It’s Saturday and that means it’s time for another weekend update.
In addition there will be time for relaxing and writing and so on.
To the left of this paragraph is Stella Blake, my newest sim and still in college. Oh, and the guy she is kissing is named Nils. The Picture I cut this out from was taken during their second date, which was just as successful as the first had been - even more. In fact, at the end of the Date Stella and Nils got engaged (which is as far as you can get during college).
It's a good deal different from what I expected when I created her. Stella dreams of being a game designer one day and she lives in a dorm with a guy she also finds quite hot, Ralf. But while Ralf has indeed become a good friend, Nils, who never stopped calling her on the phone at least once a day, is now going to be the sim of her life. Well, at least that's how it looks at the moment. Stella still has one year of college ahead of her and will not have many troubles with learning, because her abilities are already well developed.
Two dates were all that was needed - and I've never managed a really successful date before, but this time it was surprisingly easy. And, as Nils is very family-oriented while Stella likes to gather knowledge, they'd be a good couple. It's not strange for sims if the father stays at home and takes care of the babies, anyway. So Stella can work and, with a little bit of luck, reach her life goal of becoming a game designer, while Nils can stay at home, once they have a child, and take care of the family. Once the child is old enough to go to school, he can return to work as well, if he wants to. They might even have several children, but I'll have to wait and see to find out. Currently children are out of the question anyway, making children isn't possible for a college student (unlike in real life).
I now plan for Stella to finish college, then I will let them have a nice vacation together ... who knows what might happen there … and then I'll see what I can do when it comes to family.
Sims are strange people sometimes, but then, so a real people...
Yes, I have done it again, I've bought the new Add-On for "The Sims 2". I just can't help it, I really like the game and every new Add-On really adds new possibilities to it.
Now my Sims can travel to three different locations for a holiday trip: Asia, the Caribbean and a mountain area. But that's not what this post will mainly be about. Although I could probably write two pages or more about the fact that those damn Sims are always practicing Tai Chi once they've learned it, you can't leave them alone for a minute or so without seeing them change into their sports suit. Grrrrr.
Apart from playing several families in Strangetown, one of the neighbourhoods you get with the original game, I'm also building Oakdale, my own neighbourhood.
Oakdale has - or will have at any rate - all the areas possible with the current Add-Ons: The main neighbourhood where most Sims just live, a college, a downtown (with clubs and so on), a shopping area and now, with the last Add-On, three areas for a vacation.
With the second Add-On (Nightlife) a neighbourhood could also have a cemetery (before that you had to keep your dead relatives - or former inhabitants of the house - around, either as urns [inside] or gravestones [outside]). As Oakdale has a custom downtown (meaning I'm building all those shops, clubs, discos and so on by myself), it also doesn't have a 'grown' cemetery.
Now, creating a cemetery that's devoid of graves would be quite stupid, so I've build a special lot to 'harvest' them. In other words: I'm creating whole families of Sims just to kill them, so that my 'Grim Reaper' (she really exists, a female with the family name Reaper and the first name Grim ... yes, I know, I need help) can pick up the gravestones/urns and take them to the cemetery (that works, as Sims have their own inventory in which they can keep every object they want). The lot, aptly named "The Deathtrap", consists of two large rooms without roofs, a wall for holding the doors of the rooms so Sims can't get out of them and die of starvation and three pools, one very small and just meant to hold the ladders so Sims can't leave the pool and drown when getting too tired. Have I mentioned already that I need help?
The first victim of my 'killing spree' actually was killed in Strangetown and he's still in the garden of his former house (now inhabited by a Sim I created to test those various vacation sites). I've even seen him spook around during a night, he scared the hell out of the new owner, actually. The next morning she dutifully cleaned the debris (dead flowers) off his grave and he's been a dear and stayed in his gravestone ever since.
There's two easy ways to kill a Sim - drowning and starvation, the methods I use on my deathtrap-lot. But, because Sims imprisoned in a room without a door, need to pee as well - and I don't want the next Sim with a death warrant on his head to have to clean everything away - I've put a toilet in my two rooms. The pools don't need one, although peeing in the water doesn't make the Sims very happy.
Six more Sims will have to die, the rest of the cemetery will fill up all by itself once I really start playing the neighbourhood - as people will die of natural courses or accidents and quite likely families moving into a lot where someone has died before will put the gravestone/urn in the cemetery instead of keeping it at home.
Now I wonder is this just my own build-in darkness or do I kill all those Sims because the "Killerspiele" have finally gotten me?
This post is about artificial life ... well, not about the kind of artificial life you get in the movies, the kind that goes around destroying everything or taking over the world. It's a much more simple and far less dangerous type of artificial life - a sim. My sim, to be precise.
That's her, over there on the left side of this paragraph, Mara Grey, my current sim. She's at college, studies literature, aspires to be a criminal mastermind one day (that's her life wish, something the game actually decides on it's own, you just get told, you can't influence it). Mara is currently a bit smitten with a guy she's met on a trip to the shopping mall - and she's very good at college as well, will surely make it on the list of the best students. In many ways she's not like me at all, she doesn't even look like me, but I nevertheless like playing her.
So I wonder what the reason for this really is. I spent hours basically doing everything I do in regular life as well. I take care of a household, I go to work, I go out with friends, spent some (though not too much) time shopping and so on. I even do things I don't really want to do in everyday life (like raising kids, I'm not good with kids at all). In essence the whole game is some sort of speeded-up life cycle. Your sim is born, a baby, a small child, a school child, a teenager, an adult and an old person ... and dies. So after eight hours of work, why spent two or three more hours doing the same stuff you've been doing all day?
The main answer may be: because you can try out everything you've always wanted to do in real life, but weren't brave enough to do. In the game I can start again as often as I want, I can be everything and everyone I want. I can have my own shop or climb the ladder to the top positions of every career. I can have lots and lots of children. I can be a very romantic and flirty person in one 'life' and a very sombre, knowledge- or money-orientated person in the next. There's no chance to ever play the same game twice, some things will always be different, no matter how you try to do everything just as before.
Back to Mara. What I plan for her? Not sure, but she'll finish college, maybe marry Claus (that's the guy she's currently smitten with). She'll probably try for a job in the criminal career (though I'm not sure, I would favour a job in the paranormal career, but they are rare). All the other things will happen when they happen ... maybe she'll have kids - with Claus or someone else, there's more cute guys around than just him - or maybe she'll have none, I've not decided about it yet. Maybe she'll dream about having some in her future ... and maybe I'll grant her that wish. Maybe I will fulfil her life wish and she'll be the sims-equivalent of Al Capone. There's a lot of 'Maybes' in the future of Mara, but one thing is for sure: she'll have an interesting life - maybe more interesting than mine. And that's the real reason why I sometimes spent hours playing the game. It may just be a shadow of real life, but it's an interesting shadow.
