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THE SIMS ™: A WORLD UNTO ITS OWN
Romance. Jealousy. Destruction. Intrigue. All the elements in an Elizabethan tragedy. you might
think? But no, this is another world entirely, and rather a vivid one, at that! Welcome to the world
of
Settle back, get comfortable—there’s a lot going on here. This isn’t just a computer game, you
know. Most computer games present the player with a fixed point of view: You might be directly
battling devils or demons behind the joystick, or you might have a character within the game that
acts as your directed emissary. Sometimes you might simply be an observer in an artificial
place, space, or time. Yet even simulations hold you within a closed mindset of sorts, however
many the alternatives. You can never seem to get beneath the skin of the game’s characters.
That’s not so in
The Sims.
You get to see your Sims
face-to-face. And your
decisions will put them in
each other’s faces. For that
matter, your decisions
direct the very design of
their personalities. We’re
not talking cardboard-cut
out characters, who are
either good or bad, on or
off—these Sims are
creatures of moods, of
urges, of soaring desires—
even if those desires are
for pizza.
In short, your Sims can be a lot like you. Or your parents. Or the President’s parents. You get to
design them that way, if you’re more interested in home electronics than houseplants, your Sims
household can be gizmo heaven. If you want to fill your houses with Sims who would rather
samba than scour sinks, so be it. But once you’ve set it up, a Sim household will make some
demands upon you.
Like our everyday world, the world of the Sims requires judgement and decision-making, in
affairs from the trivial to the life threatening. Just as we learn to adapt to the full scope of our
world’s challenges, so must you guide your Sims, from their breakfast selection to their career
path. And as you’ll see, they sometimes make their own decisions, which may drive you to
distraction!
However, you’re much more than merely an observer, watching the myriad details occurring
moment-by-moment in a single household or neighbourhood. You create the very electronic
marrow of these beings, assign subtle personality traits and set them in a home of your own
design. As with any household, there are periods of peace and co-operation, but then all hell can
break loose. And that’s when you need to manipulate, er, guide your Sims.
Sometimes your role might seem like that of a theatre director, coaxing out of your Sims a life
performance. As with all the best soaps, there is tragedy, there is comedy.
There is the very stuff of existence, from the crumbs on the tables to the irritation that passes
between people cooped up together in the house too long. In that sense,
The Sims is your own
personal sitcom!
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CONTENTS
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Tutorial: The Newbies stretch
their legs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4
Welcome to the Neighbourhood! . . . . . .7
Getting Acquainted . . . . . . . . . . . . .7
The Control Panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11
The Modes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11
Character Subpanels . . . . . . . . . . .21
Families, from Start to Finish . . . . . . .25
Birth of a Household . . . . . . . . . . .25
Live Mode: The Soul of a Sim . . . . . . .31
Motives, Needs and Personalities . .31
Autonomy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .35
Skills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .36
Daily Life—It’s a Living, Ain’t It? . . .37
Engaging a Sim in Activity
(It’s Objective, my Dear Watson) . .38
Character Conversations . . . . . . . .42
Friends and Lovers . . . . . . . . . . . .45
Moving In . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .47
Marriage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .48
Babies and Such . . . . . . . . . . . . . .50
Kids . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .52
Neighbours . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .53
Jealousy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .54
Moving Out . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .54
Careers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .55
Disasters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .61
Failure States . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .62
Deliverables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .64
Winning the Game . . . . . . . . . . . . .65
Buy Mode:
Furnishing Your World . . . . . . . . . . . .65
Buy Mode Mainstays . . . . . . . . . . .65
A Cautionary Note . . . . . . . . . . . . .69
For Sale, By Hook or by Crook . . . .70
Build Mode: Building Your Dream House
(or Surveying Your Nightmare) . . . . . .71
Tools of the Building Trade . . . . . . .72
Terrain Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .72
Water Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .73
Wall & Fence Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . .73
Unbuilding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .78
Going Up: Building Second Stories .79
Troubleshooting Your Family:
Ask Auntie Simone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .80
Appendix 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .87
Build Your Sim Skins and Other Sims .
Web Wonders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .88
Appendix 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .88
Recommended Reading . . . . . . . . .89
Credits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .89
The Tutorial game is self-directed. Simply follow
the onscreen window prompts guiding you on
how to direct the Sims in action, and how to
interpret their moods and behaviours. After you
complete a task, the window disappears and a
new window appears to direct you in your next
task. Some of the windows have an OK button
that needs to be clicked for you to move to the
next window. You can hit the
Esc key to cancel
the tutorial, which will leave you with this game
to manage all by your lonesome.
You can play on your own in the Sim world by
clicking on the little line in the upper
right-hand corner of the prompt window, which
shrinks the onscreen tutorial window to a question-
mark symbol at the upper right hand corner of the
screen. Clicking on the question mark brings up the
next prompt window, though the window also returns
on its own depending on your game decisions.
