Sim 2 Sim | Sims information, gaming tips, cheat codes, and the latest game news

Sims Keep Eating The Wrong Pancake Ingredients!

Curse those flame fruit pancakes!

I had to laugh when I ran across this Rage Comic this morning by Reddit user Sumurika. How many times have you collected some valuable fruit or fish, only to discover that your Sim has cooked and eaten it when you weren't paying attention?

At a basic level, this happens because of the game's logic for choosing food ingredients. Your Sim will choose the best ingredients available when they make a meal. If your Sim happens to have two grapes, a tomato, and a Flame Fruit in their inventory, then guess what they are going to make into pancakes? Yep: say goodbye to that Flame Fruit!

This is a major annoyance when you are trying to collect certain foods. For example, Sumurika was trying to collect Flame Fruit so that she could make Angel Food Cake. It always happens to me with Life Fruit, which I want to hoard up so that my Sims can use them in Ambrosia.

If you bake Life Fruit into Ambrosia, your Sim's life clock is set back to the beginning of their life stage. On the other hand, if you just eat the Life Fruit, it adds another day to their lifespan. Which is kind of a waste, comparatively speaking!

I had the great idea at one point to have one gardener Sim raise dozens of Life Fruit, which I would then store and dole out in the future. That way I only had to garden once, and never have to bother with it again! But guess what? Most of the Life Fruit got eaten along the way. Sigh!

The best way to keep this from happening is to put the desirable ingredients into your Family Inventory. Just drag all of them out of your Sim's inventory onto the ground. Then switch to Buy Mode, click the "empty cardboard box" tab, and drag them in there. Fish and produce in the Family Inventory won't spoil, and your grabby-hands little Sims won't be able to access them there.

Another option is to set up a separate kitchen - or even just a fridge in a closet - and lock the door. You can lock the door to everyone but just one Sim, or lock the door for everyone. This lets you easily send one Sim in to make Ambrosia or Angel Food Cake, without risking everybody turning it into pancakes. (Just be sure that your designated Sim doesn't sneak in there to make pancakes when you're not looking!)

And just like that, I'm done (with Sims Social and Freeplay)

Oh core game, how I love you so!

Ever love something like crazy, and then one day you look back and realize you've ignored it for at least two weeks? It's like a switch gets flipped. One day I'm checking my Sims five or six times a day, and then bam: zero interest in the game whatsoever.

It's a measure of how AWESOME the core games are, that I have never lost interest in them. I have literally been playing the Sims PC games more or less continuously since February of 2000.

But The Sims Social and Freeplay… yeah, no. I'm done.

What doomed me with The Sims Social was a truly crushing defeat. One so disappointing that I couldn't face playing the game anymore. It was that darned tower, with the dragon, and all the Mice and Brick! I wanted it so badly. I played regularly, several times a day, frantically exchanging necessary materials, clicking on other people's feeds, crossing my fingers that they would click mine, and so forth.

As it came down to the wire, I gave up. I have to confess, I dropped eight real-world dollars on the game. Eight bucks! That's eight cheeseburgers off the McDonald's Dollar Menu! But there were literally only three hours left, and I was so close.

OR SO I THOUGHT.

Turned out, after I bought all the materials I needed… there was still one more task to complete. I hadn't noticed, because I hadn't scrolled down far enough. It would have cost me another $8-10 to finish it.

And so, ever mindful of the Sunk Cost Fallacy, I logged out of Facebook and never looked back. I meant to only make it a two or three day break. But that was weeks ago.

As for Freeplay, I finally determined that there is no free will for either your Sims OR THE PLAYER. You see, I had started out by trying to get a baby. Bought the crib, married a pair of Sims and everything. But no luck with the baby.

Then I finally managed to complete enough goals that the game gave me the goal of marrying a pair of Sims and having a baby. In other words, I could apparently only do it when the game told me to.

