Church of Similius

I never had any kind of religious aspects to my previous sim games, but Gakucca needed a church, for political reasons. The Count had to lose impact, and the church made for new alliances.

Although this might look like a traditional church, this is not a known religion. Church of Similius do belive in stuff, too, and the priest do preach, too. But the religion blends in with elements that you know from the game, such as the green and red need bars...

Check out the latest Galucca update for details :)

3 tales of SIMbepi - complexity of the past

My first The Sims 3 project, I think, was "the 3 tales of SIMbepi". A pretty detailed plot, with separate stories woven together, and featuring an interactive map allowing the reader to look for more information. The map was never 100% completed, but it certainly pushed the reader to investigate the case :)

Even so, I think the project was a bit too complex to most readers, and I know from forums that regulars from the Simmerville Hood site found the SIMBepi project confusing and weird. I enjoyed it a lot though, creating a pretty unique plot that nobody but myself were able to understand, I think :)

It all took place in Rosewood, actually a copy of Sunset Valley. It starts with an interactive intro-story (click on the banner below to get to the intro), which I still think was pretty cool. Then it all got started as three locals were given the SIMbepi mission, to write a diary for 33 simdays, then passing their mission on to some other ocal, and return their manuscript to the old mine. Along the road there were a few mysteries, not to forget poor Dorothy trying to reveal her real identity.

There is a decent story behind it all, which I assume might have worked better in other formats. Although the series stopped, the master plan was released, so anyone getting into this will find most of the answers. If you decide to give it a go, you should at least read the diaries of Bonet Jones, Bhera Moulino and Dorothy O'Brian - before you check out the master diary :) If not you will probably not find the latter one interesting at all.

Enjoy! :)

SimBasic - four stranded couples building up a community

SimBasic was completed a year ago, and I loved creating it!

The story focused on four couples stranded on a small island, building up a little community there to secure their own future. When the story closed, all original settlers were dead and third generation sims were to bring the community forward.

It was a challenge to find enough primitive objects for such a survival story, luckilly one of them turned out to be a pretty talented inventor, finding solutions to many of their problems. Most objects looked primitive by using wooden or weaver textures.

Running a small community like this is actually very fun, as you get to focus a lot on each of the characters. When you know the parents very well, you will also find the next generation interesting, wanting to explore their personalities as well. I think this, in connection with the many mysterious plots, helped me develop the story - and the little community.

The SimBasic blog still exists, just use the archive to find the oldest posts to avoid spoilers :)  The week-and-day count will help you keeping track on where to continue your next reading session.

Town of Galucca is developing nicely

One of my latest projects is called Galucca. It's a pretty large town, surrounded by a few country side neighbourhoods. In a separate blog I'm posting tidbits from the development. The town was founded by a noble family, as Count Gustavo Pettonta was rewarded the district due to heroic war efforts.

The story has already covered the first 100 years after the Pettontas set foot in the Galucca region. At this time the basic land development is all done, and Old Town is pretty much done, too. The future city region is still wasteland. If you want to follow the story of a growing town, now is a great time to hump in, because the focus has just moved from the land developments to the residents. The rest of the story will be told through five households.

The latest update is a teaser for the upcoming event at the Pettonta Castle. Some unskilled cook is preparing food for the party...
Check out castle cooking here! :)

Shops of Simmerville hood

My greatest project of the past was my Simmerville website. It started early 2001, and was closed nearly nine years later. When The Sims 3 was released, my The Sims 2 game was already unplayable because of too much content for my old computer. Simmerville became a pretty busy community spot, with so much content that I often felt bad for any newcomers trying to get on top of it all :)  Now, four years later, even I have trouble navigating that site. It's so packed with content that you simply can't find it all, even if you try very hard. Muha!

In this post I'll guide you to the old section of downloads. Most of it was in a section called SHOPPING, and it contained several stores ran by local sims residing the Simmerville hood. I knew them all, because they were all born in my game, some were running a business that their parent or grandparent once founded.

Little Shop Of Arts, ran by Adrian Hanssen, was one of my favourite shops in Simmerville. Creating new decor items, mainly posters and paintings, but also signs and cork boards, trigged lots of creativity. And creativity is actually a word that I feel describes these games well.

Gobelin Fashion, ran by 3rd generation, Petunia Gobelin. It was another popular store, actually founded back in my The Sims 1 game. My own creations for download wasn't really great, ha-ha, but the store itself was pretty decent.

You can check out all the The Sims 2 downloads here.

Hello to the world!

Just a quick note to say that I'm finally starting this new blog in order to gather all my The Sims related sites and threads from around the web. I've spread my stories widely in the past, it feels kinda urgent to build a new home that can be the start point for it all. A blog about my passion for The Sims.

I've been hooked on the series ever since 2001, and although I'm currently not playing as often, there's plenty of information to link up to this blog, as well as tons of game features I actually didn't try yet. So, anyone following me here will learn about old stuff as well as new :)

I also plan to write a few short stories, based on real families currently residing in the sim towns I built up from scratch, locations and characters that mostly have rich back stories. Stories will of course be illustrated, and they will be shorter than those I did in the past, perhaps just 2 or 3 parts per story. I love story telling, and I can't wait to get on with it all!

Right now I'm off to work a little on the the layout of this blog, but because layout won't be that important, I'll soon enough be back with updates :)

So long!