You can’t really do anything wrong—just keep
your eye on the Needs panel to monitor how
tutorial activities change the Sims’ moods. Some
of the other information panels update
dynamically as well, dependent on game
development. Mood management proves to be a
major factor in your game progress. Work
through the entire tutorial to see the scope of the
game.
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Play the Newbies (at 7 Sim Lane) in the tutorial house to get a feel for how to play. Then check
out the rest of the manual for how to design your Sims and their houses, and for gameplay hints.
The section on The Soul of a Sim gives you a little more insight into their motives and
behaviours, which, as with people, can sometimes be puzzling.
The Daily Life material within The Soul section puts the milk on the cereal of daily concerns. And
the Auntie Simone section (page 80) might help if your Sims seem to have the sense of a push
broom, and you can’t figure out how to get them sweeping.
TUTORIAL: THE NEWBIES STRETCH
THEIR LEGS
We wouldn’t think of just tossing you in to the lion’s den of a Sim household without a little
grounding on how to feed and clothe those lions. You’ve got to have good reflexes and sound
judgement to respond to all those crises your creations are going to cause. Thus, we provide
you with a tutorial game to gently introduce you to the colourful Sims’ world.
The tutorial introduces you to all of the basics of Sims management, and gives you a sense of
the game’s potentials and perils. There is an almost infinite variety of ways you can get into—
and out of—tantalising trouble in
The Sims, but the tutorial just shows you some samples. We
know you’ll create plenty of mischief on your own.
When you first load the game, you enter the Neighbourhood, a scenic place with a variety of
homes and home sites. Move your cursor over the homes to get an information box detailing
facts about the homes, including their purchase prices for when you’re ready to do some
shopping. Single-click on the Newbie Family home at 7 Sim Lane to jump into the wonderfully
rich realm of The Sims.
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WELCOME TO THE NEIGHBOURHOOD!
The Neighbourhood is where you go directly after the game loads. Play the tutorial game there to
get a feel for gameplay basics. Check the manual’s tutorial section (page 4) for details.
GETTING ACQUAINTED
You made it! This is the place where Sims go about their daily lives and you get to be the master
of ceremonies. It’s a cosy place, as you can see, but there are many dramas taking place behind
the walls of all these homes, and you have the keys to open any door.
Let’s start by looking at the lay of the land. Your
Neighbourhood has a number of houses, some
built out, and some barely more than foundations.
If you move your mouse around to any of the
houses you can play, you see their roofline
disappear to grant you a view of the house’s
contents. There is also a pop-up window listing
information about that house. If the house is
empty, you see its asking price and the house
address.
If the house is occupied, you see that family’s last name, their total household assets, how many
friends the occupants have, and the house address. The faces of the occupants are also
displayed.
Clicking on an occupied house swoops you right into the ongoing drama of that family’s life. You
have to quickly assess their situations and move right into household management, or
mismanagement, if that’s what you’re good at. You might want to check out the Control Panel
sections (page 11) before you set anything on fire or cause any family fights.
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You can repeat the tutorial at any time by
clicking on the Options button in the Control
Panel, clicking on the Play Options button and
then clicking on the Reset Tutorial button. The
tutorial game resets back to its original
conditions.
The Newbies are one of the local neighbourhood families; you can go back and play their house
as a game, or select another. The Newbie family can interact with your other game families as
well.
The tutorial is just an appetiser: To get to the real meat (or cheese sandwich, for you
vegetarians) of the game, you have to investigate the Soul of a Sim/Daily Life section of this
manual. Hey, you don’t think we wrote them just because we love the alphabet, do you? Check
out that information and go make some Sims your parents would be proud of. And if you make
some that they’d be horrified by, tell ’em your sister did it.
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The Options Button
You get a dialog (which you can back out of) telling you that family’s net worth and asking if you
want to evict them. You can press the
Esc key if you decide you don’t want to bulldoze anything
or click on the toggling Bulldoze button to get back to where you began. Click on Yes with the
bulldoze cursor active. Everyone in that house is sent to the Select A Family window, where they
are then available to place in a house when you’re feeling more favourably disposed toward
them. (They keep any relationships they had, and the money from the sale of their house and
belongings will increase their net worth accordingly).
If you’ve emptied the house of occupants, you see a dialog
chance to bulldoze that empty house. Click on No and those
dream digs are yours for occupation—if your Sims can afford it.
And if you really don’t care for the looks of any Neighbourhood
house, occupied or not, you can reduce it to rubble and build
anew. Click on the Evict or Bulldoze button, select any
unoccupied house and click on your building victim. The dialog
box then asks if you really want to smash that place to smithereens. Click on Yes to do the dirty
deed. Click on No if the tiny voice of decency rallies.
Once destroyed (who listens to those tiny voices anyway?), move the cursor back into the area
once occupied by the house and a pop-up window will display telling you that you can demolish
no more. However, if you want to buy and rebuild the lot, then go to the Select A Family screen
and choose a family, or create your own. See the Families, From Start to Finish section (page
25) to understand either of these processes.
Once you get your family under your cursor’s belt, you
can buy a lot. You are automatically zoomed into a close
view of your new property. Click on the Build button in
the Control Panel to select the tools to begin erecting
your mansion. All of the intricacies of house building are
examined in the Building Your Dream House (page 71).