I don't play the Sims franchise to spend hours playing "Simon Says." So I quit the game and never looked back.

On the up side, this has left me a lot more free time to explore the Showtime expansion pack! Oh core game, how I love you so!

What Could Be In Store For The Sims 4?

Idle speculation: GO!

We have pretty solid information that the developers at EA have started working on The Sims 4. Although it will most likely be a long while (perhaps several years) before the game hits the shelves, there is still plenty to talk about in the mean time.

A two minute promo (really more of a demo real) for Sims 4 was leaked a few months ago. It seems to be legit, and in fact EA has had it taken down from YouTube - but it still exists here and there on various fan sites.

My first thought on seeing the promo was, "I'm going to need a better computer." Which is both funny and sad, because the entire reason I bought this computer - this one right here that I'm using to write this article - was because I needed a better computer so that I could play The Sims 3. Can it be time to buy a new computer already? (All signs point to "Yes." My current computer has to stop to render things when I switch to a new lot. I shudder to think what would happen if it tried to churn through all the animations showed in the video.)

Most of what the promo shows seems to be a vastly improved set of camera controls. The camera pans and swoops and - gasp! - it changes focus! Could "depth of field" finally be coming to the Sims franchise? It may not seem like much to many players, but for the creators of Sims blogs and fan vids, this would truly be revolutionary.

Here's my wish for The Sims 4: I want it to truly feature a buildable world. Imagine a map that doesn't end, but lets you keep building out roads and lots to your heart's content. It would truly be the best combination of the Sims and SimCity franchises.

One of the few real downfalls to The Sims 3 is the small size of the towns (or worlds, depending on the context). It's frustrating to have to choose which buildings to place, because there are so few empty lots - or places where you can add a new empty lot. Being freed of that restriction would be heavenly!

The promo also teases at the possibility of having real apartment buildings. Multi-story dwellings where each floor is usable, imagine that! The Late Night expansion pack brought us semi-apartment buildings, 40 story urban skyscrapers which contain 2 or 3 apartments at most. Imagine being able to fill the ENTIRE BUILDING with apartments and Sims! Imagine having a town with hundreds, maybe thousands of potentially controllable Sims on your map!

(Imagine buying a new graphics card, or two, or three.)

Here, EA. Just take my wallet now.

Sims Freeplay: Marriage and Babies

Getting to the proposal is basically a matter of spamming your beloved with Romantic interactions.

Lucky me, it turns out that I coincidentally began playing The Sims Freeplay right after they implemented a huge update: on March 17, EA rolled out an update which allowed your Freeplay Sims to get married and have babies.

It's not easy, though!

The first thing is, you need to have a player level of 10 or above. You can check your level on the bar at the top of the screen. If you are still in the single digits, then you will need to work on collecting XP in order to level up.

XP is the only way to increase your player level. You collect XP from almost any action, small or large. One of the best ways I have found to get XP so far is to buy a skill item for $1,000 and set a Sim to work. The skill items only drop XP, not Simoleons.

These objects have the additional benefit of boosting your Sim's career level, assuming you have coordinated the object with the career. For example, a Sim on the Artist career track should work at a painting easel. A Sim who works at the Science Center should use a telescope, and so forth. You can find the appropriate item for your Sim by expanding the bottom left-hand roll-out Employment menu.

As in The Sims 3, getting to the proposal is basically a matter of spamming your beloved with Romantic interactions. Except that in this case, you only get three choices. Luckily, other Sims never seem to get bored with your advances. Mix it up with some Friendly and Funny actions, just to keep that relationship up. Once their relationship is high enough, you will get the option to "Propose Marriage."

Here's a tricky thing: you have to buy a ring. The better the ring, the more likely your beloved will accept your proposal. If they refuse your proposal, you're out the money for the ring. Bummer!

Once your Sims are married, having a baby is simply a matter of buying a baby crib. Click on the crib in order to receive a delivery from the Stork Network. Woo hoo is not involved!

