Wednesday 17 December 2003

Pic of the day: Kissing the cat ... which in the meantime has turned into a woman dressing up as a vampire. Busy-ness as usual in The Sims: Makin' Magic. In the foreground magic beanstalk & sunpowered flower.

Magic growth

So besides going to work and thinking about abstract ideas, I have also faithfully played The Sims: Makin' Magic. And with my second magic family, I finally got to see the phenomenon called "magic growth". According to those who have the strategy guide, the game checks every six game hours to see whether you qualify for magic growth. If you live in Sim Lane or in Old Town, you must have used magic 15 times to deserve a magic growth; in Magic Town 10 times is enough. Evidently these 15 times need not have been during the last six hours: It is enough to have used magic 15 times since your last magic growth.

The first magic growth for this family was a magic beanstalk. It started relatively small, but has grown to great height as the days have passed. I am not sure, but I think it grows regardless of whether you use more magic or not, once it gets started. Later a magic flower has also shown up. That's it: No crystals, which probably means that I have not yet got my Sims family to cast 45 successful spells. Then again, they have been kind of busy.

Hiroshi, the original member of the family, had to expand the house to get room for a large laboratory where he could make and store his magic charms. Then he had to expand the living room to entertain guests and make room for his future family. This family at first consisted only of his cat, Neko-chan. After days of feeding and petting, he managed to research the spell that transformed her into a human woman. (I suppose the feeding and petting could also have taken place after the transformation, but that was not how it went this time.) She is still struggling to learn the necessary skills for successful magic, in between raising two babies one after another. Now that the kids are going to school, things may calm down a bit. Oh, and the house has been extended with a half second floor (well, actually it is a first floor, but the ground floor was first so first floor is the second floor to be built, OK?) So far this new floor is used for bedroom, dressing room and play room for the kids.

***

In practice, my Sims don't use magic all that much. This is partly because the most useful magic charms require quest ingredients, particularly Pegasus feather. The only way to get these ingredients is to perform quests in Magic Town ... and you don't know beforehand what quest you get or what reward you get. Even if you ask the same trader twice during the same visit, you get two different quests and two different rewards. Some of the quests are simple, some are tedious, and one is almost impossible. So getting that Pegasus feather could take a day or two if you are unlucky. Your Sims will get tired and need to go home to rest: Even if you could Magically restore yourself, it would be a bad idea to do so in public. Non-magic Sims visit Magic Town in large numbers, believing it to be harmless entertainment and sleight-of-hand. Seeing their neighbor casting a spell could upset them and cause the Spell Checker to intervene; and you would not like that.

So magic is not such an easy way of life after all. It takes a lot of hard work and some dumb luck. Take for instance food: There is a charm called "Horn of Plenty"; this cornucopia creates copious amounts of food when activated. (And if made by a Sim with a good mechanical skill it can be used quite a few times too.) This seems like the obvious way to feed a family of four. But the spell creates a random assortment of foods, in most cases including turkey. The appearance of a cooked turkey on your property causes your neighbors to believe that it is Thanksgiving, and a group of them will appear at your door. Some of them might carry chocolates or cake, causing further confusion as some people start on the chocolates, some on the cakes, and some on the dinner or bread. By the time your family is fed, the room is littered with dirty dishes and puddles of pee. Guests are unable to get out of the bathroom because of others trying to get in. Cats and dogs are licking the dishes and clamoring for attention. It is 1 a.m., and do you know where your Sim kids are?

It is perhaps no wonder that when I was about to write this entry, I first used the wrong expression: Instead of "magic growth", I used a card name from Magic: the Gathering. It is called "wild growth". I trust you can understand the mistake. The home of my Sims is gradually turning into... a Chaos Node!