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The Renovacy Challenge - a new (and short!) challenge.

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  • cianeciane Posts: 16,996 Member
    Finished that. Moved it to a bigger lot in a different world and played it out, expanding the home. First, I added a second floor. Then, a small wing on one side, and a smaller room to the rear. Then, the covered patio was enclosed and a room added to the back upstairs. I kept the small footprint of the original house, including the small bathroom, just building around it. The father achieved his LTW, maxing handiness as well as athletics and martial arts. The mother was just shy of maxing painting. They had a son whose LTW was to be an author. It was a great challenge!

    I then decided to play Goodwin Goode and moved him out of the house with his enemy Sinbad via edit town. I also moved out the mother of his unborn child via edit town. I built a small home for them and placed them each into it. They had the little girl Goodwin wanted and then got pregnant again as Jenni wants to raise five children. I changed Goodwin's LTW when he got enough reward points, so he no longer wants to be a firefighter. I'm not real happy with the genetics that pop up sometimes with premades. That little girl got a really different shaped face!

    I hope you are enjoying the weather and looking forward to a new sims challenge.
  • MmdrgntobldrgnMmdrgntobldrgn Posts: 6,680 Member
    SamelaRita wrote: »
    Last chapter of Changing Seasons (in two parts as it got so long! But it was supposed to finish in summer...)
    https://samelasstories.blogspot.com/2022/05/changing-seasons-summer-vi-part-3-c-i.html
    https://samelasstories.blogspot.com/2022/05/changing-seasons-summer-vi-part-3-c-ii.html

    And I hope the wrap-up answers all the questions...

    The finale was lovely

    Wishing you lots of simming fun with your next game play.
    Peace, GranMama Dragon
    Exploring life through imagination & satire since 1969.
    Save Game Often
    repair & clear caches Often
    S3 Studio
    S3 blog Story, lists of empty lots by world
    Behrooz
    S2/3/4 Randomnes
  • cianeciane Posts: 16,996 Member
    I am seriously missing having a new renovation to play out, but I am enjoying building tiny homes and having sims live in them for a generation.
  • cianeciane Posts: 16,996 Member
    edited September 2022
    Have I got a challenge for you! The house isn't all run down, but of course, you could alter that!

    https://www.thesims3.com/assetDetail.html?assetId=9525374

    This is my take on the "It's a hard life" challenge I found on ModtheSims. Instead of killing off the mom or dad and leaving the teen with the triplets, I simply deleted the dad in CAS and omitted the whole teen aspect. The only difference is the teen wouldn't be able to chose a trait on age up. I play mostly random traits anyway (usually best one out of three), so that isn't a major issue for me.

    The true challenge is being a crib shy, which I circumvent with the playpen. Putting one tot in the playpen right away keeps the energy bar from going down. I let the tot play on the abacus until that is maxed and then get the tot out. (No using the playpen to teach them to talk!) After they learn to talk, tots can gain charisma skill or play with a sibling in the playpen, if you wish.

    The mom has to balance needs and training on a very micromanaging basis, but having one tot up while the other two sleep and "HOT bunking" keeps all the tots from having a tired melt down.

    I've played through several different versions of this and think I've set you up for success. There are things you can sell to pay the bills, and when the tots grow up, they can go to the library to write novels as well as sell any paintings they create. It's okay to win hot dogs or pie at the fair to help feed the family. Collect those tickets at the fair to buy some really nice things. You earned them!

    Let me know what you think.

    P.S. In my game, one sim day equals one year of life. Toddlers go to kindergarten here at 4 or 5 years old, so my toddlers age is set to five. Children and teens each get seven as that equates to five years of school and two days for the weekend for everyone, no matter what day of the week they age up. And, together with two years as a babe, it puts my graduating teen right at age 17 for last day of school and age 18 for the graduation the next day. :smiley: I give young adults two or three weeks (18 + 21 = 39). Adults get the same (39 + 21 = 60). Elders get less, though often live longer.

    You can, of course, always create your own version. I think an adult and three triplets let you start with 18k to build.

