Monday 27 October 2008

Round 1 Summary

Births: 0

Deaths: 0

Engagements: 1 (Sacha and Emmy Lachance)

Marriages: 0

Break-ups: 0

Graduations: 0

New residents: 1 (Emmy Lachance)

Total population: 22 (10 male, 14 female)
Babies:
Toddlers:
Children: 8
Teens: 2
Adults: 10
Elders: 3

*Please note that all round summaries from before Round 11 have been compiled well after the fact, so accuracy may be a little shaky, especially for rounds 1-4.

Sunday 26 October 2008

The Drapers move in


And now a family you have not met, the Drapers. Angelica is raising her grandsons, Jonah, Elias and Isaac after the death of their mother. I gave her an extra 5 days to live to guarantee that she'd at least live until Jonah starts high school. This family was kind of chaotic, because Elias and Isaac started out as toddlers and much time was spent on trying to fully train them (success, by the way) and not as much time on was spent on photos.

It took me so long to tell them apart at a glance, even though they had different hair colours. But now, I can tell you that Elias has the black hair and Isaac has brown.

The Kirby farm gets started

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On their first day, I had Joanne plant some tomatoes. The plan was to have them alternate who tends the crops but Nathaniel seems so much more into it than Joanne. He's reached full enthusiasm for Nature, even though he's actually a cuisine Sim.

So he's done most of the grunt work. He's got a gold badge now (7 rounds later) so he's more useful anyway. Oops...you can see my "barn", where I put all my hack objects. That's the ACR adjuster in the background. I also have a dresser in there, the two teleport objects from DMA Sims, a Lot Sync Timer and the Lot Debugger. I am hacked to the gills.

Anyway, enough about me. Joanne's Tinkering enthusiasm is coming in handy, as predicted.

Here's Windy, their Australian cattle dog. I based her on my dog, dear old Jessie (RIP). She doesn't look exactly like Jess but she's way closer to the cattle dogs I see here than Maxis's version.

This was a first for me. They woohooed autonomously every night but never tried for a baby until the Thursday night. Joanne is Pleasure, so I guess she's not as keen for a tot as Nathaniel (he's Popularity but he has had the "Have a Baby" want since Day Dot). She did get pregnant, by the way.

The tomatoes haven't come in yet but the Kirby apple harvest is ready. They grow a whole 8 apples. Not even enough to crate! They're apparently "tasty" but they look pretty bland to me.

Tuesday 21 October 2008

The Clarke Family

next updateThe Clarkes were still homeless when I took this picture. They were on my transition lot (just an empty cheap lot that I use to combine families from the bin, take out loans from Monique's computer and such).

They now live in Sullivan's downtown area, Exeter, where the more arty sort of Sims and others who just don't seem to fit into suburban Sullivan, for whatever reason, live.

Here's Nelson. When I first posted this family at N99, I couldn't remember his name. Even now, I keep wanting to call him Michael or Damian. Anyway, he's Family and he likes Tinkering. I can't remember his LTW, which means it's something I didn't bother to attempt.

And here's Gina. She's Popularity, with the want to become The Law. That doesn't really seem to fit her personality but I imagine her as a lawyer working for disadvantaged Sims in a dingy little office somewhere.

Gina's hardcore, no? Skipping in heels? On grass?

Introducing Sacha Lachance

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On the other side of town, in this teeny tiny house, lives Sacha Lachance. It's not much but it has everything he needs for the meantime. He could afford this fully furnished house with his $20,000 but there wasn't much left over so I'm trying to have him dig up a treasure chest or something useful in this picture.

A nice close-up. He's a Family Sim that like Tinkering and has the LTW to graduate 3 kids from college. When I was making him in Body Shop, I had the idea that he'd be this very sweet, dedicated family man. He had other ideas though, as I found out.

La Famiglia Moretti


The Morettis are my Italian family.
The matriarch is Lidia.

Poor Cedric

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Here's another poor soul whose only parental figure I have killed off. Luckily, Cedric Nihill is a teen and hence old enough to take care of himself. He's living in the new townhouses I just added.

I had wanted to move him into the trailer park but back when I first started Sullivan (I'm back dating these posts, if you're reading this well into the future), I had a huge problem with the trailer park. It wouldn't let me move in a neighbour no matter what I did. So the townhouse it was!

Anyway, he's Family, with an LTW to become the Minister of Education. I'm looking forward to seeing how the Harder Jobs hack works. Theoretically, if he becomes Minister, no other Sim should be able to while he's holding the position. I'd like to see how that plays out. It's a relatively new hack for me.

Sullivan grows some more!

Quite a bit too. The new lots are all either untouched downloaded lots or modified Maxis. There are two apartment blocks on the left (townhouses), a new park in the middle, a pet store and a several more houses.

