Saturday 11 March 2006

Pic of the day: Who is carried away by whom, though? Wenche is getting steadily closer to her life goal, while Janos is floundering. And to think that she started as a non-player character...

Carried away by Sims2

Last Saturday I wrote about my throwaway student in The Sims 2 which I made only as a test person. But they rarely stay content with that. In this case, our hapless Janos eventually found love. It was a female student from one of the other dorms (or something, actually I only made two dorms there but I suppose some of them may live beyond the horizon or something). He had just greeted her on a whim when she passed by, back when he did not know anyone well anyway. But she kept calling him every day even after they were already best friends, and eventually he (or actually I) took the hint and invited her over. He checked her out to find out their chemistry (introduced in NightLife, it is a measure of how well two Sims fit together) and she responded by kissing him. Wham, instant love.

Actually they only have 1 out of 3 possible "lightning bolts" as chemistry is measured. This is generally a good thing in my opinion, since the Sims who are really "made for each other" tend to forget pretty much everything else in life. And it only get worse as they grow older. Sims can get along fine even without "chemistry", it just takes a bit more work to build a relationship and keep it warm. Still, it is rare to see someone be so relentless with only one bolt.

Then again, Wenche (as she is called in Norwegian) is a woman with a vision, or a mission or something. She is a family Sim, and left to her own devices would work relentlessly toward that goal. (Not all Sims do; some of them just kinda drift through life, and some seem to have their own agenda that is decided by their personality and memories rather than by their stated life goal. Eerily realistic that way.) Janos has – in theory – a life goal to own five successful shops. So he seemed a likely candidate to be the new robot maker and get me my Servo, the self- aware robot.

***

Well, many days have passed and still no Servo. On the other hand they have four kids now, the two oldest are in college, the third is a teenager and the fourth in grade school. Wenche still wants another baby, but at least she has dropped the "have 10 children" want. Her life goal is to have 6 grandchildren, and this should be perfectly possible with four kids unless most of them are gay. Actually even then, because they can adopt. Also my game is set in the near future, with self-aware robots and semi-sentient household machines, computers with virtual screen and keyboard, and a short-range teleport elevator connecting the floors. Same-sex pregnancies is not too wild by that standard, especially among the women.

Even though Janos has tried his best to leave the kids to Wenche, it is simply not feasible. Kids are very demanding, and his wife is less active than him so easily worn out. Not to mention that when she is pregnant, just staying alive is an accomplishment. One of the pregnancies in particular was very hard on her. (They really do differ, and I have not found any pattern in it.) So Janos still has only two shops, one at level 5 (of 10) and one in the process of opening. I wonder when he will ever get to make a self-willed robot. You can buy them with a Monique Computer version 11, but I want it to be an accomplishment and part of the story.

The kids in college will not advance unless I play them, either. I am tempted to create a new dorm from scratch. The one they live in is not bad by 2006 standards, but their rooms are so small as to only hold a single bed and a desk and chair or a dresser. These are young adults, Jens at least will probably want a double room with his girlfriend. Wait, that makes three of them, since townies become playable characters when they go to college. It will probably take at least two days just to play them through college, and time does not pass at home while I am there. So no robots for the foreseeable future. Aaah!

I just wanted to test college with the new expansion pack and find out how the new sentient robots worked. And now instead I'm making a family saga. I already have one big family in stasis on my other machine, waiting for me to come back and play them. But it can't be helped. If I am to play my Sims, I have to try to make them happy. After all, that's what I'd want for myself. (Although I think I would be more happy with a robot than 4 kids personally.)