Well for me the most important part to any story is the characters so I create potential characters I might use for the story first then build up a storyline from there. I also get a lot of inspiration from movies and listening to music.
@laazygnome.....that is interesting that you might use a particular movie you liked and music...music is very inspirational. Character building is fun isn't it? Sometimes ..i might create a sim but it is during the building of the home that the character begins to form..regardless of how or what inspires a person ..if your character is lacking then you will become bored rapidly. Thanks for posting!
I have approached storytelling with TS4 in two different ways.
First I've tried my hand at making Machinima movies. With that I treat my Sims as actors so all the interactions are geared towards creating a scene I can video capture. You can make decent soap operas with that but it's best to script them as much as possible first so that each scene is building to a point of action or drama.
The second method is the text with pictures style. In this I play the game pretty much as standard but I'm looking for cues from the Sims so I can write it up as a story later on. Recently, I've had a potential date fall at the last hurdle and my main sim getting "friendzoned". In a standard game of Sims I might ignore that one time bad experience and push on another day until the date finally agrees to go out with the sim because you can game the interactions that way to get what you want, but in the storytelling mode I'll run with the rejection and frame future chapters around that incident. You need to pay attention to the little subtleties with interactions and spot where the story possibilities are.
@kellogg-J-Kellogg.....i think making a machinima would give you a bit of a different perspective when looking for inspiration in a character...that was very interesting how you described that process, thank-you. I would agree that events that happen in the game and especially something that created some type of emotional response in yourself as it happened can impact the direction of the story line. That could be an interesting topic all in itself.
Rouensims...hmm crank calls...i actually laughed out loud because my mind instantly went to the multitude of robo calls we get in a day and the fraudulent ones....it is a creative way to skirt around those types of calls in game...did one ever inspire you to incorporate it in your story?
Rouensims...hmm crank calls...i actually laughed out loud because my mind instantly went to the multitude of robo calls we get in a day and the fraudulent ones....it is a creative way to skirt around those types of calls in game...did one ever inspire you to incorporate it in your story?
Yes, I've considered all of the wedding inheritance calls real. They definitely spice things up!
I made a save recently of an elderly couple raising their grandson from a toddler. I created them in CAS. I am going to have the teen lose everything when his grandparents pass and be homeless. A rags to riches gameplay. I turned aging off so that the elderly couple wouldn’t pass before he aged up to teen then have them pass when he aged up. When I aged the boy up to teen, I had the grandfather pass away. As grandma and grandson were talking through their grief on the patio a story idea came to mind. What if while they were talking, the grandson asked grandma about how they met, what happened to his mother, who his father was. So I’m creating a new save to play their story out. The family is saved in my library so I’ll age grandma and grandpa down to teens because in my mind that’s when they met. The whole time I’m playing this, I’m imagining grandma telling this story to her grandson. I’ll play that save out up until the time they end up caring for him, then go back to the other save, pick up where I left off with her saying “and that my dear, is how I met the love of my life and how we got to be so blessed to have you in our lives. She will get up and give him a kiss and then she will pass away from grief and leave him with this love and also tragic story of her life and how he came to be. I will also make sure he’s inspired when I take a screenshot of that moment and make it a memory. That way when he starts thinking all is hopeless, I’ll have him remember this and inspire him to keep on going. I’m setting up the save to play and can’t wait to get started.
@sadiesue...that is such an inspirational lead in to a story...it would take a bit of doing to play out and some time which is so good to get connected a bit more to where your main character came from and how the experiences impact the adult him. I enjoyed reading about how you were going about setting this up...hope you immensely enjoy playing it out.
Comments
First I've tried my hand at making Machinima movies. With that I treat my Sims as actors so all the interactions are geared towards creating a scene I can video capture. You can make decent soap operas with that but it's best to script them as much as possible first so that each scene is building to a point of action or drama.
The second method is the text with pictures style. In this I play the game pretty much as standard but I'm looking for cues from the Sims so I can write it up as a story later on. Recently, I've had a potential date fall at the last hurdle and my main sim getting "friendzoned". In a standard game of Sims I might ignore that one time bad experience and push on another day until the date finally agrees to go out with the sim because you can game the interactions that way to get what you want, but in the storytelling mode I'll run with the rejection and frame future chapters around that incident. You need to pay attention to the little subtleties with interactions and spot where the story possibilities are.
Read Sim 66 here:https://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/978195/sim-66/p1
https://kelloggjkellogg.blogspot.com/2020/10/sim-66-prologue.html
In my game, I've decided that all of the phone calls are kids making crank calls.
Yes, I've considered all of the wedding inheritance calls real. They definitely spice things up!