Ari's Adventures

Thank you, ladies! I'm totally in love with Thulian. Especially after I saw him playing peekaboo with one of his little brothers. And he's super nice. I think he has full nice points. He's a little caretaker - neat and clean. Plays with his siblings and loves to make the bed and clean the toilet.


And besides all that...he's smokin' hot! I made him a family sim, and there's probably about a 99% chance that he'll be the heir.


If he becomes heir, this is his future wife, Frances, who I put pink hair on to get into the spirit of the challenge.


Little brothers Nadeshiko (in background) and Floyd also grow into children.


Yukiko and Jeff had another baby...another. freaking. boy. This one I named Jacques - like in Jacques Clouseau from the Pink Panther series. Another stretch - but I'm running out of ideas, lol. Forgot to get a picture of him. At this point, I decided they had enough kids so I disabled the try for baby option. I'm pretty set on Thulian, anyway, and more kids will just be, well, superfluous.

You remember the Count's daughter from my ho, Julia Playa? I grew her up into a teen to see if she could be a prospective mate for Thulian. Pretty, isn't she? I confess to changing her mouth, because she had no lips. But the rest is natural, baby! I like her. She has kind of a longish face, but this hair compliments her perfectly. I made her a popularity sim, because that's what fits.


Okay - now I'm off to visit my little family. Don't know if I'll get to the red generation today or not. Not feeling too good, and I don't know how long I'll feel like playing.

This looks totally fasinating.

Love the concept and names.

Thank you, Ed!

How neat and what a cute family! I like Thulian for heir too, not only because he's a cutie, but because he has a cool name too.

How fun, Ari! I agree with Em. I hope he becomes heir. Not only is Thulian a doll, but he has a great name, too (not that Pink Floyd doesn't still tickle my funny bone, lol).

You wouldn't be thinking of offering that darling Sim up as a yummy Sim model @ Sugah's Place's, would you?

Ari -

I just LOVE this thread you've got going on Sista.

How creative!!!

Thulian - is a Prince. Pink hair and all - the boy is just darn cute. Now.....about Nadeshiko - BEAUTIFUL child. A bit femme......but that's HIP. BEAUTIFUL child.

I LOVE this project. It makes ME want to do it!

Thanks so much, guys!

Sugah - I would absolutely love to offer Thulian to Sugah's place, sometime, but I have to check into his hair (and eyebrows). I don't know who made it.

As it happens, Thulian was ever my favorite and had heir before half his brothers were even born. As a result, I started getting kind of eager to start the next generation without growing up the non-heirs, so I made Thulian three days older (thank you sim blender!), to get him to adulthood a little faster, and then ended up growing him up an extra day early on top of that. So his teens were only about 10-11 days long instead of 15 - I always thought 15 was too long anyway. Once Thulian reached adulthood, I had Jeff and Yukiko move out with the rest of the kids, and had Frances (his teen steady all grown up) move in.

A pic of gorgeous Thulian as an adult. Can you say yum? And who cares if his hair clashes with his shirt? The boy can pull it off.


After marrying, he and Frances autonomously try for baby (courtesy ACR).

Snowbeast: I wonder if they're going to add a baby to the family?


She got pregnant on their second attempt, but I shut the game down before the baby came. The red generation is on its way!

Good lord! Just when you thought that Sim could NOT get any better looking ... he grows up and becomes megalicious! YUMMY, is right, sista!

I've been thinking...(yes, it's been known to happen on rare occasions, lol), as long as the creator(s) of Thulian's hair and brows allow his/her meshes to be included with Complete Sims, I say we can make an exception for him. What say you on this, m'lady? In other words, if the creator is not on our exclusive list, I'd be willing to let that go this time, just for your scrumptious pink snack.

I love the way Snowbeast is pondering an addition to the family. Too funny!
I look forward to generation red. Thank you for sharing, as always, Ari.

I'm all for that! Think Pink, Sugah, dear. I'll check into his hair tonight and see. Let's keep our fingers crossed, shall we?

I'm looking forward to generation Red, too, except...stupid ADD has kicked in again and I want to start a new project. Sigh. Does it ever end with me? I think not. But I'm not going to abandon my new legacy so soon. I'll get back to them.

I just ran across The Prosperity Challenge today. I think it sounds quite interesting. Especially, since the families are totally random, from how many members there are to the ages. It can make for some very interesting storylines. As usual, I won't keep score because it's a bore (ha!) And I'm not going to bother to remove my hacks because that's a pain. But I will try not to cheat. I'm keeping in ACR, because it makes sims interact romantically on their own more realistically...or at least interestingly. Plus, I have a 'sometimes' homework mod, where sim kids don't always have homework. I'll take out the 'no friends needed for promotions' though, because that one's a pretty blatant cheat, lol.

