend named Takumi who died in a fire in College. When he graduated, my Sim took his boyfriend's urn with him and moved into a house with two other Sims. Everything was fine, Takumis ghost never appeared. My Sim then fell in love with another Sim and they married. But then another Sim flirted with him and his husband saw it and I let them break up. My Sim moved out but I continued to play the family of his ex-husband. And I'm sure Takumi did not like that. In that night he started to scare my Sims every few seconds, made really angry noises and broke some objects. The most scary thing is, that only happened after Ashe moved out. I read that it happens when the spouse got remarried, but not when he moves out. I had almost the feeling, Takumi's spirit got angry because Ashe's husband divorced him, even it wasn't Ashe's fault.
And the second thing, The Sims 2 for DS. Everything in that game was creepy.
For me, it never really felt like a Sims game. I don't remember much from this game, but I know that the atmosphere was really scary and dark. What scared me the most were these aliens that came when you changed the time of your device, and "killed" you when you got too close to them.
True. Angry ghosts can be really really bad news. They scare sims more, they break electronics and make baths dirty, and complain about the thing that made them angry. What's more unnerving is that it is easy to make them angry. Sell their bed and they're angry. Have their spouce remarry and they're angry. Have a new family move into the home and they're angry. And yes, kicking gravestones and smashing urns also make them angry.
About The Sims 2 for DS, I actually have this game for my 3DS. It is indeed really different. In this game, your sim is a hotel manager who manages a hotel in Strangetown. It even has its own wiki! https://the-sims-2-ds.fandom.com/wiki/The_Sims_2_DS_Wiki
While it shares the music and characters with The Sims 2 for GBA, it is 3D! I'll put some footage about the game in the spoilers so it'll take less room. If you wish, you may search more on YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgPZYm50YV4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhQsDW1T8a0&list=PLsxVOmCN6xXw5Lofb4374xrMNCdOQOMvo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSuqw-AGius&list=PLRFGbReLiymANzW8ZEk9eIU4sJU7XbKXt
The atmosphere aside, for me, the biggest creepiest part are the aliens. The music, the consequence of time travelling, alien autopsy and so on. There are also unsettling quests such as Frankie Fusilli asking you bury a wriggling chest in desert and Ava Cadavra wanting a room for her cow cult. Not only that, but at rare times, hotel guests may get kidnapped by either aliens or goons for ransom.
Here are some videos I've found of some of those creepy things. Of course under spoilers!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dz3u1ujGSxo
The cutscene that happens when you time travel.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MFX9tHWARQ
Alien autopsy.
https://youtu.be/swxACr1Kyiw?t=465
True. Tragic clown comes when sims are in bad mood and you have a tragic clown painting in the house. This clown comes and tries to cheer them up, but fails, making it worse. They'll fail at tricks, cry a lot, and all interactions fail. For some reason, he likes being slapped and insulted. And the clown is tied to the painting. If you sell it, he'll eventually go away. If you burn it, the clown burns too. If you hire clown catchers to remove the clown (with that danger theme used for burglars), they'll also remove the painting.
Even more, even the game itself is annoyed by the clown. If you have automatic snapshots enabled and burn the clown by burning the painting, take a look at the family album and you'll see.
This time here, I'll focus more on spin-offs and console ports. Everything is from either my experience or from what I've read.
More about mutant plants: https://sims.fandom.com/wiki/Mutant_plant#The_Sims_Bustin.27_Out
More about that here: https://sims.fandom.com/wiki/Veloci-Rooster
More about that here: https://sims.fandom.com/wiki/Grim_Reaper?file=Grim_Cowboy.jpg#The_Sims_2_.28Nintendo_DS.29
It not only offers a part-time job, it also lets sims explore the catacombs to find some collectibles (like gnomes). It's a text-based adventure, where your sim can encounter bears (including a zombie bear leaping from a coffin), experience things not meant to be heared by sims, monsters that look like the ones described in fairy tales for mean children, an option to give a skeleon your hair etc. If they encounter a bear or something terrible, they'll come out looking singed without the singed moodlet. What even is happening there? What evils are sealed away there?
Oh, and sometimes I have called the ocean threat in The Sims 4 as souls of previously drowned sims that pull sims underwater for company.
Fun fact. Kraken is not only in Isla Paradiso, but also in Sunset Valley if you send your sim boating far away and luck sends you (or rather unluck).
Many of these are indeed subjective. Some may not be scary to you while others may. That's OK! Feel free to share what's scary to you in The Sims series or stories of what scared you. Don't worry, we'll understand.
Yes, that is indeed so. Fun fact: if you have a boat near a diving spot and your sim is diving underwater, you may see kraken underwater. Just like one shown in this picuture (I'll include URL in case the picture doesn't load).
Oh, I happen to have mine as well
That's scary. Being closer to that kraken is a really scary thing for me.
Thank you for the walkthroughs of The Sims 2 DS. haven't found one lately but now i have!
Sims 2 (All EPs/SPs)
Sims 3 Showtime
Sims 3 Generations
My Sims 3 profile page: https://mypage.thesims3.com/mypage/Sunflowergal227
ETA: I never once saw the Kraken. My Superstar often swam in the ocean, too. It was his favorite pastime. But, then again, he never once got abducted either, despite my efforts …
http://www.getfreeebooks.com/star-trek-original-series-fan-fiction-trilogy/