Sims 3 is not a matter of life or death, except for the Sims.  Here is the pink cowboy ghost Gaylord, in animated conversation with a random passerby at the graveyard.

You may say that the original Sims game was personal, Sims 2 was generational, and Sims 3 is communal. Focus is now on the community. As such, life goes on even if your Sim passes on. Except the Sims don’t exactly pass on, they just die. And then hang around as ghosts.

Starting with Sims 2, the small characters aged through a number of life phases and eventually died. After this they would return as ghosts, scaring the living, often to death. Apart from that they mostly just moped around. I always found it more convenient to get their gravestones to a cemetery the sooner the better and never go there at night.

In The Sims 3, the ghosts have a lot more personality. Actually, they retain their original personalities. So when your loving, caring grandmother dies, she won’t return to scare the grandchildren to death. Instead, she will look after the toddler. Well, actually it is somewhat limited what ghosts can do, but they do provide company. Actually, in extreme cases of company, male ghosts can beget babies, who stand a chance of being born as ghosts and grow up that way. I am not sure if female ghosts can get pregnant, they would have to die in their fertile age for that to happen, not of old age. Anyway, the ghost babies are affectionately known in the player community as “glow worms”. They grow up to ghost children. Children can now also die (in fires and such) but those ghost children are not controllable.

The science lab is constantly looking for a way to bring back the dead, but usually the outcome is a playable ghost instead. A better alternative is to not die in the first place, something most of us will probably agree with instinctively. There are ways to achieve this. There is actually even a way to resurrect the dead, but it requires skill and an elaborate procedure. It may also not be possible in Riverview, the second town, as it does not have a graveyard pond. More about this soon.

In Sims 2, you could reverse aging with Elixir of Life, an aspiration reward that you could buy for aspiration points, which you got from fulfilling wants while avoiding fears. Aspiration points still exist, although they are now lifetime happiness points and you can get them from a couple other sources as well, such as living in beautiful surroundings and listening to music. The fastest way is still to fulfill wants, and not least the big lifetime want. Unfortunately, this has very little influence on your lifespan anymore, although you can have a better life while it lasts.

Instead you now have Life Fruit, which must be grown like any other plant. It requires some gardening skill. You can get it from working in the science career, or from picking up seeds. In the latter case, just pick up and plant all “special” seeds you find (requires level 7 gardening skill) and eventually one of them will be a life plant. Special seeds are usually found either near the science building or in the town cemetery. When mature, the plant gives two life fruits every other day. Each fruit makes you one day younger, so this is a stopgap measure at best. Fortunately you can plant the fruits, and they will grow into new life plants. Once you have a small garden patch for each family member you want to keep young, it just becomes part of the daily routine. Unless some other calamity strikes.

Sims with the highest cooking skill can however do something more with life fruit. They can combine it with death fish to create ambrosia. This is powerful stuff. It can rejuvenate a Sim to the beginning of their current age, it gives days of very high happiness, and it is said to give ghosts their bodies back. I have not tried this myself. From what I have read, you need to first fish a catfish, then use it as bait to catch an angelfish, then use this as bait in the cemetery pond after midnight to catch a death fish. Perhaps I’ll try it some day.

But in any case, as I said, the game is really as much about a community as it is about a family or any one particular character. So even if your Sim lives on a diet of life fruit, or even has a garden full to sustain a family, friends and neighbors will still pass on. Your boss will retire, and one day you meet his ghost while out jogging. Grandchildren grow up and find love, or perhaps become insane kleptomaniacs, and move out. Eventually they too grow old. Being an immortal in a world of mortals is, as literature teaches us, a bittersweet experience at best, an ongoing soft tragedy. That said, I would be willing to try. And so will my favorite Sims.