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Clicking on an unoccupied house only gets you a
dialog box telling you nobody lives there and you
need to pick a family to move in. That’s where
those buttons at the top of the Neighbourhood
come in. The left-most button is the Select or
Create Family button; clicking it takes you to the
Select A Family window, where some Sim souls
are itching for the chance to stain some
Neighbourhood carpets.
You can choose one of the crews here to man (or
woman) your house, or you can create your own.
The entire scheme for creating (as well as
choosing, moving in, or deleting existing) families
is detailed in the Families, From Start to Finish
section (page 25). Go there to get a quick
overview of how you can immediately start
making—and then start making mayhem—with
your Sims.
Evict, Destroy and Build Anew
Back in the Neighbourhood, what if you see a home you truly cherish, but it’s occupied by a
bunch of loutish oafs far from the splendid Sim specimens you design? SIMple-Kick ’em out!
(Having a conscience is not a prerequisite to playing The Sims; sometimes it can even get in the
way). All you have to do is click on the Evict or Bulldoze button and click on the house in
question with your new Bulldozer cursor.
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THE CONTROL PANEL
The Control Panel is the launching board for all of your endeavours in The Sims, from sending
your favourite Sim to water the tulips to setting the game options. The Control Panel is evident at
the bottom of your screen when you are looking into the lives of your Sims, whether they are in
Live mode or not. The Live Mode icon or the F1 key will toggle between the full display of the
Control Panel or just its tools.
The Control Panel has a number of different modes, views, information readouts and options,
which we discuss here. Most of the gameplay related controls are on the panel’s left side; the
right side is mainly for readouts on current Sim states. Most of the Control Panel tools have a
“rollover” tooltip that appear if you hover the cursor over the tool or button in question.
You need an intimate familiarity with the Control Panel to (naturally) control your Sims. And
sometimes it seems five Control Panels won’t do.
THE MODES
In The Sims, modes are game states where you can accomplish certain
types of game tasks, whether related to Sim management or file
management. You enter the various modes by clicking on the mode icons,
located in the arc on the left side of the Control Panel. Active mode
choices are highlighted.
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Clicking on the Live mode button in the midst of your building
does give you the chance to get your Sims reaction to their
unfinished house. But once they find out there aren’t any cold
cuts in the fridge—in fact, there is no fridge—you’re likely to
find them none too pleased. Better complete at least a few
basic rooms first before you test their tolerance. Then review
the Daily Life section (page 37) to get some Sim sense—or
at least to get a sense of how to tame these unruly Sims.
Quitter!
And if you’re really not happy with the Neighbourhood, just click on the Quit button to depart the
Sims’ world of dynamic fascination and return to your own. Look around
you—are you making the right choice?
But wait! There’s more! Viewing Web Pages button
Click on the View Web Pages button to bring up a browser to view Neighbourhood families web
pages. At the start of the game, you see the Goth and the Tutorial houses displayed, but as you
export HTML pages of families you create, the list expands. See the section on Other Sims Web
Wonders (page 88).
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Views
Live mode affords a number of viewing possibilities for your Sim household. Let’s begin at the
ground floor and go from there. Sim houses can be one or two stories tall. If your higher-income
Sims have moved into prime real estate, you have two floor views to choose from in the Story
icons on the panel’s far left. But if your family isn’t rolling in the green from selling any Internet
stock options, the second-floor icon is greyed-out. Clicking on either Story icon takes you to the
depicted floor, as you might have guessed.
To the right of the Story icons is the Roof icon. Clicking on it will display (of all things) the roof
of your Sim’s house. Remove it by selecting Walls Up, Cutaway, or Walls Down mode. If the
house is two stories, roof views are dependent on the selected story, e.g., choosing Roof with
the first story selected only displays roofing built for that story.
Zooming and Rotating
We can’t deny it. One of the big lures of The Sims is
you can peek right into the lives of these digital
creatures and marvel at their antics. At times you want
to draw back and get an overview of total household
activities; at others you want to be right there in the
room, so you feel the sting of an insult or the charm of
a compliment.
Here’s how you zoom. The diamond-shaped box on the left of the Control Panel has a plus
button at its top and a minus button at its bottom. There are three levels of zoom: Zoom in with
the plus button, and zoom out with the minus. The corresponding buttons are greyed-out
(unavailable) if you achieved the highest or lowest level.
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Live Mode
The Live mode icon rests at the top of the mode selections because it’s the big daddy of all
modes. In Live mode your Sims do what you want them to do—or not, depending on just how
cantankerous they are at the moment. Live mode is just that, live: The game clock is ticking, the
Sims plans are clicking, and moods might be swinging. If that’s too much for the moment, you
can always pause the game by clicking on the Pause button in the line of Game Speed buttons
below the game clock (or by pressing the pause-toggling P key on your keyboard).