Have you been able to get your Sims married? Have you had babies yet? Can same-sex couples get married in this game? Can they have babies? This will be my next experiment, I am very curious to see how they handle the situation!

3 Ways Sims Freeplay Feels Weird

Sims will Woo Hoo with each other right there in the living room while their neighbors sit on the couch watching their television. (Kinky!)

If you have been playing the Sims franchise of games for very long (I started in February, 2000) you get a feel for how they work. Having played Sims Freeplay for a few weeks, here are some of my more in-depth reactions to some of the odder bits of the game.

1. No free will

Sims Freeplay is frequently compared to a Tamagotchi, and the comparison is apt. If you leave your little Sims or simply neglect their needs for too long, bad things happen. They have zero free will. Left to their own devices, they will simply stand right where you last put them, stinking, starving, exhausted, and having to pee. They won't lift a finger to help themselves, which can feel frustrating to an experienced Simmer.

Can a Sim die in Freeplay? I haven't tested this yet, but I suspect not. Because it would be too easy for them to die. If death was on the table, every time you left your game for more than a few days, you would come back to a town full of dead Sims. That would sure make players angry!

2. No shame or sense of home

Freeplay lacks the programming logic that tells Sims who their friends and family members are, and which home they live at. (According to a splash screen tip, Sims are supposed to earn more when they perform an action on their home lot. That's not the case in my game, but I'm not sure if the tip is wrong, or my game is just broken. Even odds, there.)

As a result, Sims will Woo Hoo with each other right there in the living room while their neighbors sit on the couch watching their television. (Kinky!) You can have a complete stranger showering in the bathroom, and send another Sim in to use the toilet, and no one will complain. Strangers will even share beds with each other without complaint.

I want to say "they're like animals," but animals know whose bed is whose!

This is convenient for the player. But it's also a little disconcerting.

3. Prices fluctuate wildly

In most of the Sims games, the price of something is its price, end of story. (Not counting celebrity discounts or sales at the bookstore, of course.) But in Sims Freeplay, the cost to add a new Sim or build a town building varies depending on your player level and number of Sims. The higher your player level, and the more Sims you have, the more expensive everything becomes. (Which is why you shouldn't add more Sims until the game tells you to!)

Sims Freeplay Strategy: LP

Budget it carefully, so you don't have to buy it!

As a general rule, there are two strategy rules for Lifetime Points (LP):

1. Gather as much of it as you can

2. Spend it as rarely as possible

In other words, you want to bank up as much LP as you can. Let's take a look at these rules one at a time.

1. Gathering LP

There is basically only one way to get LP for free, and that's to fulfill goals. Sure, the dog can occasionally dig up an LP point or two, but in my experience, that's pretty rare.

It's annoying that you can't control the goals that the game gives you. There doesn't (as far as I can tell) seem to be any way to pass on or cancel a goal. You either fulfill it or it sticks there forever. (If this is not the case, please let me know!)

This just emphasizes the fact that optimum gameplay will be driven by the goals. It's a strange feeling if you're used to the "ultimate sandbox" nature of the Sims desktop games. (Less strange if you are a Sims Social player.)

Naturally, you can also buy LP for real-world money. Currently, LP runs 60 points for $9.99. Ouch!

You can also earn LP for free, by doing a lot of sketchy things like signing up for the Dr. Seuss Book Club or a Gamefly account. I urge you NOT TO DO THIS. Trust me, if you want the LP that badly, it's cheaper in the long run to just buy it with cash money.

2. Spending LP

The game really pushes you to spend LP in order to make things go faster. Use this power wisely! One example of when it works to use LP is if you need to earn a certain amount of money, which you can do from a long action (like a 12-hour gardening), but you want to move forward in the game. Sure, go ahead and spend that LP. The important thing is to not make a habit out of it, and not to do it mindlessly.