Friday 17 October 2008

Meet the Novaks

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This is Kristina Novak, with her son Lukas in her arms. Her husband ran off and hasn't been heard from since, taking most of the family's money with him. Strapped for cash, Kristina had to sell their house and move the family to Sullivan's trailer park.

Kristina is a pleasure Sim with a LTW of 50 1st Dates. Yeah. Good luck with that. Her OTH is Sports.

It's not all bad though. The playground out front should keep Lukas occupied. Lukas's OTH is Games, by the way. A good one for Sims with limited space.
Kristina's eldest, Justina, can use the playground too, though she mostly just hangs out on top of the slide. She's a Knowledge Sim who enjoys Arts and Crafts. A good one for poor Sims.

Thursday 16 October 2008

Leticia Draper Memorial Playground

So here is Leticia Draper Memorial Playground. You haven't met Leticia Draper and you won't. I killed her off about 3 seconds after moving the Drapers in. I wanted them to be raised by their grandmother and you have to create a parent first to do that. So to make up for ruthlessly murdering the mother of three young boys, I named the playground after her.

The actual playground part of the playground, with bark on the ground to minimise injury. Ick, that pink slide is sticking out like a sore thumb to me now. I was going for colourful but I ended up with clashy, I think. I'll change that next time I'm in game (so she said).

A chess area for the more studious children and teens. This has also become very handy for students at Suffolk University who can't fit a chess set in their teeny, tiny houses.

The soccer field, with park benches for all the mums to sit on while they watch their kids play.

And the toilets.
Not nearly as nice on the inside.

Sullivan grows!

Just one picture this time to show you how Sullivan has grown.

More houses on the left and one extra on the far right. The far right was where the trailer park used to be. That is now in the middle. I have the fabulous Lost Generation teen hangout (from Seriously Amused Sims) right under it and to the left of the trailer park is the new playground.

Tuesday 14 October 2008

The first family

That sounds a bit presidential, doesn't it? The Kirby family are far from it, but they're pretty adorable anyway.

Nathaniel and Joanne are the first farmers in Sullivan. They own Kirby Market and work in co-operation with the Drapers to stock the store.

Unfortunately, neither of them have nature enthusiasm. I was hoping one of them would have that as their OTH and I thought Nathaniel did, for the longest time. But no. Nathaniel likes Cuisine and Joanne likes Tinkering. That will come in handy - my farm Sims are not allowed to call for repairs unless it's something that might be dangerous for them to attempt on their own. I figure it would be hard to get repairmen to come out to the middle of nowhere, so you wouldn't call them for just a leaky sink!

I made them both in Body Shop, the same way I always make my most favourite Sims - Google image search. In this case, I searched for "young male farmer" and "young female farmer" and prayed I didn't come across any porn. Fortunately, I just got two nice looking farmers to base Nathaniel and Joanne on. They don't look much like the pictures I found but that's not my aim. I'm after genetic variety and following a photo helps me "think outside the square" a bit.

Sullivan Creek

I've always wanted to have a creek in TS2 (and to have an excuse to use that bridge) and I don't really know why I never bothered to build one before. Welcome to Sullivan Creek!

I added a little BBQ area, so they can cook they fish they caught. Theoretically, anyway. I don't even know if Sims can barbecue fish. Note: it took me 22 rounds to find out but they can, indeed, barbecue fish!

The structure on the other side of the creek, for those who don't have AL, is a children's cubby house. One of my favourite AL objects.

The Farmer's Market

This is the market that the Kirby family will eventually own and sell all their produce from. I usually don't build lots - I modify Maxis and downloaded lots instead - but I couldn't find anything that was just right for the Kirbys. So this is all my own creation.

The view from the street.

The view if you decided to lie down on the ground in the greenhouse.

The greenhouse. I really only built this because it looks cool from the hood screen. I don't even know if you can grow crops on a community lot - this may end up just being decorative. I'd like to find some decorative crops for the greenhouse, actually. That might work out better for this. Leave a comment if you know where I can get some!

Lovely fresh fruits and vegetables will fill these shelves soon enough.

Delicious home made biscuits, cakes and muffins are sold here too.

There's even a little diner where Sims can order traditional country fare and play some darts to relax afterwards.

The beginning of Sullivan

Here's an overview of what I have so far. There are two farmhouses on the far side of the road. Both houses have plots already laid down ready for crops and I think I put some orchard trees in too. They are also both Maxis houses that I have slightly modified (following a tutorial every step of the way, if that gives you an idea what an awful builder I am!). Anyway, the farmers that will live here will grow fresh fruit and vegetables to sell in the farmer's market.

The other side, without that enormous tree in the way. We have two more houses here on the left. They're also Maxis houses but are completely unmodified. The Sims who live here will be more like hobby farmers - much smaller output, which they will likely keep for themselves, and they will hold down day jobs too. In the middle is the farmer's market and on the right is Sullivan Creek, where the Sims of Sullivan can gather to fish.