    I'd really like to see you tackle this! :wink:

    Edit: I changed the link above for the new upload. I tested in a brand new folder and no extra hair styles are available! :smiley:
    Post edited by ciane on
  • SamelaRitaSamelaRita Posts: 1,007 Member
    @ciane Looked this up - it sounds fun - but all I got was the blooper page :'( Is this a problem at my end or yours? Just back from holiday - we went to Verona for a week - and catching up with everything. Hope you're doing well.
  • MmdrgntobldrgnMmdrgntobldrgn Posts: 6,680 Member
    edited September 2022
    SamelaRita wrote: »
    @ciane Looked this up - it sounds fun - but all I got was the blooper page :'( Is this a problem at my end or yours? Just back from holiday - we went to Verona for a week - and catching up with everything. Hope you're doing well.

    upload is getting fixed B)


    Ps, sounds like a nice trip.
    Peace, GranMama Dragon
    Exploring life through imagination & satire since 1969.
    Save Game Often
    repair & clear caches Often
    S3 Studio
    S3 blog Story, lists of empty lots by world
    Behrooz
    S2/3/4 Randomnes
  • cianeciane Posts: 16,996 Member
    edited September 2022
    You gotta love a trip to Italy for a week! I hope you had some great pasta. :smiley:

    I tested the new upload in my game successfully. If you don't have the play pen to help stagger the sleep cycles, you will have a tired, cranky tot sleeping on the floor (which is part of the original hard life challenge intent, I think), but as long as you don't use the play pen for learning to talk, it still incorporates all the original strain of caring for the tots on one sim.

    It is a test of you micromanaging skill. Just remember, you can use the potty chair twice before you need to empty it. (I would move the potty chair location to indicate if it was empty (original corner) or used once (next to the nursery doors) or twice (next to the outside door). When desperate, just place the potty chair outside and let it overflow outside. :wink:

    I am really hoping for some great stories from you!

    Here's a glimpse at how mine went:
    https://cianesays.wordpress.com/stories/its-a-hard-life-triplet-dare/

    I found the original challenge here:
    https://modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=443054

    You've had a hard life so far. Your parents had split up and one of them left taking all the money with them leaving one of your parents and 3 siblings left. So you're broke. Things can only go uphill... right?

    What to do:

    1. Make 2 adults (one female and one male), 3 toddlers and finally 1 teen. The toddlers and teen can be any traits you like! The 2 adult sims are the parents and the the toddlers and teens are their children.
    2. Lifespan must be long for an easy mode, or epic for difficult mode.
    3. No cheats unless it CLEARLY states.
    4. The house must be a poor house and must contain:

    1 Cheap bed
    1 Cheap crib (2 if you want easy mode)
    1 fridge
    2 counters
    1 toilet
    1 sink
    1 shower
    1 microwave

    5. Once in the game, the mother must break up with the father or the father with the mother then one MUST move out.
    6. The remaining parent must die. This is the ONLY thing you can use cheats for.
    7. Set your money to 150 simoleons or under if you like.

    Time for some rules...

    1. No cheats apart from when you kill one of the parents as I said.
    2. No babysitters
    3. No part time jobs
    4. No going to school.
    5. You can sell objects and nothing else. No seeds, no stolen items (so even if you are a klepto haha), no fruit/fish.
    6. Game over if a toddler's taken away.
    7. Hacking is allowed. HINT HINT.

    The game is over when you become YA.

    So good luck! Oh and if the kids do get taken away when the parent dies, try again by aging the teen to YA automatically. If you do that, the challenge will end when you're an adult.
    Post edited by ciane on
  • cianeciane Posts: 16,996 Member
    Have you ever player Juan Darer in Twinbrook? He lives in the barn with some house foundation next to it. I thought it would be interesting to use that as a renovacy. I had him adopt a child. He lived long enough in my game to see the child graduate and marry. Of course, my sims are only children for 7 days and only teens for another 7 days. So, I generally complete my renovacies in a couple weeks. I had Juan rebuild the "original" home on the remaining foundation as part of the challenge. You might like to try that too. Juan has the inventing station, so I was hoping he'd build a time machine and pick up a child time traveling. Unfortunately Juan maxed his inventing skills without making that time machine in my game. Of course, I might try that again later. Hope you all are enjoying the holidays.
  • SamelaRitaSamelaRita Posts: 1,007 Member
    ciane wrote: »
    Have you ever player Juan Darer in Twinbrook? He lives in the barn with some house foundation next to it. I thought it would be interesting to use that as a renovacy. I had him adopt a child. He lived long enough in my game to see the child graduate and marry. Of course, my sims are only children for 7 days and only teens for another 7 days. So, I generally complete my renovacies in a couple weeks. I had Juan rebuild the "original" home on the remaining foundation as part of the challenge. You might like to try that too. Juan has the inventing station, so I was hoping he'd build a time machine and pick up a child time traveling. Unfortunately Juan maxed his inventing skills without making that time machine in my game. Of course, I might try that again later. Hope you all are enjoying the holidays.

