What's going on in your Sims 1 game?

Chad Gladhaand, the local politician who previously appeared as the temporary (and rather Haandsy) employer of Chris Roomies, is one I made in an attempt to finally reach the top of the Politics career, an excruciating task I've never completed due to its absurd friend requirement (17!!!). Keeping up with more than like 4-5 friends plus work and skilling is a herculean task if you aren't using mods to make it easier. So Chad doesn't really have "friends," just people he calls up briefly when he needs something from them and then immediately ignores them again, which seems rather fitting.

There is only one person he actually seems to like: Tiffany Townie, who he married partly because she wears a debutante gown all the time and that's hilarious, and partly because I was hoping she'd bring the household a bunch of free friend relationships. She did not! I forgive her, though, because of the gown.

No, this is not a wedding photo, she always looks like this.

Tiffany's clearly from money, but mater and pater must have cut her off when she ran off to pursue her dreams of an acting career, because she barely brought enough to cover the wedding expenses. But actually needing money to buy things is for the little people! Chad and Tiffany immediately moved into a big house that they decorated lavishly with the aid of several loans from the Bank of SimSlice. (I decided I was entirely sick of starter homes and now half of the neighborhood is deeply in debt so they can enjoy a halfway decent lifestyle they can't actually afford. Just like real life!) Chad has a few investments in the oriental wall fan market, of course, but the bills are brutal, the loan interest is stacking up, and an assemblyman and a two-bit starlet don't actually bring home very much. What's an entirely honest and upright politician to do?

Tiffany tells Chad that of course she would ADORE hosting a series of fundraisers for his next campaign!

So now the Gladhaands throw house parties with alarming regularity and are rewarded with "campaign donations" according to an extremely simple scoring system I made up because I couldn't think of any better way to do it: for every 10 guests that Chad is able to have a one-on-one Talk About Interests with and then Brag to, they get one rosebud cheat (small donations from constituents impressed and satisfied that their concerns are being heard!). If Drew Carey shows up, that's one more rosebud (celebrity endorsement!). And that's it. This is actually kind of challenging to make money from, since Tiffany would NEVER have anything less than full catering and entertainment at her soirees, and the costs add up pretty quickly. But ultimately it's just about making a potentially dull and grindy household interesting to play... and it is!

Talk about constituent services!

Now, some of you may be thinking, "say, aren't there a whole lot of laws about the use of campaign finances for personal expenditures? And aren't those laws rather, shall we say, discouraging of the whole endeavor?" First of all: party pooper. Second of all, this neighborhood now contains a whole lot of citizens extremely satisfied with their representation in local government, and zero investigative journalists. So I really doubt it will ever be a problem.

Melissa: I thought you loved being a fashion photographer.

Chris: I do, but sometimes it feels... empty. Like I should be doing something more important with my life.

Melissa: What about photojournalism? I saw something in the paper earlier.

Chris: Hmm. Maybe I should check it out.

This is what the loans look like. They hang on the wall and absolutely tank your room score. Apparently this is intentional? I kind of hate it, though, and wish they came as something a little less intrusive, like a bush or something? The functionality is great, but still, if you know of any more aesthetically pleasing alternatives, please let me know.

Of course, not all loan applicants are accepted; one such family is the Traylors, who I made because I wanted the Hicks to have some company in the mobile home park. Apparently I don't have too many photos of them, probably because the place is such a zoo. There are six adult sims, five outside jobs, and two small bathrooms, and everything requires a lot of micro for the wheels to not fall off.

Here we have a typically busy morning meal with Wayne and Lurlene Traylor and their four adult-ish children (because actual sim children are boring). Clockwise from soccer ball, we have Lurlene in pjs, oldest child and officer Wayne Junior, shirtless Wayne Senior, youngest child Honeybelle in the hotpants, her shoeless sister Amber, and their extremely normal and unremarkable-looking brother Darryl.

(Darryl's tattoos are... somewhat mercurial.)

Wayne is semi-retired from the circus; clowning gets too hard on your knees, so he just takes tickets now. There's plenty of circus memorabilia in the house, though, and it's probably the only place in the neighborhood with an actual excuse for having pictures of clowns on the walls. Darryl is following in the old man's giant clownshoe steps, though he's a lot more daring and athletic and probably bound to end up as the human cannonball. Simcity health regulations must be rather lax, as no local business has ever denied either of them service due to their shared distaste for clothing their torsos.

Lurlene is a retired sword-swallower, and nowadays uses her expertise in swallowing unpalatable things to make meals for 6 on a tight budget. She's good friends with Mama Hick, and frequently swaps her homemade preserves for Mama's butter. I suppose it takes a daring individual to eat anything prepared in the Hick yard.

(Really, Leroy?)

