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When I was about 15 years old, I was introduced to The Sims for the PC. My younger brother and his friend installed a bootleg copy of the game onto the family computer which was situated at the back of the dining room. I remember watching the two lads control these people and I was absolutely mesmerised. That evening, I played it myself and an addiction was born…
I would sit for hours, creating homes for these families that I based on the people I knew. My Dad would laugh whenever I was in ‘build mode’ as all he could hear was the piano music playing. Then, as the years went by, I began to expand my village with different expansion packs; I owned Livin’ It Up, Makin’ Magic, House Party, Hot Date and Superstar. These games just got better and better and I feel so nostalgic when I think back to the worlds I created for these characters.
Here are some of those memories that you may remember yourselves…
The Cheats
Ahhh, whenever I wanted to expand my house or buy the mansion from The Goth family, I would type motherlode or rosebud into the game. Then, if I wanted a ridiculous amount of simoleons, I would copy and paste ;l;l;l;l over and over again to the end of rosebud.
The Goths
This family owned that mansion on the home screen and were the first set of people your characters would be introduced to. There was a lot of work to be done, initially, with building a bond with Mortimer Goth and Bella Goth.
Removing the steps
The swimming pool is notorious for being the place where Sims would go to die. If you didn’t like a particular character or you’d based one on someone you didn’t particularly like in real life, you would send them to the pool and then take the steps away so that they would not be able to get out. Well, rather bleakly, that Sim would drown and a headstone would appear in your garden. I suppose this was a modern day Voodoo doll for some… Yikes!
Those phone calls
These were very creepy. They would offer some sort of premonition but I’m not even sure that they foretold what would happen – maybe they did but they were very vague.
The smoke alarms
I don’t think there is any other game out there that highlights the importance of a smoke alarm quite like The Sims did. If you didn’t have one, your Sims were dicing with death because none of them were any good at cooking and their ovens would catch fire almost every single day. Fire extinguishers were also a necessity as the fire brigade were always far too slow.
That heart-shaped bed!
As an adolescent, this bed cracked me up. It was so cheeky seeing your Sims fumble and tumble underneath the covers – I’m sure it vibrated too which is even more hilarious.
The conversations
The Sims had their own language but to help gamers better understand what on earth they were talking about, they provided thought and speech bubbles with symbols. These would also have a big, red cross if they didn’t like what was being said.
Additionally, when they were telling each other jokes, they would speak in “Simish” to the rhythm of hickory, dickory dock.
Ghosts
Whenever a Sim died, their headstone would appear outside in the garden (as mentioned above with the fate of the swimming pool) and there were times when I had a whole graveyard materialise. In addition to this, some of the characters would haunt the house and spook people living there, especially the kids.
Social Services
The Sims would not let you take your eye off the ball when it came to the babies in your household. If they were neglected (and this usually happened when they were left to cry because your character had gone to work), they were taken away by a woman in a suit, never to be seen again.
The Grim Reaper
If there’s one thing you take away from this blog post today, please let it be this… type into Google (or Reddit) “The Sims Grim Reaper Funny Experiences” and I promise you will not be disappointed. I sat there for hours last year with tears streaming down my face from laughing so hard at some of the funny things that happened with the Grim Reaper when people were playing The Sims.
The Burglar
I’ve saved the best till last. The burglar was definitely my favourite character in The Sims and here are the three reasons why…
1. If you had your speakers on in the middle of the night and this guy turned up, you would have almost had a heart attack. His ba-dum sound would blast out as soon as he entered your neighbourhood.
2. He would sneak in (if you didn’t have an alarm) and either steal something really small and irrelevant or he would take your big-screen TV. No matter what size the object was, it would fit into the tiniest swag bag. Classic!
3. If you had an alarm installed, the cops would be called and the burglar would be caught before he did a runner; when this happened, he would walk the entire way from your home to the police station with the straightest of arms.
I was always disappointed that the robber never turned out to be someone from the community on the game; I thought it would be funny if you couldn’t play as one of the characters because they were doing a stint in jail for robbing houses. Maybe for the remake, EA Games?
Do you have any funny The Sims stories to share? I would love to hear them!
I have tried downloading the game onto my Mac but it just doesn’t seem possible. All of the games that came after the original (the ones for the PlayStation, for example) never seemed to match up – I would love to be able to play that original game again. I even downloaded the game compatible with the iPhone a few years back but it didn’t have the same freedom as the first game. If anyone knows of how I can play it, please let me know and I will be forever grateful!
Loula Bella xoxo