I played a lot of Sims over break. Probably too much Sims. My mom definitely thinks so. I’m not super concerned about it—I think break is a good time to let yourself off the hook and unwind. I haven’t been playing the Sims for too long, only a couple of months. I never played it as a kid, and I have never played a version besides the Sims 4. I don’t think I can recommend in good faith playing as much Sims as I did over break, but I definitely think we should be playing it.
Firstly, Sims is some fun, mostly harmless (depending on how often you kill your sims), escapism. In the Sims, you can earn a living as a writer or a musician (the stuff of dreams for us liberal arts kids), or do literally anything else you want. You can take your game any direction you want, and you can get around even the things you “have” to do with cheats that are coded into the game. Or, you can spend time creating unique characters, or just building and decorating houses for your sims to live in. Unlike a lot of video games, there’s not one story to follow, so you can really make the experience whatever you want it to be, and it can be a little bit different every time you play.
You can create yourself and all your friends as Sims, and have them all live in a house together. It’s fun just to watch and see what your Sims do. Make one funny original character to put in the mix. Or make yourselves all as elderly Sims. Make yourselves totally as you are but give each of you one wild trait.
And you can get away with things you couldn’t in the real world, like being a professional criminal. Or going to space. I personally enjoy that you can dig for buried treasure and collect frogs at a very high rate. There are expansion packs that aren’t necessary, but are a fun add on if you want to explore even more. I have the Cats and Dogs expansion pack, personally, which is pretty fun. You can customize your pets and give them traits, and it unlocks a lot of new fun interactions.
Sometimes, Sims even provides some psychological insights. Like in real life, you have to be in a good mood to be productive at work or school. Included with basic needs like food and energy are “fun” and “social.” In college we’re all busy people with limited free time, so we often have to make choices between things like homework and relaxation time, going to the KAC or going to Peirce. Like our Sims, though, it’s important to remember that to be successful in our goals we need to maintain balance. Maybe one way to maintain our real-world fun need is to spend some time in the virtual world of the Sims.
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