Sims 4 - A day in the life of Trevor Tinsdale

[oxybe]

So EA was giving away a free copy of the base Sims 4 game through Origin.

To prove why shouldn't give me a free god game, I decided to make Trevor Tinsdale, {Scrubbed} author.

Trevor loved all things anime from a young age. Legend speaks that his first words were Kamehameha! However his parents got tired of being call Kaa-san and Oto-san by their jobless, basement dwelling 25year old, so they sold his manga, his "totally real authentic steel samurai swords" and kicked him out of the house.

So he moved across town into what was basically a fancy shed. Let loose upon the world, Trevor's rein of terror begins as he writes terrible light novel after terrible light novel, becoming the "acclaimed" author of the hit series "In another world with my magic toaster".

Today we take a dive within the daily goings-on of Trevor Tinsdale, {Scrubbed}

Because the images are huge, I'll link to the imgur gallery instead

And that's a day in the life of Trevor Tinsdale.

Spoiler

Show

Sims is a funny thing. You can always find some sort of easy exploit. In Trevor's case, until I actually enough cash flow from royalties of his terrible light novels, I realized that you can just order a pizza, chat up a storm and invite people to live with you... and these pizza delivery folks come with a smooth 20k in savings that goes strait to your bank.

I then built a basement with a small "staff kitchen" and the barebones necessities and had that poor delivery lady make artwork and sell it for profit. after a while I saved enough and had run out of pizza, in which I called a second order in.

Repeat cash flow influx and expansion of the basement into those tiny, florescent lit cells that contain a bed, a shower, a toilet an easel, some weird painting and an overhead speaker that may or may not be pacifying them with subliminal messages contained in a calming lullaby music.

Unlike Sims 3, it seems like Sims 4 characters don't really get stir crazy from never seeing the sun again so locking them in a basement will only at worst cause them to feel lonely.

Thus the shared kitchen space where they can talk between each other, play chess for fun and make food should i forget to buy them pizza/make muffins.

All while some pudgy {Scrubbed} author lives it up in a gussied up shed.

Note that since this is just the base game, the closest I could find on short notice to "animator" was that painting station. There might be something more appropriate in an expansion, but I'm not yet ready to send Trevor into the terrifying world of DLC.

[Man_Over_Game]

I dig it. I do like how the emotions of your Sim plays a big part in how they do stuff, but I do wish they told you HOW they play a part.

+1 happiness? What does that even mean? What's a +1 vs. a +2?

Found out a few things of importance:

• Stuff that adds an emotion of some kind (like a sciencey statue that raises Focus) has to be turned "on" to emit that emotion.
• Your Lot can have traits, including things like faster Wi-Fi, or it is very secluded so that people don't walk around your house very often (maybe because your house gives people the creeps). Implement these traits in Build Mode, by clicking on the 'i' on the top left.
• Don't buy a stereo. Your Sim will turn it on as soon as you turn it off, and then it'll break. Mine breaks about once every 3 days.
• Don't buy a coffee pot. There's some weird bug where your Sim will constantly have a "Wait for Coffee to Brew" action in queue, permanently, until you restart the game. He'll ignore it, like normal, but it's annoying to have in the queue, and coffee doesn't raise your energy much in the first place (mostly it just prevents it from going down or negatively impacting your Sim).
• Gourmet Foods are different than normal foods. They don't give you much in terms of Hunger, but they do grant you good emotional benefits.

I had my Sim be a tech guy that just does nothing but work. It takes a while, but after you get your Programming up, making games and apps takes about 2 days, earns you 2k each, and each one rakes in about $50-100 each day after they're made. Additionally, the super trait in the Tech Guru Aspiration lets you do additional stuff on the internet, including a Research Binge, which increases all of your skills at the same time. It's...REALLY stupid.

My wife likes to build a lot of stuff, but doesn't want to put in the grind needed to actually earn money, so I made my Sim around the idea of being her sugar daddy so she can spend all of my money. We've gone full circle, playing a successful version of our real lives. It could only get more surreal if our Sims played a game that was more realistic than Sims 4.

[JadedDM]

To think of all the people who invited guests over, moved them in, and then just killed them to collect their money...when all along, they could have been put to work instead.

[Man_Over_Game]

Is there a "hard mode" you could turn on in the game?

Where you earn $100-$300 a day throughout your career, you're an elder by the time you get your 4th promotion, and occasionally letting your utilities get shut off is a valid strategy?

I'd like to see who could perfect that.

Or maybe the closest thing to implementing something like that is playing as one adult with 4 kids, or something. Just so much of a money and time tax that it's impossible to gain any ground.

[Inmate XIII]

I now realize that I need more Trevor in my life.

[oxybe]

now that he's accomplished his litterary goals i need to think of another path for him to follow while his sweatshop animation studio picks up speed and "animates" what he's got written.

maybe he'll take up an actual job?

Nah. maybe I'll look into the expansions. I think I saw some with supernatural stuff or the ability to start businesses. Those look ripe for a Trevor'ing.

[Anymage]

The only strongly supernatural pack is vampires. Which does give some very solid vampires (you can chose their power layout to either match a given mythology or else to personalize each one), but other than vampires and vampire-themed fashion and decor, you don't get much else.