Scrolling
There are several ways to move throughout your Sim territory. If you bring the cursor to any of
the screen edges, the game terrain moves in the direction of that edge. You may notice you can
scroll off into the void at magnified zoom. Fear not! Just reverse the scrolling direction to the
opposite edge and you return to the comfort of your perfectly balanced, happy household. If you
don’t like living (well, scrolling) on the edge, you can turn edge scrolling off in the Options panel
under Play Options.
You can also skate across the grounds by pressing your right mouse button and dragging in the
direction you want to move; naturally, you cover more ground more quickly by being at a closer
zoom level. Clicking and releasing your right mouse button centres the screen on the spot where
you clicked. Scrolling is still active in Buy and Build modes. And just to make sure you don’t
have too few scrolling options, holding down the Alt key brings up a four-arrow headed cursor:
Move that cursor in any arrow’s direction, and the game terrain follows. Cursor keys scroll the
screen as well.
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Story Icons
Roof Icon
Zoom Buttons
Game Speed Buttons
While paused you can click on any of your Sim’s faces on the panel, and you can read their
current Needs state and any of the other situational readouts. You can also set up any Sim
activities in the interaction queue (page 40) while the game is paused.
The three game speeds are Normal, High and Ultra. Normal is just that: The day passes at its
regular pace, with the game clock (and the associated daylight/evening lighting states) moving at
a steady pace. Sims’ lives move briskly: You see that the game clock speeds up when
everyone’s asleep or out of the house.
The keyboard comes in handy here to jolt or stun the game speeds. Press 1 for Normal, 2 for
High, 3 for Ultra and ¬ (the Key above TAB) to Pause. Click on the High or Ultra speed settings
if you want to accelerate game actions to achieve a certain goal, like getting the gal off to work
so the guy can play video games in peace.
Budget
Your household’s total funds are dynamically displayed below the
Speed buttons. Remember, your Sims may lust for a plasma TV,
but if daddy’s not bringing in the dough (nor mommy as well),
you might be sending your Sims to skid row.
Click on the dollar figure (actually, these Sims use Simoleons,
naturally) to bring up the Budget window. It will show household
income and expense totals for the current day and for the past
three days, broken down into specific credits and debits. Days
begin at midnight; totals are updated throughout the day.
Hover your mouse over any of the category entries to get a tooltip explanation. Click on the
window’s OK button to close the window.
Family Friends
To the right of the glowing smiley face is the total number of friends that the family has – these
are the collective number of friends the entire family has made and maintains. Click on the
Family Friends number for a pop up description.
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Also within the Zoom diamond are the Rotation buttons, giving you a
different perspective on the action, or a different angle for better object
placement. Clicking on the right-pointing arrow rotates the view 90
degrees to the right; clicking on the left-pointing arrow rotates the
house 90 degrees to the left. Four successive clicks on the same
Rotation button returns you to the original view—at least that’s what
our geometry teachers told us.
Walls
You have a few options when it comes to how much of your Sims’ situation you want to see.
Above and to the right of the Zoom diamond are the Walls icons. Click on the “open box” icon
next to the roof icon if you want to give your Sims some privacy. All the rooms have full walls,
so you can only see deeper room details by rotating the house.
Click on the middle Wall icon to get a more dynamic walling effect.
Walls drop to floor level when you, all-powerful Oz, pass your
cursor through them, and they return to their height when your
cursor exits the area. Click on the bottom Wall icon to keep your
walls down. Certainly a bird’s-eye view, but rather lacking in
aesthetics (not to mention decency).
Game Speeds and Clock
As mentioned above, you can pause the game by hitting the P key on your keyboard, or by
clicking on the Pause button next to the Zoom diamond. When paused, a large red “Paused” on
your screen appears, and the Pause button blinks with a red highlight. Pausing the game can
give you a chance to catch your breath if your Sims are veering out of control, and you don’t
want to chase them all over creation.
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Rotation Button
To take a shot, select picture size and quality, position
your frame, and click the left mouse button. The picture
then appears in a photo album, which is also accessed
by clicking the Photo Album button in the sub-panel.
There is a blinking cursor below your new picture
prompting you to enter a title or caption for the
sensational shot you just took. You can change the
caption any time by clicking in the text box.
And if you aren’t the most energetic photojournalist around, the game takes up your slack.
Significant events in the game are immortalised by Auto Snapshots, which capture those
magnificent moments into the Photo Album folder for you. You can review and caption these
pictures in the photo album, or delete them if you don’t want to relive the sordid past. You can
turn off the Auto Snapshots feature in the Play Options selections, which are explained in the
Play Options section.
You can use the arrow buttons at each side of the Photo
Album to page through (from first photo taken to the last)
your photo collection, and the inner arrows for the next
and previous photos. If a photo doesn’t measure up, just
click the Delete button while the offending picture is
active; the dialog box asks if you want to reconsider.
Deleting a shot returns you to active Camera mode to
take another. Or you can click on the Done button to
move back to active Camera mode.
