The Pets expansion pack has a lot to appeal to the inner eight year old girl in all of us. (And to the actual eight year old girls playing the games - shout out to my younger gaming pals!) But surely the top contender, like heroin to a junkie, is the unicorns.

 

 

Unicorns have several special animations. They leave behind a sparkly trail when they gallop, their coat shines, they emit rainbows when they eat or drink, and more. The list of unicorn talents is also long: Theyhave the ability to Bless and Curse things, can set fire to structures, teleport, cure other curses, and extinguish fires. And finally, they have an unusually long lifespan: somewhere around 120 days, compared to about 60 days for a horse.

 

Unicorns also come with maximum Jumping and Racing skills. This raises an interesting possibility for a broke Sim. If you can manage to adopt a unicorn, you could probably make a fortune by entering it into races at the Equestrian Center! Unicorns can also be helpful if you are a gardener, because their ability to Bless plants will improve the plant's rating. (And as with horses, their poop can be scooped from box stalls and used as fertilizer.)

 

Unicorns are NPCs, and it seems that you get one per town. Just like many other positional NPCs, when one wild unicorn is gone, another will take its place. Adopting a wild unicorn triggers the game to spawn another wild unicorn to take its place. You can have multiple unicorns in your family, but there will only ever be one wild unicorn.

 

Every night there is a 40% chance that a unicorn will appear at 8PM. Like ghosts, they disappear at 5AM. They seem to be drawn to locations with water - in my Appaloosa Springs, I have only ever spotted a wild unicorn at the water treatment plant. To check for a unicorn, switch to Map View and look for a sort of sparkly cloud that indicates the unicorn's location.

 

To befriend a unicorn, you need to be "BFF" with 3 other animals, have patience, and bring some produce to feed it. (You can also use testingcheatsenabled true - just hold shift and click the unicorn, then select "Add to Active Family.")

 

Unicorns can be mated with horses and unicorns. Obviously a unicorn-unicorn pairing will produce a unicorn foal. A unicorn-horse pairing can produce either a unicorn or a horse.