    You can pick up a child while time travelling? That one's new to me! It does sound fun as a renovacy - I might try it some time. I'm trying your triplet hard at the moment, but life went super-busy again, and I haven't got near the sims for ages. I'm hoping to have some time over Christmas: before Christmas I've got 2 little dresses to make, some scrunchies and some little sweetie bags and a load of little Christmas cakes to make, decorate and give away. But once that's done, then life will calm down hugely. I hope you're enjoying your preparations and that you have a lovely Christmas :)
  • cianeciane Posts: 16,996 Member
    Super excited to know you are attempting the triplet challenge! Yes, they will often have a kid pop out of the time machine after the sim has traveled in it. The time difference! You are always super busy with a project, especially at Christmas. Hope you get everything accomplished in the next two weeks. I'm still happy from Thanksgiving when my sister and a niece came. And I'm looking forward to more family coming in just over a week. It does mean a lot of housecleaning for me, but I've got all the presents done. I just need to get a box out of the shed so I have one more Christmas stocking! Happy holidays to you and yours!
  • SamelaRitaSamelaRita Posts: 1,007 Member
    A new renovacy - not a Christmas-themed one, but in time for Christmas, nevertheless!
    Backstory here: https://samelasstories.blogspot.com/2022/12/shipyard-terrace.html
  • MmdrgntobldrgnMmdrgntobldrgn Posts: 6,680 Member
    The backstory left me sniffling.

    House downloaded for play either tomorrow or next weekend.
    Peace, GranMama Dragon
    Exploring life through imagination & satire since 1969.
    Save Game Often
    repair & clear caches Often
    S3 Studio
    S3 blog Story, lists of empty lots by world
    Behrooz
    S2/3/4 Randomnes
  • BreeMilesBreeMiles Posts: 8,903 Member
    Waving out to all, I hope the holiday season finds you all in good health, happy, and loved.

    Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and a wonderful New Year
    mrs-claus-together-cartoon-character-happy-santa-claus-his-wife-isolated-christmas-family-celebrate-winter-holidays-cute-santa-claus-with-mrs-claus-waving-hands-greeting_209425-80.jpg?w=2000
  • SamelaRitaSamelaRita Posts: 1,007 Member
    @BreeMiles And a very happy Christmas to you too!
  • cianeciane Posts: 16,996 Member
    I enjoyed the renovacy. I had Violet text Terry over and over again most of the first day. They were friends when Violet went to bed, so Terry was able to go to school on Monday. Terry taught Emily to walk and talk the first day. Then she put Emily on the potty before school the next morning. So Emily had all the training needed to grow up. She played her xylophone until she maxed that out and Violet bought a cake to grow Emily up while the others were in school. Terry wanted to adopt six strays. I let her adopt one cat and one dog to help collect animals and rocks to sell.

    In my game, the life span is 77 days and Violet passed before Jack aged up to young adult. The original plan was to have them all living individually in one of the apartments, but after Violet passed, I decided to add a door from the outside apartments to the inside apartments, so I ended up with a duplex. Terry can raise her family in one side and her siblings share the other duplex. The doors go from a kitchen to a dining room down stairs and from one bedroom to a hall and another bedroom on the other side.

    Emily got a green thumb and took over the gardening with help from Jack with the watering and weeding. Jack wants to be a renaissance sim. He is well on his way to maxing athletics, cooking, and handiness. He's an ambitious, rebellious daredevil who'd like a motorcycle when they get enough cash.

    I planned to post pics for Christmas, but I had a lot of company and just finished the playthrough tonight.

    I ticked all the boxes, expanding the outer apartments with an additional room (for a bathroom) where the side yard was. The inner apartment side yards and space between became a green house, but they got an additional room bumped out in back on the top floor for a bathroom. Over the additional baths downstairs, and next to the bump outs upstairs, I added balconies. I also added in the missing fireplaces, using MOO on the inner apartments to have the fireplace straddle the downstairs wall. This added a chimney section through the upstairs bedrooms. Otherwise, the footprint stayed the same. In back, I removed the fencing that divided each apartment's backyard into sections, so they all had one nice bigger backyard.