All of the View and Rotate tools work in Camera mode, so you get the best angle on your
voyeurism. Images are saved as JPEGs in the Photo Album folder in the UserData folder within
The Sims directory. And if you’re trying to make them feel guilty by collecting pictures of their
unclean toilets, you’ve got too much time on your hands.
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Buy Mode
Finally! A chance to go on a spree! Who cares if the living room is full of exercise equipment and
computers when you can bring in a model railroad? You can get yourself in a lot of budgetary
trouble here, but heaven knows, it’s fun. Clicking on the Buy mode icon reveals a subpanel of
category icons. Click on a category icon and the purchasable items within that selected category
displayed to the right appear. Go to the Buy Mode: Furnishing Your World section (page 65) for
the specifics on how to buy, how to place, how to sell (and how to suffer buyer’s remorse).
Build Mode
Click on the Build mode icon to live out your architectural dreams. Once you’re in Build mode,
you notice a sub-panel of building tool categories and their specific tools that can transform a
Sim hovel into a Sim mansion—at a price, of course. Go to the Build Mode: Building Your Dream
House section (page 71) for elaboration.
Camera Mode
Sims engaging in compromising behaviour should beware: Camera mode lets you
collect the evidence in pictorial form. When you enter Camera mode, the game pauses.
Up comes an onscreen frame indicating the area to be captured by the camera’s lens.
You can move that frame around with your cursor for the best angle.
The left-hand set of tools on the Camera mode sub-panel adjust the size of the frame for smaller
or larger pictures; they go from large to medium to small, clicked top to bottom. The right-hand
set of tools set the picture’s quality, selected from high to medium to low, top to bottom. The
lower the quality, the less disk space will be used to save these pictures. If you hold down the
Control key, you can use your keyboard’s arrow keys to resize your frame vertically and
horizontally and see a pixel count of the resized frame to the left of the frame-size icons. All
shots taken after you’ve resized the frame are taken at the new size, until you resize it again or
select one of the standard sizes.
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Picture Size Picture Quality Photo Album
• Interface Effects – Enables slick interface dissolves
• Terrain Detail – Enables progressively higher detail level for your Sim lawns.
• Character Detail – Enables higher degrees of light shading and filtering on your Sims.
Sound Options
Clicking on the Sound Options button brings up a three-choice panel controlled by dragging the
box on each slider bar; dragging left decreases the effect, dragging right increases it. You can
also click in the bar at the setting you want to establish and the box follows.
• F/X controls the game’s sound effects. Don’t you want to know if the coffee’s being ground?
• Music controls the dulcet tunes that put some melody into those Sim moods.
• Vox lets you hear all of those conversational sound bytes your Sims so animatedly engage
in.
Play Options
Use these choices for some gameplay automation.
• Auto-Centering checked causes any special events, such as a house fire or a baby’s birth,
to be immediately displayed onscreen for a brief period, before your screen returns to its
original position.
• Free Will checked gives your Sims the ability to make autonomous decisions. (And
sometimes, if they’re mood is downright lousy, they won’t listen to what you tell them to do,
no matter what). If you uncheck Free Will, and don’t direct your Sims to sustaining activity,
they can suffer Needs failures, and can even die.
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Options Mode
Click on the Options mode icon to open the Options panel. Here you
can set some gameplay and file management options.
Save
Clicking on Save saves your current game to your hard disk. You return
to that game by either clicking on Live mode or by pressing F1.
Neighbourhood
Clicking on the Neighbourhood button takes you from your current game back to the
Neighbourhood. You are asked if you want to save the game, if you haven’t already saved. You
can use the Cancel button to opt out of the Neighbourhood visit.
Quit
Clicking on Quit brings up a Save Game dialog if you haven’t saved, or a “Are You Sure?” dialog
if you have. Remember, if you choose to quit, you have to return to your regular life, where your
family members won’t do your bidding like Sims do. Are you sure?
Graphics Options
Clicking on the Graphics Options icon opens a sub-panel of game-graphics choices. Placing Xs
in any of the boxes turns that option on; choosing the higher values places more of a processing
demand on your CPU, which can consequently slow down gameplay or screen redraws on a
less-powerful computer.
• Anti-alias – Smooth the edges of objects.
• Shadows – Enhances the realism of some objects by placing shadows
• Lighting – Enables light cast by objects, such as lamps. (The game still has ambient lighting
with this option off).
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The Options Button
Reset Tutorial
Clicking on the Reset Tutorial button restores the tutorial game to the pristine state it was in
before anyone came and released its Sims from electronic bondage. You can use it to replay the
tutorial from the beginning to refresh your skills.
Reset Tutorial Button
CHARACTER SUBPANELS
In Live mode, just to the right of the main Control Panel, you can see the family gallery, where
you see the faces of the Sim residents in that household. The currently selected Sim’s icon is
highlighted. Check the Daily Life section (page 37) for information on the “action icons”
associated with a selected Sim, seen at the top-left of the screen.
You can obtain a pack of personal information (isn’t prying fun?)
from the various subpanel readouts chosen by clicking the icons
to the right of the face gallery. Be sure to consult the Daily Life
section (page 37) for information on how best to manage (or
mangle) your Sim’s temperaments. Remember, clicking on the Needs text or the bar revealed in
each subpanel brings up information (often mixed with advice) panels about that clicked
category or concern.
