For those of you who do not know what The Sims is, it is a highly addicting game where you create a virtual person (a sim) and live a virtual life in any way that you want to. Now I know that does not sound too exciting, but trust me it is definitely worth it, especially during this time. You can get it for PC and Mac for only $5! You can also get it for Xbox One and Playstation 4. Here are the things you can do while playing The Sims!
- Create Your Sim
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You can create your sim to look however you want, whether you want it to look like you, a friend, a celebrity, or just a random look. There are many outfits to choose from, hairstyles, hair colors, face shapes, and even bizarre skin colors such as green and purple. Not only do you pick what your sim looks like physically, but you can also choose the personality of your sim. You can make them friendly, a romantic, an outdoorsy type sim, or give them bad traits such as a kleptomaniac, mean spirited, and noncommittal. That sounds strange I know, but it is your sim and you can do as you please. Another thing you can pick for your sim is an aspiration. The aspirations are your sims overall life goal. You can aspire to be rich, or you can aspire to have a large family. Like most other things on The Sims, there are a lot to choose from. You complete the goals they set for you until you have achieved that aspiration. Then you can choose another one to work on, or not. You can make one sim or a whole family, and you can choose what house you live in.
- Building Your Dream House
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If you don’t like any of the houses that they already have for you, then you can make your own in build mode and create the mansion of your dreams. There you can create the layout for your house using the wall tool, if you’d like one-story, two-story, three, or a basement even. After you have the foundation you can start making rooms and decorating! There are paints and patterns for the walls and carpets, wood, and tiles for the floors. There are items for each room in your house you can choose from, such as for a bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, dining room, living room, workout room, study room, kid’s rooms, you name it! Once you are done with the inside, you can head outside and decorate out there with a pool and lawn chairs, a grill, and whatever else you would like your sim to do outside! For all of that, of course, you need money.
- Making that Money
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In The Sims, money is called simoleons, and you can earn them by working. There are many jobs that you can choose from, such as being a doctor, a barista, and even a criminal mastermind! And those are only a few. As you work and complete goals in your job, you get promoted and earn more simoleons. With that money, you can buy more items for your house, food, books to build skills, and anything else your heart desires. The job your sim has will require your sim to have certain skills that you can build on. These are skills such as cooking, charisma, comedy, and fitness among others. You can increase your sims skill by having your sims do things related to that skill, like working out to increase fitness skills. You can master a skill when you reach level 10, and your sim can’t learn anymore. Reading books is also a good way to build skills. Even toddlers have skills they need to gain before they age up.
- The Lifespan of a Sim
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There are sims of all ages in this game. If you are starting out with just one sim, then they have to be a young adult or older. There are also babies, toddlers, children, teenagers, adults, and the elderly. After a certain number of sim days, your sim will have a birthday and “age up” into the next stage of your sim’s life. One sim hour is equal to one minute of our time, so one sim day goes by in 24 minutes. This means that the lifespan of a sim is not that long, but it also isn’t too short either. You can change in the settings how long you want your sim to live for also if you think it should be shorter or longer. Eventually, when your sims reach the end of their lives, they will die and be taken with the grim reaper. I know that seems ominous, but you can talk to the grim reaper and he’s actually pretty friendly. I am also warning you that there are other ways for your sim to die before their time so be cautious!
- Creating Families
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If you would like to have your sim to have a family, then that is definitely possible! Your sim can also get married if you want them too! The game creates other sims to put in your town, so you can find a sim you like and marry them. Even if you aren’t married, you can still have kids. There is also an option to adopt a baby. As the babies get older, they have to learn skills too, and eventually, you have a lot of sims to care for. One thing that I should mention is that sims have need bars that tell you if they are hungry, tired, need to use the restroom, need a shower, need to socialize, or need to have fun. If these need bars get too low, your sim will not be very happy.
- Other Things to Do
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In the town you live in, there will be little parks and public areas that you can go to and meet other sims. Occasionally, these venues will have little festivals and other fun things for your sim to go to.
That is pretty much the basics of The Sims. Seems fun right? It may seem complicated at first, but trust me, what better way to spend your time during this quarantine than having your sim live the life that you wish you were living? If you are interested, then you need to act quickly, because this $40 game is only $5 right now! And if you think that there is not much to do in the sims base game, then you can buy expansion packs that are on sale as well! The expansion packs have more content, and let your sims have and do things that they can’t on the base game. Some of these include a Pet’s expansion pack where you can own cats and dogs, a Seasons pack where your sim can experience snow in the winter and falling leaves in the fall or even a Get Famous expansion pack where your sim can become a celebrity! We all have too much time on our hands during this quarantine, and The Sims is a cheap and fun way to occupy your mind!