Friday 20 April 2007

Pic of the day: If you look at the picture in my two years ago entry, you'll find the same redhead there. But a lot has happened in the meantime. The attractive (if slightly too skinny) young woman is the daughter of the child with the toy oven. She is also my granddaughter. OK, not really.

My Sims 2 family

In the picture two years ago, the guy in the background is my self-sim, created in my image. (Except that I suck at visual artistry, so he looks only vaguely related. The personality is pretty close though.) This was when University was the latest expansion pack for the game. I was playing in Pleasantview, the first of the three neighborhoods that came with the game, already halfway populated. I had created a self-sim and his Eve: A female that was a clone of me as well, just gender-switched. They loved each other dearly, as can be expected, since I love myself dearly too, and surely would even more if I were a woman. Anyway, my vague plan at the time was to take over the world by having lots of small Itlands and raising them to breed with the townies. I gave up on this when I had something like 6 sims kids in various stages of life. The oldest of them was Melinda, my firstborn Sim-child. There is a certain random element, so even though she was the child of two genetically equal parents, she was slightly different, but not all that much.

Melinda grew up and went to university. There she fell in love with one of the male professors. She was thinking about him every day, wanting to be nice to him in various ways, and to flirt and kiss him. He was in love with her too. So after she graduated, I let them get what they wanted. Weirdness ensued. On his first visit to her family, he started to flirt like crazy not just with her mother and sister but also her father. She became very jealous and angry and started to hate him instead of loving him. It turns out that this particular professor was insane. I assume it was some kind of game bug, but who knows. I know that I've had another professor in a romantic relationship later but she did not behave like that. Anyway, in real life some people really are crazy, so I just worked it into the story.

Even though Melinda now hated professor Weylon Reeves, she still missed him. In the mornings she was OK, but the later in the evening it was, the more she rolled wants to do nice or romantic things to him again. As the hate faded over time, I let her talk to him again, and gradually their relationship improved - over the telephone at first, but eventually they got back together. They married and had a child, Linda Reeves. Life was good.

But unfortunately, professor Reeves has this insane delusion that all people he meet are his lovers and best friends. Each and every one of them, men and women, except only the children and teenagers. So in the fullness of time he tried to kiss a random guest, and Melinda got furious with him again, as did their daughter, who was now in grade school. It was not long after this that I stopped playing that neighborhood on that computer for about a year and nine months.

When I returned to the neighborhood, it was three expansion packs later. (Although I skipped Pets. I tried it on another computer and disliked it strongly.) I was playing around with the new features of Seasons, and soon ended up with the family saga I wrote about earlier this month. This was set in the same neighborhood where I had played my self-sim, although I had mostly forgotten that. The heir to the farm in generation 3 had a childhood friend that was vaguely familiar and cool: Linda Reeves. (The girl with TiVo at home... not actually true, there is no TiVo in the game.) And so, after having come to a natural break point in the farmer "legacy", I went over to Linda's place and played their family again.

For a second time in his life, the crazy professor Reeves was hated by his wife, and now also his daughter. I took care to not invite any guests, and since he was still not run out of the house, I slowly rebuilt the family ties while Linda grew up. Eventually they were all friends again. And then came spring. In Seasons, spring is the season of romance. And just like the last time, Melinda had forgiven her husband and wanted to do both this and that with him. He, of course, was still in love with her... as he was with every other adult in the world. And so she fell in love with him again. Unfortunately, while Melinda could forgive and forget, their daughter could not. Every time she saw them flirt or kiss or sleep in the same bed, she felt less friendly toward both of them, but especially her father. She just could not get over it, so I sent her to university early just to get away from home.

Some days this month I took her through university together with her uncle, my imaginary son Malvin. Luckily they were both knowledge sims, so they were very easy to keep happy at university. This picture however is from her visit to the new tropical colony, Summersun Isles. Students need to relax too! I love how she is still worrying about her mother. I hope to write a more complete story of the family and the final years of professor Reeves, perhaps next month.

But for today, I just wanted to show off some of how complex a generational game such as The Sims 2 is. And why it may be a good thing after all that I don't have any kids in real life! ^_^