Why hoard your LP? I recently encountered a good example: I wanted to buy a crib so that we could have a baby. Surprise, a crib costs a staggering $10,000! Considering how miserly the game is with Simoleons, this represented a pretty big outlay for me.

But if you don't mind a boring shade of brown, you can buy a basic crib for only 9 LP!

Another example is players who need to buy the RC Boat in order to complete a goal. That thing costs a whopping 50LP at the Hobby Shop!

Sims Social and Freeplay: A Glimpse of the Anti-Piracy Future?

Will this be how the world's most pirated game fights back?

Regardless of where you fall on the piracy continuum, one thing is very clear: EA hates it. Right or wrong (and I know people who will argue either way) EA is convinced that it is losing millions of dollars of revenue per year to piracy of its flagship game, The Sims 3. And when a company is convinced that it is losing millions of dollars of revenue per year, it fights back.

EA has tried a lot of different anti-piracy measures in the past. SecureROM proved to be a major debacle, one of the few instances of gamer news that broke through to the mainstream media. Spore was originally going to ship with SecureROM, and it was originally going to be inextricably tied to one specific computer. Buy a new computer? Too bad - you have to buy a new copy of Spore, too.

Public outrage caused EA to roll back its anti-piracy measures for Spore. The same thing happened with The Sims 3, albeit in smaller form. And by going light on the anti-piracy measures, EA was treated to the spectacle of The Sims 3 literally setting piracy records.

That's the thing about anti-piracy measures: they only punish the legitimate users who pay the $60 to buy the base game. The game gets cracked and shopped around to all the torrent sites within hours.

So what's a billion-dollar game development company to do?

One possibility is to figure out a way to basically give the cow away for free, but charge you for the milk. This levels the economic playing field, because both pirates and legit consumers pay the same amount for the base game ($0). And if they can make the "milk" tempting enough, they can capture revenue from both pirates and legit consumers.

But how?

Two current models show us what EA may be planning for future Sims title releases. Both The Sims Social and The Sims Freeplay are free for consumers to play, on Facebook and the iPhone/iPad respectively. But both games offer a ton of things for you to buy - and each game wields its own set of strong-arm tactics to convince you to pony up real cash.

The challenge for EA is to make the base game interesting enough to catch a player's eye. I think they have done this well for Sims Social, but I'm not convinced Freeplay is catchy enough to work this way. You can't pirate Freeplay… but I'm not sure it's interesting enough for anyone to WANT to.

Is this what The Sims 4 will look like? And if it is, would you be happy or angry?

Sims Freeplay: Adding Buildings

You want a pet shop, or maybe a hobby store. But how the heck do you get one?

It all began when I read the Sims Freeplay in-game help file. (You can access help on by clicking the white on green "…" button at the bottom center of your screen, then click the white "I" at the lower left, then click Help. It's a measure of what a mystery this game is, that it's so hard to find the help file!)

To buy more dogs, it helpfully explained, simply build a pet shop. Want to buy your Sims cars? Build an auto shop!

BUT HOW.

Here's the lowdown on adding buildings to your town: there are a lot of thresholds, and the ability kind of appears and disappears. Your best bet is to keep periodically checking your town map to see if the game will let you build yet.

When you are allowed to build, a grayed out map tag will float above the lot. Click this tag and a pop-up will tell you how much it will cost you to build the lot, how long it will take to build, and what your Sims can do there. Most lots give your Sims a career (like Painter or Singer). A few lots let your Sims buy stuff (like the hobby shop and grocery store).

What I found was that I was unable to build anything until the game gave me a goal to "Add a building to the town." Once I got that goal, I switched to the main map and found a few buildings I could add. You only get to choose from a sub-set of all the possible buildings. I believe that the "better" buildings get unlocked as your player level improves.

The third time I got one of these "Add a building" goals, I was granted the ability to add a pet store, hobby shop, and grocery. I chose the hobby shop. When I did so, the ability to add a pet store and a grocery disappeared. However, they later reappeared, although I'm not sure what magical threshold I passed to unlock them. It may have something to do with town value.

