Playing a Prison-Themed Save

Mariefoxprice83

I started a new prison save the other day because I needed a break from generational play. The trouble is, I am feeling directionless because 6 of the 8 household members members of the household are confined to the home lot every day, so they can't do rabbit hole or active careers, and they can't go out and meet sims. I can have them earning money through crafting and gardening but I don't quite know what else to do with them. I thought about making them go to university and changing the number of credits per term to represent different length sentences but then they get to leave the lot and I don't want to do that, but I can't think of an alternative to decide who gets out when, or whether they should all be lifers.

As a side note, I put the 2 wardens in the detective career and am making them alternate work days at the moment, so one is always at home.

I would welcome suggestions.

Starfree

@Mariefoxprice83 I don't know how it works but I believe at least some prison systems have work release programs where prisoners are allowed to leave to work. I'm guessing it would depend on the crime. Something for you to maybe research?

Mariefoxprice83

Starfree wrote: »

@Mariefoxprice83 I don't know how it works but I believe at least some prison systems have work release programs where prisoners are allowed to leave to work. I'm guessing it would depend on the crime. Something for you to maybe research?

That sounds about right to me but it wasn't quite what I wanted to do with this save and I don't want to worry too much about being uber realistic, though I have done a little googling. I caved in and decided to see what happens by letting them attend university. I usually make the sims try hard to get good grades so maybe it will be fun to experiment.

EnkiSchmidt

The good news is that sims don't have to go to class to pass university. I played a test save once with not a convicted criminal, but a disabled sim and his household robot, and they managed to get their degrees with a lot of studying at home.

Mariefoxprice83

Wow, that's really cool. I was thinking that it might be possible, so fingers crossed.

crocobaura

Prisoners who are on good behavior are sometimes hired for community service type work like planting trees, picking crops and such. Maybe you could take them to a community garden type lot for extra activities and meeting people. There are also prison restaurants open to the general public which are staffed by inmates for their rehabilitation and skilling process, you could probably run a restaurant or bakery, or a prison shop to sell their crafts. Also, they receive visitors, so you could have a day when you invite other sims to the lot to meet them. It could be their family, friends, lawyer, fans (some criminals do get fans, and have penpals, some even marry this way and married folks can have conjugal visits). If the prisoner is pregnant, they could visit the hospital to give birth. Sometimes prisoners get bad tattoos and scars and try to seduce the prison guard or doctor, or you could get them to try escape by building a secret tunnel under their cell one tile at a time.

Mariefoxprice83

crocobaura wrote: »

Prisoners who are on good behavior are sometimes hired for community service type work like planting trees, picking crops and such. Maybe you could take them to a community garden type lot for extra activities and meeting people. There are also prison restaurants open to the general public which are staffed by inmates for their rehabilitation and skilling process, you could probably run a restaurant or bakery, or a prison shop to sell their crafts. Also, they receive visitors, so you could have a day when you invite other sims to the lot to meet them. It could be their family, friends, lawyer, fans (some criminals do get fans, and have penpals, some even marry this way and married folks can have conjugal visits). If the prisoner is pregnant, they could visit the hospital to give birth. Sometimes prisoners get bad tattoos and scars and try to seduce the prison guard or doctor, or you could get them to try escape by building a secret tunnel under their cell one tile at a time.

Thanks for your suggestions, I'm not sure I want to send the prisoners off the home lot but I've been thinking about making families for both the prisoners and the guards, to widen their world a bit. Having said that, I could let one or two of the prisoners out with one of the guards to wander the home neighbourhood as well.

JustinB113

If I was doing this then to start I would...

- have a reception area with the guards and maybe a receptionist non detective and lock all other paths. And make that a friendly social area.

- make the prisoner families and give them high relationship so they might drop in. Then the guards can let them into the locked areas or not. And I’d have visitors rooms in a corridor.

- have a big dining cafeteria area probably with HSY cafe.

- have a laundry room and make the sims alternate laundry duty in pairs.

- do either the GED from HSY or home university.

- give them all at least one trait that might cause drama so they can fight and stuff

- have a computer room and give them unique personalities via what they do, so one might have penpals and one might troll forums and the guard revoke their privilege etc.

- have them work on fitness and gardening skill and maybe even music. And also mischief.

