What play style, storylines, and anything else you think makes your game more engaging do you do? Looking for some ideas, fell into making new saves and playing for only thirty minutes.
Some ideas from my gameplay;
My sims are divided into generations, determined by when they go to/are university age (the day they age to young adult), I like my sims to stay dating and friends with close or the same generation, and teens nearing adulthood get a new wardrobe. I do set likes and dislikes, the first color to be set is their "favorite color" (the one they age into a child in). The second I spin a wheel for, and is the hair color they like most in other sims. I also spin a wheel for dating preference, which I track on a notepad. My sims have two likes set for hobbies, one is normally trait/aspiration based, while the other spins a wheel and is for their fun. I do follow aspirations, but not always completing them, I use them as a guideline for what a sim wants in life, like a writer will be more into books and literature. I let my sims care for their basic needs and mainly only make them interact manually for hobbies, skills, aspirations, or taking a new step in a relationship. For relationships I actually like the whims, there are some good ones I pin. Edit; mention for PleasantSims, who gave me most of these ideas.
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PleasantSims gameplay style really is inspirational! I have been thinking about trying out her whims-based gameplay myself. And I do think that mods enhance the gameplay, like the Whim Overhaul mod. But you seem to be familiar with mods already.
She has some other posts about gameplay as well! :)
I'm not really into playing huge families or generations and I don't really play rotationally either so most of the popular challenges I've seen are things I know that I wouldn't really enjoy.
But the following list of ones did pique my interest and I will read up on them more:
https://fliphousechallenge.weebly.com/
https://onyeka001.wordpress.com/townie-life-challenge/
https://njadakaufey.tumblr.com/post/190113225737/witch-legacy-challenge-rules
https://forums.thesims.com/en_us/discussion/964395/a-free-will-experience-inspired-by-other-free-will-challenges
https://kateraed.tumblr.com/post/639063812678549504/whimsystories
https://aliennooboo.tumblr.com/post/647564479410962432/live-for-something-ts4-legacy-challenge-the
https://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/974354/stranded-a-multi-household-rotation-survival-gameplay-challenge
https://illusorythrall.wordpress.com/home/challenge-rules/build-challenges/100-day-creativity-challenge-rules/
http://www.getfreeebooks.com/star-trek-original-series-fan-fiction-trilogy/
The fate is always on your hands.
Another thing, as stated, I like creating big families and giving the kids different aspirations and personalities, headcanon-ing one is nerdy and shy or the cool kid or whatever. Maybe if we get The Sims
5, we'll have a personality system on top of traits for more exciting sims. Speaking of which, my nerdy shy boy turned YA this morning by my hand. I sent him out with his twin bro to find some girls. It took three different tries before he finally accepted the order to go talk to this girl, so maybe he really is shy and the programming is more intuitive than we give it credit for. Or it was a glitch.
Going on actual dates to find their "right" person to marry is a bit frustrating but can give the game more fun and depth. Did that with one of mine kind of, but never got as far as the date stage. One girl was always angry (Karen, is that you?), one seemed too much, and another probably left too soon. So, I got him together with wife number two from the first paragraph because it was right there and she'd actually talk to him and wasn't nuts. LOL. It's also fun when some just don't like your sim for no apparent reason and won't flirt back. That's what happened with one of my girls and she ended up with another pre-made boy, but it's a cute inter-racial romance with baggage.
https://lilsimsie.tumblr.com/post/157671494755/not-so-berry-legacy-challenge
https://simslegacychallenge.com/the-sims-4-legacy-challenge-rules/
https://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/937233/new-star-guardian-legacy-challenge
☆ she/her ☆
I am very into generational/legacy type gameplay, personally. I get so attached to one sim family and I love playing around with their genetics and seeing how the next generation turns out, so generally I can go on like that for awhile and not get bored. One thing I try to challenge myself to do with each new heir to a generation is play with different traits/careers/skills/hobbies that I either haven't tried before or haven't used very often. Creating drama can be fun and interesting as well but I tend to end up feeling guilty lol. I also love building so if I get burnt out on gameplay sometimes I'll just go on a building spree for a bit.
check out my gallery page
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I used to play the Sims 2 on the PC, but now I am playing Sims 4 on the PS4, so I am still figuring out how the whole thing works.
Although I found that it helped that the Sims 2 had these wishes, and the Sims would get older, compaired to to the Sims 1, it started to feel repeatative after a while. So I ended up building a lot. But lost interest in the end because of other things happening in life and did not have inspiration anymore.
Back in those days I did not have easy access to internet and/or wasn't aware that you could look these things up on the internet. Looking into the Sims 4 I saw that people have really nice ideas for Storytelling and building.
I really draw a lot of inspiration out of that, and I am really eager to try these things out. I think it would also be fun to try some of these random generators for the Sims to do some things out of the box.
Recently, I acquired the Eco lifestyle package. When I get the hang of this PS4 controller, I would like to do a rags to riches challenge. With a rule that everything my Sim owns, should be collected/ made by him/her self and/or must be purchased in live mode. I.e. I can only use build mode for putting up the shell of the house. But not use buy mode. I am very curious what kind of house I would end up with.
I move on quickly from one aspiration to the next - I was trying for the make money aspiration, didn’t quite make it in the time I wanted them to quit their jobs, just quit the jobs anyway. Because once you start playing in a way you feel you have to it stops being fun.
I don’t take it too seriously. Some do and get enjoyment from that. But I don’t mind my sims who are in Mt Komorebi just suddenly showing up at the San Myshuno romance festival. And if they want to automate baking 10 cakes I’ll just let them bake cakes. I will also take pop ups for outdoor trips and things as and when I feel like it.
Liking your sims is really important. Well maybe not like them, you could think they’re horrible sims but having some sort of feeling one way or the other is kinda helpful.