    Maybe I'll post some pics later.
  • SamelaRitaSamelaRita Posts: 1,007 Member
    @ciane Love what you've done with it!
  • cianeciane Posts: 16,996 Member
    I found another great renovacy house to play. The Mosquito Cove lot in Sunset Valley is just a bit too expensive for a starting family. I delete the fridge, stove, t.v., extra tables in the kitchen area, the outdoors grill and picnic table, and the cow plant to bring the price under 20k. Then I made a family in CAS with a teen, a couple kids, and a tot. I delete the dad in CAS to make the single parent family. My sim had just enough for a potty chair, toilet paper, a couple outdoor plants, and a box of tissues. The house has a couple cheap single beds and a crib as well as an upstairs bath with tub. I sold one of the living chairs to buy a bunk bed. I sold the tub to buy a shower, which I just prefer. And, a sold the second matching living room chair to buy a planter rug. I didn't do any wallpaper or flooring changes or recolor anything as I'd forgotten to give someone the good trait. I added the good trait to the toddler when he aged up to a teen. It was fun adding a greenhouse and bumping out the upstairs minimally over the old kitchen. I have small 3x2 bedrooms for everyone. One BATHroom upstairs and one 3/4 bath with shower downstairs. The third "bath" will be an all-in-one tucked into a corner in the upstairs hallway. They do have a big table with six chairs, and room for three counters in the kitchen and five seats in the living room, which is all open plan living. It's been fun. Maybe you'd like to try that.
  • SamelaRitaSamelaRita Posts: 1,007 Member
    @ciane That one does sound fun. And I haven't played on Sunset Valley in ages. I'm currently playing the triplet hard on Barnacle Bay and (very slowly) writing a story about it. I want to finish that on the old PC in case I don't manage to move everything over to the new laptop successfully. I'd never have the patience to rebuild everything! How are you doing? Sounds like the weather over your way has been crazy this year - a snow day in LA while it's 82 degrees in Washington at the same time.
  • cianeciane Posts: 16,996 Member
    It has been really crazy temperature-wise here. We live in a very dry area that might get snow once every few years. It just doesn't usually that cold. This year we've had days below freezing or almost freezing a few different weeks. Today the highs are in the 40s, but next week I saw a forecast in the 80s. The temps just change from day to the next so it feels like summer one day and winter the next.

    I am looking forward to your triplet story. I played the day care challenge with the 6 tots a couple times. Once from an early morning weekday start and once from a brand new load at 9am on Sunday. I always enjoy a good challenge. I've learned that all the tots don't have to be trained to the max in everything. I was happy just letting them read one book in each subject, or even just in the subjects they might be interested in. After all, does a computer genius need a painting skill or an artist need to learn writing? I also mellowed on letting the tots learn walking and talking the easy way. It just all depends on the story, doesn't it?

    I also learned that you might change a diaper and put a day care tot on a potty chair before you give the bottle, even if the tot is very hungry. Otherwise, you might not get the chance to potty train the tot. And, trust me, it's so much better after they are potty trained because they will quit doing something and go use the potty without accidents.

    I am looking forward to spring break and hopefully some fun water sports - boating, canoeing, tubing, swimming - and some hiking! I have my tickets bought and will be counting the days soon. :disappointed:

    I hope everything is going smoothly for you there.
  • SamelaRitaSamelaRita Posts: 1,007 Member
    edited March 2023
    @ciane suggested that I try the Triplet Hard challenge. It sounded like fun, so I took her advice and gave it a go.
    The link's here: https://www.thesims3.com/assetDetail.html?assetId=9525374
    I started off playing by the rules, but then the story kind of took over, so it deviates somewhat. And the books I was reading at the time started to change the story as well - I might have to put a bibliography at the end of the last chapter!
    Anyway, here's the first chapter.
    https://samelasstories.blogspot.com/2023/03/the-turn-of-page-chapter-1.html

    As usual, I have used a lot of custom contenet by Cyclone Sue at TSR, and also by Sandy at ATS3.

    Just tried to post on my Sims 3 page, and I can't get it to load! All I'm getting is a sea of whiteness. Sigh. So @Hidehi , there's a new story here. You usually enjoy them. :)@Mmdrgntobldrgn too...
    Post edited by SamelaRita on
  • cianeciane Posts: 16,996 Member
    I'm so glad you started the challenge and are writing a story again! Woot! Loved it. (I've just been enjoying spring break and not checking in.)
  • suzsessuzses Posts: 2,433 Member
    SamelaRita! So good to see you're writing! I've enjoyed your intro to the new story very much and can't wait for more. I'm not around much lately but just happened to check in when ciane's comment was still visible in my notifications so ran right over here. Good to *see* you, too, ciane.
    Ackney-upon-Sherne Collab on the forum here
    My Sims 3 Studio
    My forum builds thread
  • SamelaRitaSamelaRita Posts: 1,007 Member
    Chapter 2...
    https://samelasstories.blogspot.com/2022/11/the-turn-of-page-chapter-2.html

    @ciane and @suszes thank you so much for your comments! And I'm glad you've liked it so far.

    I still can't get on to my sims 3 page - is anyone else having problems? - so I'm tagging you in, @Hidehi and @Mmdrgntobldrgn as well. Don't want to spam too many people...
  • texanskytexansky Posts: 1,346 Member
    @SamelaRita
    You are a great storyteller. I am looking forward to chapter 3.

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