If you want Trevor and his crew to really go all in, top picks would be Get Together (has a flexible club mechanic that allows you to strongly encourage groups/cliques and their behaviors) and Get Famous (because what fanboy wouldn't like a celebrity system).

[Vinyadan]

While I never quite got The Sims (it's the only game that reminds you of all the other things you could do instead of sitting at a desk), I wonder: how good would it be for beginners learning a foreign language? Does it have many "labelled" items to learn new words?

[Man_Over_Game]

While I never quite got The Sims (it's the only game that reminds you of all the other things you could do instead of sitting at a desk), I wonder: how good would it be for beginners learning a foreign language? Does it have many "labelled" items to learn new words?

I suppose so, yes.

While playing the Sims, most of your needs are easily highlighted using symbols, yet actions you take to resolve those are shown with a combination of symbols and words. You don't have to really understand English to understand your Sim needs to use the bathroom, or what a bathroom looks like. You DO need to understand English to choose to either Clean or Use the toilet. Building a house might be a bit complicated, as it's easy to blow through a lot of money, and it might take some time to figure out how to reset things and retry. Additionally, each object has unique values (Comfort, Environment, Fun, Hygiene) that are unique and don't make a lot of sense without context of the game first. Why is my bath "Fun", and why does my Rug make me Focused?

Additionally, some objects have some weird interactions, and some choices might not appear to have any effect at all. For example, some objects can emit an aura of emotion for a Sim, but the Player has to turn them on. "Enable Emotion Aura Effect", with an orange icon (indicating it's a Player-Activated option) might not make any sense to a foreign speaker, especially since I didn't understand it at first as a native speaker.


It'd be good if there was a teacher nearby, who was knowledgeable of the game and was capable of answering any questions. Or maybe if the player was already experienced in the game, and simply used it as a way of developing word recognition.

[oxybe]

@Vinyadan
I find the sims less of an ideal life simulatior and more of a "so how can I hunger games this $h*t ? " thing. It's a self contained petri dish of barebones AIs with their own wants and needs. Find a eay to manipulate them and watch the chaos ensue.

@Man_Over_Game
wait some objects have auras that affect emotions?

Hm... I wonder how I can use this knowledge to make 'ol Trevor an even more horrible person?

For now I've simply been testing what happens when you leave garbage lying around, and it seems like it causes garbage plants to grow of left on the soil...I wonder if I can grow premium quality refuse? Have Trevor become King of the garbage House. Nothing but the highest quality ordure will do for our acclaimed author.

[Man_Over_Game]

@Man_Over_Game
wait some objects have auras that affect emotions?

Hm... I wonder how I can use this knowledge to make 'ol Trevor an even more horrible person?

For now I've simply been testing what happens when you leave garbage lying around, and it seems like it causes garbage plants to grow of left on the soil...I wonder if I can grow premium quality refuse? Have Trevor become King of the garbage House. Nothing but the highest quality ordure will do for our acclaimed author.

You'll want to look for items with the term "Décor". As in, a Focused Décor item will produce a Focused aura, good for interacting with nerdy things like reading or gaming.

You earn a lot of these items for free by accomplishing levels into a career. For example, the Tech Guru career got me about 5 or so free Focus items to put around my house, so he's constantly able to do his work at home. Many of these items are locked until you've earned them as a career bonus, then they're unlocked for all of your Sims to buy.

If you're interested to see your lot's inventory of unused items (like those you get for free) they're in the Build menu, on the tab on the very bottom left of the UI (beneath the object store tab).

[Vinyadan]

Spoiler

Show

I suppose so, yes.

While playing the Sims, most of your needs are easily highlighted using symbols, yet actions you take to resolve those are shown with a combination of symbols and words. You don't have to really understand English to understand your Sim needs to use the bathroom, or what a bathroom looks like. You DO need to understand English to choose to either Clean or Use the toilet. Building a house might be a bit complicated, as it's easy to blow through a lot of money, and it might take some time to figure out how to reset things and retry. Additionally, each object has unique values (Comfort, Environment, Fun, Hygiene) that are unique and don't make a lot of sense without context of the game first. Why is my bath "Fun", and why does my Rug make me Focused?

Additionally, some objects have some weird interactions, and some choices might not appear to have any effect at all. For example, some objects can emit an aura of emotion for a Sim, but the Player has to turn them on. "Enable Emotion Aura Effect", with an orange icon (indicating it's a Player-Activated option) might not make any sense to a foreign speaker, especially since I didn't understand it at first as a native speaker.


It'd be good if there was a teacher nearby, who was knowledgeable of the game and was capable of answering any questions. Or maybe if the player was already experienced in the game, and simply used it as a way of developing word recognition.

OK, thank you. This is mostly because, while there are a lot of games with lots of words, like Morrowind and Skyrim, their dialogues are normally too complex for a real beginner to use, while the fantasy setting means that many of the words from the items are actually useless. Sims seems to me like it should solve both problems. If one played for, let's say, five hours in English, would it be enough to learn the game and its interface, and then try it out in another language?