Most of the buttons have a set of associated progress bars, which tally the “score” of each of
the circumstances tracked by the buttons. All of those scores are relevant only to the selected,
highlighted Sim. Choosing another Sim displays very different scores—these Sims aren’t clones,
you know.
The bars above and below the Mood button use Green above and Red below to indicate a
soaring or plunging mood. The other buttons (Relationships, Job, House) display a tranquil blue
for each of the bars— the more blue bars, the more good feelings for the tracked category.
Mood
The default selection is the Mood panel, viewed by clicking on the theatre masks icon. When the
Mood button is chosen, the Needs panel is visible, displaying your Sim’s present mental and
physical states. Clicking on any of the Needs bars brings up an information panel about what
that clicked state represents.
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• Edge Scrolling checked makes your Sim world terrain automatically scroll in the direction of
the screen edge where you moved your cursor.
• Sim in Background checked lets your Sims’ lives carry on if you’ve Alt-Tabbed out of the
game to go check the value of your stock options on the Net. Unchecked, the game pauses;
checked, while you’re away, The Sims will play.
•
Quick Tips checked displays tooltips and information panels for all of the relevant game
areas just upon mouse rollover (no clicking needed). This automatically provides new
players help for all areas of the game. After the first few times of play, a dialog box displays
asking if you want to turn tips option off.
• Auto Snapshot checked takes screenshots of significant moments in your Sim lives and
automatically puts them in the photo album. If Autocenter is on, an autocentred event is
shot. If autocenter is off, no picture is taken. If there is a picture-in-picture (PIP) event in
progress, that PIP event is captured.
• Live PIP (picture-in-picture) checked causes the screen to bring up a smaller window
within your standard screen for events that are important. For instance, with Live PIP on, a
burglar entering your house would be displayed larcenously live for a period of time in a
smaller screen. You can close out of the PIP window by clicking on its close box, or else it
disappears after a brief period.
Unchecked (and less of a drain on your processor), the PIP effect still occurs on a small screen
within your game-world screen, but it is a static image. Essentially you get a screenshot of the
beginning of the event: i.e., the burglar entering the house. Again, you can close this window
directly or it goes away on its own.
• Export HTML Checked puts JPEG screenshot files of a household’s family members (with
statistics), houses and house information (by address) into an HTML template we’ve
created. (You can use your own template, and our data will be loaded into it). Templates are
saved in the Web Pages folder of The Sims directory on your hard drive. The HTML pages
are generated when game is saved, and may need a long time to save. Turn off Export HTML
for faster game saves. If autocenter is off, no picture is taken.
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Each individual Sim has his or her own set of friends (picky, aren’t they?), and they are
displayed in the Relationships panel, along with the current state of the friendship as tallied by
Relationship points. Sims that have no friends can be sad Sims indeed.
Friends, who are neighbours who have established positive relationships with your Sims’
household, are tallied next to the household’s funds account in the Control Panel. If your
household has any friends, the total number of friends can be seen to the left of the household
asset figure, along with a little smiley face.
You can click on the friends’ number to get an onscreen dialog explaining those household
friends. Having friends is an important means to progress in the game; see the Soul of a Sim
and Daily Lives sections (page 37).
Jobs
When the Job button is chosen, the Job panel appears, registering the selected Sim’s
employment status, salary and current performance rating. The Skills subpanel displays what
your Sim has learned, either from curling up with a good book or performing a skill-building
action. For instance, the Body skill can be developed by pumping iron at the weight machine or
by swimming in the pool. Skills relevant to the current job are underlined, with the vertical line
indicating the number of skill points needed for a promotion to the next level in that career track.
Clicking on any of the skill rating categories brings up an information panel about that skill. Sims
that are bums can still have many skill totals, but how are they going to pay for those spiffy new
hedges they want around their house’s perimeter?
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You know if your Sims need to be fed, watered
or coddled by the ever-updated condition bars
that track their tender feelings and bodily
urges—from glaring red emergency states to
the friendly green of purring satisfaction.
Dynamic red and green triangles to the left or
right of the bars indicate current negative or
positive changes to those emotional states, with subsequent changes in the bar’s colouring. Of
course, when your Sims are HUNGRY! or in some other charged state, they let you know in
other ways as well. (They love to press your buttons, don’t you know it!)
Personality
Selecting the Personality icon displays the chosen Sim’s personality composite, those
characteristics either assigned by you in the Create A Family window, or defaults for alreadycreated characters. Clicking on any of the individual personality traits brings up an information
window about how the selected Sim’s particular trait is evidenced in his or her behaviour. The
Sim’s astrological sign is displayed here – it is a composite of their chosen Personality traits and
is a quick indicator to show how compatible (or completely incompatible) two Sims might be.
Relationships
Selecting the Relationships icon displays the face icons of
any Sims your chosen Sim has a relationship with, with that
relationship’s score rendered in the bar below the face icon.