Amber and Honeybelle are the closest family members, although they're very different. Amber is quite laid-back and enjoys painting still lifes of her extensive collection of healing crystals, while Honeybelle is constantly hogging the bathroom mirror and spends much of her time mooning around Studio Town in very short shorts, hoping to be "discovered." But the family member who fits in the least is certainly Wayne Junior. He's much more serious and short-tempered than everyone else and has zero interest in the circus world, finding it embarrassing. He's a cop, and he loves it. But is he good at the job?

omg he is LITERALLY RIGHT THERE ARREST HIM YOU ARE THE WORST COP

See, one of the rules I have for playing the poor households is that they don't get a fancy burglar alarm. And I guess I've never actually had the burglar arrive at a house without an alarm before! And I guess I thought maybe having A LITERAL POLICE OFFICER IN THE HOUSE would open up some interactions with the burglar, but haha nope, it doesn't! You have to call the station like everyone else and then sit around watching him rob you blind!

MICHELLE DO SOMETHING

Officer Michelle: Meh.

Some Sneaky Sim: Smell ya later!

YOU ARE BOTH THE WORST COP. So anyway, if you didn't already know, if you don't have an expensive security system and you get robbed, don't expect the police to care or do anything about it. Just like real life! Well, it's actually not so terrible that they got robbed blind, because the thing about having a bunch of working adult sims is: you get lots of money. Way too much money to be living in the trailer park. I'm going to have to move some of the kids out before they make the family rich and boring. But that shouldn't be a problem, Amber already has her eye on a place not too far away that is always looking for more residents.

This is the Ippie household. It's a re-creation of a family I had a lot of fun playing in the Sims 2 quite a while ago. Obviously, there are a lot of gameplay differences, but the basic scenario is the same. It's a household of nature-loving sims living a relaxed and groovy off-the-grid lifestyle of gardening and bubble-blowing.

Here we have Ziggy and Rainbow Ippie, siblings who look significantly different from their Sims 2 incarnations but live by the same rules. I wouldn't call it a challenge, exactly, since there's no win condition, it's just a way I like to play that makes the household different and interesting.

Rules for Ippies!

Rule 0. The Ippies are always looking to expand the collective, but not everyone is cut out for this life. Ippies are playful, nice slobs. You need 6+ Playful and Nice and 5 OR LESS Neat to move in, and must have or acquire ASAP maximum interest in the 60s. Far out, man!

Rule 1. NO TV! Ippies do not partake of such commercialized brainwashing. They prefer bubble blowing and hot tubbing, which means we're all in a lot of trouble if the burglar comes, because

Rule 2. No burglar alarm! Ippies SHARE and they NEVER call the pigs! If a sneaky sim steals something from you, they must have needed it more than you do. Even the 7000 simoleon hot tub. I am probably going to regret this!

Rule 3. If it's yellow, let it mellow! Ippies do not waste water on superfluous flushes! No automatic-flushing toilets are allowed, and no manual flushing is allowed unless someone sits down.

The Ippie bathroom is often a terrifying place.

Rule 4. Ippies love animals and nature! The best meal is home-grown organic vegetables made into delicious salad! Adorable gophers and bunny rabbits are free to partake of the bounty of the garden without fear of reprisal! The stupid adorable jerks. (Calling Animal Control on the raccoon is acceptable because Evan just sternly tells El Bandito he is very disappointed in him and then releases him. Since El Bandito does not feel shame, he is unharmed by this.)

If you didn't know, you can get your sims to make salad instead of the mystery meat platter by just not having a stove or other cooker. Unfortunately, salad is not very filling, so Ippies spend a lot of time eating salad and then going to the bathroom, making it an even more terrifying place. Just like real life!

Rule 5. Only one Ippie at any given time is allowed to have a "straight" job, and only in certain professions (I won't list them all, you can probably figure it out. They're peaceful, creative, and pay very little.) Right now it's Ziggy who's working outside the house, because he has a more demanding personality, and low-level sim jobs somewhat paradoxically lower your needs slower than just sitting at home does. So he goes to work hauling golf clubs and playing terrible jam band covers in the subway while Rainbow paints and gardens at home.

She's... surprisingly good at this?

The Ippies used up their entire trust fund building this place, and busking and selling vegetables isn't the most lucrative life, but they love it. Rainbow has dreams of expanding into beekeeping and maybe making organic wine but the thing about Ippies is they are also very lazy most of the time.

So the household really needs more people if they are ever going to get these plans off the ground. So far they've only been able to get one new resident, a guy everyone just calls The Dude.

The Dude was one of the sims I made and plunked into a blank field so my other sims would have someone to socialize with who wasn't a complete jerk and didn't have an annoying job schedule. Apparently I was in a mood that day, because I gave him a personality of 0/5/0/10/10, which makes him a perfect Ippie AND brings the sum total of Neat points in the entire household to... 0! Since he's a CAS sim he doesn't have any skills in anything, so right now his job is to water the plants and occasionally plink away at the gnome bench. His most recent gnome sold for 5 whole simoleons! No word on whether it really tied the room together.

All right, this is already absurdly long, so that's all for now and if you made it to the end, thanks and

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