The Five Units Challenge - Report 18 - Donna's Engagement

Pregnancy tests are exciting, especially when they announce that your sim is eating for two! Donna was proven pregnant, and in a way she was relieved, because it meant she was now on the ball, one step closer to having a baby with black hair and green eyes!

Of course, her main heir won't need to fit the bill 100%, but bringing on the right genes will make it a lot easier for the next generation.

The Five Units Challenge - Report 17 - Donna dating

Donna spent hours on painting, almost daily she painted various motives and tried to learn new techniques. She needs to max out her painting skill, just like dad Abraham did.

But Abraham worried a bit.

The Five Units Challenge - Report 16 - Donna Grows Up

Sorry for the long break - but now this story is back on track with many future updates already well prepared. Today is Donna's young adult birthday, and finally the next generation can get some focus!

Donna is 1st generation after the founders Sylvia and Abraham Clump, who already filled the first 2 garden units. Donna will fill the 3rd, and her main heir and main heir's child will complete those remaining 2 units.

Cats and dogs moving in!

(TS4 - EP Cats & Dogs) I'm really enjoying this expansion pack. The pets come with a much better individual approach than in previous versions, I find their personality is a lot more diverse. They are charming, too, and a great assets to most families.

I'm not really into RL pets enough to gasp over all those breeds that are available. To me it would be just fine to have five generic versions to choose from. I'll never make use of all those detailed breeds on offer, and never did in previous series, but other simmers will enjoy the rich library, of course.

Also, there was introduced a new sim count meaning there is now a limitation to how many sims your game can handle. It's a rather generous limit though, but you obviously is not meant to fill up all your worlds and homes with families, like I do. You would reach your limit rather quickly. My game is the kind of played families on most residential lots in all worlds, and I like them to spread and mix, building family trees over the generations. Families I played the week TS4 was released are still in my game. So, it would be a headache needing to get rid of a single soul. Luckily I can go on with my strategy, but I can't add many more, and it means only a few families can have pets because they count as sims in this manner. Fair enough.

In my Gloomville (aka Willow Creek) the Crumpleton family has resided Uptown for ages. This family more or less founded Gloomville, and they built themselves a fortune. They have two Siamese cats, Bart and Lucia.

Touring Brindleton Bay, Whiskerman's Wharf

(The Sims 4, EP Cats & Dogs) When getting access to a new world, I love wandering about exploring all those small nooks and streets, finding those hidden views and trying to figure the location's history. In 4 parts I'll show you my Brindleton Bay favorites.

Let's start with the Whiskerman's Wharf district, nice area packed with great dockside atmosphere alongside those small, cozy streets climbing into the hills. What's this place's history, and what might the locals be like?

Taking a step back, I'm surprised to see how crowded Brindleton Bay actually is. On both sides of the waters you will find tight groups of small residential houses. It's a lush area, still with plenty of industry, old and new.

Detesters Revival - Completed!

Finally, TS3 testsims Pauline and Hector Detester's humorous story is now complete with all pictures revived! They were gone thanks to photo server service no longer accepting 3rd party posting. So, I uploaded all photos to this blog instead, crossing fingers for not getting a "sorry, server full" note.

My test sims Pauline and Hector Detester's story is now fully accessible!

I must admit that I enjoyed rereading the Detester story. This couple is probably among my better characters for a story, if you missed them in the past, I hope you will give them a chance and read from their first chapter. There is a developing story, but I think reading just random chapters might be fun, too :)

On a side note, while fixing the blog posts photos, I found that two chapters were never published! Meaning that even if you already read this blog story, there will be new stuff for you! Those two chapters will be posted during December, I'll post a notice when it's done.

Also note that I added chapter numbers and seasons to the posts. All chapters are linked from the Detesters story's main page.

Also Seagull Cottage and Town of Galucca were affected by the picture drop out, and will get their own revival during this Winter.

Teeth genetics

Oh, those teeth! I'd like bad teeth to be inherited, at least to one of the sim's kids. And I don't want random ugly teeth on all my in game born kids, but rare occasions would be good.

But I'm not even sure that the TS4 game deals with teeth genetics at all. There was only one way to find out, creating a couple in CAS and then play with genetics.

I gave both dad and mom (top row) special teeth, then they had 6 kids - 3 daughters and 3 sons. If teeth genetics exist, at least one of those 6 kids ought to get abnormal teeth, right?

But no, all 6 of them got perfect teeth, and I'm a tad disappointed. I guess the only way to give my families teeth genetics would be adding this feature to my manual genetics string. I'm not sure whether I want to do that, because the string already holds so much information. Besides, if EA adds just 1 more teeth version, a manual system would need to be tweaked. I might find another way instead.

A simple way could be that oldest son inherites mom's teeth, while oldest daughter inherits dad's teeth. In addition the remaining kids could have a tiny chance to get random teeth, decided with the help of a dice.

Do you add ugly teeth to your sims/kids?

Cats and Dogs - Brindleton Bay Screenshots

The Sims 4 Cats and Dogs EP is just around the corner - to be released on November 10th, and yesterday there was a stream session showing off the new world, Brindleton Bay. I captured a few screenies to share with you in case you want to refresh all those views!

Brindleton Bay comes with the countryside feel, but also includes the feel of a smalltown and the open ocean. Here's the world screen as you enter.

Detesters revival

Long time followers might recall my TS3 story about the "lovely" Pauline and her hubby Hector. They worked as testsims, had twin daughters and moved to town of Galucca. This series is not closed, but something beyond my control happened, forcing it all to be paused.

Pauline and Hector Detester are back!

All pictures were hosted by Photobucket, and I should have known - at one point all those free services will lock your content, and the only way you can regain access is to upgrade your account which normally means paying a never ending annual fee. I refused to pay them, so all my stories using pictures from them were ruined. When pictures can no longer be watched, a photo driven story becomes rather wasted, right?

This took place couple years ago, and I've finally started the work updating the Detesters story. I still kept all pictures safe, it just takes some time to fix it all. At the moment the first ten chapters were revived, and the rest will be fixed during November.

Also Seagull Cottage and Town of Galucca were affected by this (perhaps a few more, too), and will get its revival over the coming months.

You'll find the first Detesters chapter right here!

The Five Units Challenge - Report #15 - Skills

So, this challenge already reached report #15 and Donna is still a teenager? Well, not for much longer! She will grow up during next report, and her dad Abraham becomes old and grey in this report - stay tuned!

This challenge is mostly based on skills - not just random skills, but those based on someone's personality and interests. Donna is forced to max out her dad's Painting skill, and her mom's Cooking skill. In addition she can pick one personal skill, which she will not decide quite yet. Will it be singing? Will her unit of the garden simply contain a karaoke machine?

Donna's main heir will then need to max out all those 3 skills + one personal, and finally the last main sim will need to max out a total of 5 skills... while Donna is still in the house! I'm not even sure that will be possible...

Coming up: The Sims 4 Cats and Dogs

Pets are coming to the Sims 4 universe! Release date November 10th is only 5 weeks ahead!

This time the pets expansion focuses on cats and dogs, only, but there will also be raccoons and foxes. For the first time you can dress up your cat or dog, and in addition your sim can become a vet and run a Clinic.

Sounds good to me! Click here to head over to thesims.com for Cats and Dogs news and video and the latest screenshot releases!

The Five Units Challenge - Report #14 - Sylvia's Unit

It's weekend, and Sammy probably thought that he could make as much noise as he wanted. But seriously - playing the guitar while your siblings are eating breakfast?

Sammy is not very good at playing, some practice will do him good.