In addition to the “it’s a groove green” or the “I’m enraged
red,” the displayed point total has positive or negative values
that match the bar’s colourings. These values fluctuate with
every interaction occurring between your Sims.
Special icons (such as a heart or smiley face) can sometimes be seen
below the face, representing the selected Sim’s partner(s) with whom
there is a significant relationship. (Those situations are elaborated upon in
the Daily Life section). Clicking on the faces in the Relationships panel
brings up an information box revealing the gritty details of what’s going on
between the Sims in question.
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FAMILIES, FROM START TO FINISH
Family life is the essence of The Sims. Without the minute and detailed minglings (and
mutilatings) of personality and possibility within your selected household, you have nothing but
lawn decorating and fish watching to occupy your time. We’re all stuck with our real families—
but you could design a new, improved one here!
As you see in the Neighbourhood section of the manual (page 7), it’s not necessary to design
one at all. You can actually select an existing household right in the Select A Family screen and
move them right into the Neighbourhood, by choosing the family and clicking on the house of
your fancy—as long as they’ve got the dough. There’s also an occupied house in the
Neighbourhood—click on that one and you are treated (or tormented) by the already established
personalities in that household. Naturally this means you inherited all of the existing tensions or
trivialities present in that home, but it does relieve you of assigning personality traits, and
deciding if you like moustaches or miniskirts on your Sims, if those tasks trouble you.
However, there’s much to be said for constructing the family and their environs piece by piece—
whether your inclination is toward the Simpsons or the Brady Bunch, it’s all up to you. Here’s
how it’s done.
BIRTH OF A HOUSEHOLD
The Neighbourhood is where it all begins. Check the Welcome to the Neighbourhood section
(page 7) to get all the particulars. Once in the ’hood, click on the Select or Create Family button.
This brings you to the Select A Family window.
Here you see existing family members that have been evicted from homes, where they wait,
patient in their holding pen, for you to house them again. This window is also a “limbo” for
individuals or families you created, or those provided in the game, not yet placed in homes.
When you first enter the Select a Family
screen, a dialog pops up to move you right into
family creation. You are instructed to click on
the Create New Family button. And if you
happen to click on any of the empty slots
where the existing families are housed, you go
right to the Create a Family window also. The
Create a Family information is in the Starting
from Scratch section (page 26).
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There are a host of career tracks your adult Sims can pursue (or neglect), and they are detailed
in the Soul of a Sim section and in the game’s Reference card. It’s critical to bring in needed
cash to a household’s coffers with a good job. Your Sims need better household objects to move
along more efficiently in the game. So, pay attention to the basics: Get your Sim to work on
time, keep them practising and studying in their chosen profession, work on making friends and
they’ll move up the ladder. Slacker Sims tumble down the ladder, but they often seem pretty
comfy sleeping on the ground.
House
Clicking on the House icon brings up a
panel with a lot of statistical information
about the house size, layout, and what’s
inside. Your Sims are quite concerned
with their house’s structure and
condition, at both the aesthetic and
essential level. They like open spaces,
comfortable rooms, lots of windows and
nice furnishings. And of course, it’s
always nice to have more than one bathroom. You see their mood enhancements when these
conditions are fulfilled.
Layout is a telling factor here too, for the efficient
movement of your Sims around their household
directly relates to their peace of mind. If you design
or furnish their house in such a way that it makes
the Sims take long, cumbersome trips to accomplish
a task, or if objects block the clear pathway to items
they’re interested in, they won’t hesitate to complain.
Be a compassionate master: Make their house a
home.
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You need to enter a family name to begin your
Sim design—even foul-tempered Sims deserve a
name, don’t they? Once named, click on the Add
a New Sim button to begin the dirty work of
design. That click has big consequences: You’ve
entered the Create A Sim window, where your
designer Sim takes shape. (Selected default
choices are highlighted in the window).
A Camera In The Sims’ Dressing Room
The Create A Sim window is a busy place, with your proto-Sim bouncing at the ready in its
appearance window on the right side. Perhaps the best way to begin putting things in order
might be by selecting a sex for your Sim-to-be—gender is a pretty basic constituent of self from
which to build a personality.
There is a pad of character tool buttons to the left of the appearance window; the
male gender symbol at the pad’s bottom-right is selected by default. Clicking on
the female symbol button replaces that jaunty male with an equally jaunty
female.
Above the gender buttons are the buttons to adjust skin shade: three hands
that from left to right signify Light, Medium and Dark. The default is Light;
click on either of the other shades to paint your Sims’ skin in increasingly
rich shades of colour.
Above the buttons to adjust skin shade are buttons to choose whether your Sim
is an adult or child. When you click on the Child button, your adult Sim shrinks
into the body of an active adolescent. You can choose to populate your
household with children, but you might want to start out with just one or two
adults, since they can generate income, and won’t be clamouring for a candy bar
every nineteen seconds.