Incidentally, I have seen a lot of people asking where to get the RC Boat in Freeplay. The answer is that you have to build the hobby shop. Then you can purchase the RC Boat for 50 (!!) LP.

Sims Freeplay: Backing Up To The Cloud

Freeplay lets you back up your game to the cloud - if you can figure out how!

The biggest frustration with trying to play Sims Freeplay on an iPad is just figuring out how things work. There appears to be one single (poorly spaced) help document that - as is so often the case - isn't nearly helpful enough.

One project I recently undertook was to figure out the deal with the little cloud icon. If you go to the main menu (click the three white dots on a green background at the bottom center of your screen), the middle right-hand option is a cloud. Why? What is the cloud for?

After experimenting, I discovered that this button actually backs up your information not to "the cloud" or to iCloud (as you might reasonably expect). Instead, it backs up your game to your Facebook account. How it does this, I have absolutely no idea. Why it does this, I have even less idea.

I suspect that your game data is actually being stored on EA's servers, but that it uses access through your Facebook account to pull the information. I'm sure this seemed like a good idea to someone at the time.

It's nice to have the ability to back up your game. (You cannot, for example, back up your Sims Social game.) However, it turns out that your backup will only be good for seven days.

This means that either you need to back up your game once a week, or just give up the idea of backing your game up at all. It's clear that this functionality is meant more as a way to port your Sims Freeplay game to another device. For example, you could use this to move your game if you buy a new iPad, or if you want to switch from your iPhone to your iPad and back.

ICloud can back up "most data on your iPad," including apps that you have purchased. But will it back up your gameplay data? Does the gameplay data even "live" on your iPad, or is it stored remotely, either on your Facebook account or on EA's servers? I must admit, I have not been able to find the answer to these questions.

If you value your Sims Freeplay game, I think your best option is to set yourself a calendar reminder to back up your game once a week. Every Sunday night, for example, or every Friday morning - whatever day and time you think you will be likely to remember easily.

Sims Freeplay: The Passage of Time

This is both the blessing and the curse of Freeplay. It's also part of what makes it so addictive, and keeps you coming back to play

When I first began playing The Sims Freeplay, I was annoyed that you could neither pause the game nor speed it up. Then I realized that the game was taking place in real time, and it BLEW MY MIND.

When it's 9:07PM in real life, it's 9:07PM in your game. When it's half past noon in real life, it's half past noon in your game. And when an action says it will take ten seconds, it takes ten real world seconds.

This is both the blessing and the curse of Freeplay. It's also part of what makes it so addictive, and keeps you coming back to play. For example, I was finally able to add a building to my town. I chose the art gallery, so that my Creative Sim could start her career as a painter.

The Painter career track begins with swing shift job that runs from 5PM to midnight. It was only 9AM, though. How to fill the time? I counted the hours between now and 5PM and chose to send her for a deep sleep, which takes 7 hours. Plenty of time for her to finish her sleep (and get all the XP!) and still get to work.

Sims Social players are already somewhat familiar with this phenomenon. You choose which crop to plant, based on how long it will be before you can check in with the game again. If you can check back in an hour, you plant a 1hr crop. If you can't make it back to the game until tomorrow, you plant a 12hr or 24hr crop. And then you make a mental note to be back in time to harvest, lest all your hard work and patience be lost with a wilted crop!

One annoyance with Freeplay is that you can't queue up actions. This means that if you tell your Sim to shower for 10 seconds, you need to sit there and wait for them to finish with their shower before you tell them the next thing you want them to do. It's all part of the game, though. What use would it be to have this mind-blowing time system if people could just stack a bunch of 8hr actions and come back in a few days?

This is also where you can see the benefit of having multiple Sims in your game. Queue up an action for Sim 1, and click over to play with Sim 2 while you wait for that first action to complete.

Pages