The main problem is limit of how many sims you can have, any way of getting more people onto the lot would be something I’d think about. - Maybe I’d explore the discover university roommate system for some prisoner because then their partners may come around and they’d be a bit unpredictable.

Mariefoxprice83

JustinB113 wrote: »

If I was doing this then to start I would...

- have a reception area with the guards and maybe a receptionist non detective and lock all other paths. And make that a friendly social area.

- make the prisoner families and give them high relationship so they might drop in. Then the guards can let them into the locked areas or not. And I’d have visitors rooms in a corridor.

- have a big dining cafeteria area probably with HSY cafe.

- have a laundry room and make the sims alternate laundry duty in pairs.

- do either the GED from HSY or home university.

- give them all at least one trait that might cause drama so they can fight and stuff

- have a computer room and give them unique personalities via what they do, so one might have penpals and one might troll forums and the guard revoke their privilege etc.

- have them work on fitness and gardening skill and maybe even music. And also mischief.

- maybe explore the discover university roommate system for some prisoner because then their partners and that come around and I wouldn’t have direct control of them.

I like your suggestions, but I don't own HSY so that element is out. Some of the other suggestions are very much in my ballpark, and may help me improve the game.

JustinB113

Awesome, I’m glad you liked them.

HSY isn’t important, it just has a nice cafeteria item that would suit a prison but you can find something in other packs for sure. And I’m not even sure how the GED works, the home university will be more in depth and demanding for sure. This sounds very fun. Good luck, you should post photos

Mariefoxprice83

JustinB113 wrote: »

Awesome, I’m glad you liked them.

HSY isn’t important, it just has a nice cafeteria item that would suit a prison but you can find something in other packs for sure. And I’m not even sure how the GED works, the home university will be more in depth and demanding for sure. This sounds very fun. Good luck, you should post photos

Thanks, I might do that once I have made the family members.

GalacticGal

Plan a 'prison' break.

Benjamilian

Mariefoxprice83 wrote: »

The trouble is, I am feeling directionless because 6 of the 8 household members members of the household are confined to the home lot every day, so they can't do rabbit hole or active careers, and they can't go out and meet sims.

You accidentally made the authentic prison experience.

Kerrigan

I have a detective and since the career gives the trappings for turning a room into a prison cell, I went ahead and made a convict sim that lives there. I have the violence mod so there's a two way street on people getting beat up. I don't play it too often and the prisoner sim is out doing townie things a lot of the time so has to be put back in his cell.

I was thinking about having that detective become a werewolf and use the prison cell stuff as his full moon lockdown.

Mariefoxprice83

Benjamilian wrote: »

Mariefoxprice83 wrote: »

The trouble is, I am feeling directionless because 6 of the 8 household members members of the household are confined to the home lot every day, so they can't do rabbit hole or active careers, and they can't go out and meet sims.

You accidentally made the authentic prison experience.

Fair point. It's just that I as the player usually have something to aim for, like career success or building a family. Using university terms in place of sentences, and adding relatives, to the world may help though.

Mariefoxprice83

I have now made the families but there's not currently a space for families to visit so I may need to build an extra section onto the prison.

imhappy

Maybe you can cause drama within the prison. There can be 2 different “gangs”. And a prisoner can try to steal another prisoner’s girlfriend. A prisoner can have an affair with a prison guard in exchange for favors.

You can grow a cow plant and pretend the milk is a drug the prisoner is selling.

Maybe they can have a flower arranging table. But they are secretly sending deadly flowers to family members of the other gang

Buy potions on plopsy?

Mariefoxprice83

For anyone following this, I have made the visiting area and the prisoners in Cell 1 are having their first visit (on Christmas Eve!). I think I invited too many sims over at once (2 family clubs) so I'll try and take pics when the sims in Cell 2 have a visit instead.

Mariefoxprice83

Here are the residents of Cell 2 with their visitors in the designated room. The couple embracing are Wolfgang and his wife, Agatha. Seated is Charlie, whose visitors are their mum Zoe and fiance Zayne.



Since taking that screenshot I have made sure everyone had at least one visitor (including the prison officers) and set up the 6 prisoners with their university courses as substitutes for their sentence lengths.

Mariefoxprice83

I am still debating whether to add a room for conjugal visits as several of the prisoners have partners. Apparently that's not a thing here in the UK, so I'm not sure.