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Each family slot on the window lists the family surname, family pictures, net worth and the
number of friends that household has. Clicking on an individual in a slot brings up a small
window listing their personality traits and biography, if one’s been written. Double-clicking
anywhere on the slot takes you to the Neighbourhood, with that family loaded into your cursor.
That’s when you get to plop them into a house, and all the chaos begins.
Hitting the Esc key while this family cursor is on returns
you to the Select A Family window. Hitting the Escape or
Cancel button from the Select A Family window returns
you to the Neighbourhood.
Clicking on any family-occupied slot highlights the
family and activates the Delete button at the window’s
bottom. Clicking on the Delete button sends all the
selected family’s members into the ether, never to return, though you do get a chance to cancel
that brutal choice in a dialog box. The Move In Family button is also activated with a family slot
selected, and clicking on it takes you to the Neighbourhood for house buying and that chosen
family’s placement.
Starting From Scratch
Here’s where the real fun begins: You have the capability to bring a Sim of your own design into
the world—truly an act of creation. Just as in your regular world, some acts of creation are
benign, some are malign, and some are just plain kooky. It’s your palette; paint away!
Click on the Create New Family button at the bottom of the window to bring up the all-powerful
Create A Family window to get cracking. The blinking text box at the window’s top is where you
enter your family’s last name, which is seen in the Select a Family window. If they moved in, you
could see it when you move your cursor over occupied houses in the Neighbourhood.
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Bring your cursor into the 10 bars next to a trait; the cursor changes to a plus sign next to trait
designations that can have points added. Click your mouse to add single points to the bar total.
If you bring the cursor into the filled bar area, the cursor changes to a minus sign, indicating that
clicking subtracts those points and returns them to the hopper for use in other traits. You can
even create a character and leave some points in the hopper, but you are warned that they are
still available for use.
You can skew the traits so you make a very messy grouch, or a very
playful neat-freak, or some such woebegone combination. As you might
assume, the trait designations are balanced by their opposites: Less Neat,
more Sloppy; less Outgoing, more Shy; less Active, more Lazy; less
Playful, more Serious; less Nice, more Grouchy. You might try to make a
pair of same-household Sims whose traits are very different, or perhaps
Sims whose combined interests make up for individual failings. Or you could test your match
making skills by setting up a household filled with Libras, Aries and Scorpios and watch the fur
fly.
If you click on the astrological sign name under the Personality points bin, the traits for that sign
are automatically filled in. Or, you can always do it yourself and see what sign shakes out of
your Personality points assignment. In brief, the astrological signs are a quick way to set up
compatible family members (or a clutch of completely incompatible combatants for all you
wrestling fans).
It’s essential you understand that these choices can very much affect gameplay: For instance, a
character skewed toward very Grouchy is more difficult to socially engage with other players,
and may make relationships challenging. However, just as in human life, these are the kinds of
challenges that make life interesting. And miserable as well. Here’s to interesting misery!
Biography and Goodnight
Once you come up with all those curious components that make up the measure of a Sim, you
can add a little biographical note for posterity. This can be seen when you click on the noted
head in the Select A Family window, and also when you click on the head in the Relationship
panel, if this Sim’s lucky enough to have any relationships. Click in the area under the word
“Bio” and set your character’s history in stone—well, maybe in bytes.
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The appearance window itself has some nice tricks for transforming your
Sims. Clicking on the top directional arrows cycles through a set of heads to
adorn your selected Sim body. The bottom directional arrow cycles through a
number of outfits to make your Sim the fashion plate (or plate of leftovers) that
best serves your inclinations.
After you put together the designer Sim (or FrankenSim) of your dreams, give him or her a name
worthy of your body sculptings by typing it in the blinking text box at the top of the screen.
Personality: Saints and Monsters
The Create A Sim window is no slouch when it comes to unprecedented
power: Not only can you build a Sim body, you can build a Sim mind as
well. On the window’s left side is the Personality box, and its simple tools
have a wealth of implications for how your Sims behave in the game. Here
is where you assign the traits, the idiosyncrasies, and the neuro-mappings
that make up your Sim’s disposition. Of course, you can also leave it to the
stars and let the Sim’s astrological sign guide their personality setting.
These character assignments induce your Sim into a wide range of actions and reactions in their
households. For example, Sims blessed with an interest in neatness are appalled to see the
kitchen piled with dirty dishes; Sims slanted toward disorderliness blithely stroll around any such
blights, and happily make more. You can explore the finer distinctions for these choices in the
Soul of a Sim section.
The Personality window has five categories: Neat, Outgoing, Active, Playful and Nice. You can
begin tampering with your Sim’s nature by bringing the cursor into the black box on the left side
of the screen. Below that box is a “points bin” with 25 points that can be assigned to whatever
trait combination you choose to compose your Sim’s character.
The points are measured increments that increase the degree or “personality influence” of the
selected trait. Decreasing the number of these points naturally decrease the power of that trait in
your Sim’s character. Though the “opposing” traits of the designated traits aren’t named, they
are essentially opposites: Nice/Grouchy; Active/Lazy; Neat/Sloppy; Playful/Serious and
Outgoing/Shy.
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