I also came across this nifty little random family generator. This is a fun little program that sits on your desktop - it doesn't go in your game. And it does just what it says - instantly generates random families with 1-8 sims.

So...this will be my random project. I've got 6 random families, and I used a name generator to roll up random names for them all. In the game I'll also give them random hair/eye/and skin color to keep things more interesting and...random. I slay myself, lol! Anyhoo, I'm also going to try to randomize their appearance by rolling the randomizer button on the CAS screen. Should be fun! And each family is played on rotation - I'm thinking I'd like to go for 5 days with each family, but we'll see what fits me best. 3 or 4 might work out better. If I get around to it/feel like it I'll share pictures of the families. I got a pretty good mix. One of my families will be two teens and a toddler, one family is an adult male with 7 kids (4 children, 3 toddlers), I have a family with an adult male and an adult female, and a family with an elder male and female, three adult males (their sons), and one girl child. Should be interesting.

Ari, THULIAN is absolutely GORGEOUS!!! He looked so sweet playing peek-a-boo with his sibling! You made the right choice selecting him as heir, he deserves it! HOT very, very HOT!!! His wife is ADORABLE!

I'll definitely be thinking "pink" and keeping my fingers crossed that Thulian's hair creator is share friendly!

The Prosperity Challenge looks intriguing. I read through most of the rules/guidelines, but after a page or so, I could read no more!
I DO hope you will share your progress here, Ari. You know how much I love seeing your screenshots and reading about your Sims adventures.

Phaenoh's Random Family Generator is so cool. I'm going to look into that nifty little program a bit more soon.
I also love the set of icons she created. Fun stuff! Thank you for sharing, m'lady.

My dear, sweet, Sugah. Of course there are a lot of rules. And of course I'm not following them. ;) When I play a challenge, I usually adapt it to my comfort, anyway. It's the premise behind the challenge for this one that makes it so appealing. Starting a new neighborhood with several random families of random sizes. Playing each family in rotation for an equal number of days. Seeing what develops. That's what I'm in it for.

I read down to the scoring section and then quit. I agree with you, Ari. It's the beginning part that sounds interesting. You sound like you're going to have your hands full with some of those families. Especially the man with 7 kids! Yikes! Poor guy. lol I think I want to try this. Actually I think I just want to see what random families I get, not so much that I want to play them, since I don't have the time to really play much. I think I have the random generators downloaded already. :)

Quote :

Of course there are a lot of rules. And of course I'm not following them. ;)

I agree with Em. I think seeing what random fams you get would be the most fun part of this challenge.
I read it's quite a long challenge, so I'm imagining you'll play it for awhile, then your muse will be tapping your shoulder to move on to your next gig!

Have fun and keep us posted!!!

A big chunk of the rules has to do with the family set up. But with the generators, that's simple.

I would be thrilled if anyone wanted to join me HINT HINT, lol!

I'm playing each family on a 4 day rotation. Also, for the most part, I let each sim remain unchanged from how they popped up in CAS. A couple have gotten different hair or clothing, but for the most part not - I feel it makes things more interesting and realistic that way. I haven't gotten to play very much, because it's been so busy around here, but here are a couple of pictures.


Family #1 - The Balduino Family. Father Inacio (popularity), teen son Rhode (pleasure), child Clara.
Rhode and Clara are A+ students, and Rhode has a job in the entertainment industry. But he couldn't go to work the first day because his dad was also at work and they couldn't afford a nanny to stay home with Clara. Inacio is attracted to a neighbor woman, but I'm trying not to interfere to see if he'll take his love life into his own hands. Inacio took the highest paying job of the first day - which was politics. The family doesn't have much money, but they'll be okay.


Family #2 - The Halsten Family. Marcos(fortune) and Hannah (family)


These two can't keep their hands off each other. I had just barely plopped a couch in their living room when they had to go try it out...and get pregnant right away. She's already expecting. Their house is kind of small, but I have bunkbeds if they need extra space. And look! For the first time since I started playing Sims 2, I can actually see fish in the aquarium!!


Two of the neighborhood elders came to welcome the Halstens to the neighborhood. At the same time they peeked into the aquarium - it cracked me up.

I still have a couple more days with the Halstens before moving on to the next family. She'll have her baby by then, and we'll get to meet the new addition.

Ari that last pic of the 2 ladies looking at the fishtank is awesome! Again, I repeat how glad I am that you are enjoying and relaxing with your game!

Thanks, Z!

The Halstens welcomed their first child at the end of their rotation. Meet Blake.


Family #3 - The Brennan Family
Elders: Lorette (family) and Sebastian (knowledge)
Their three grown sons from left to right: Ivan (romance), Quincy (popularity), and Indy (pleasure)
Child Rebecka - who I made Indy's daughter.


This family threatens to bore me, lol, unless some good drama happens. Having three adult males in the house seems a little dull, but maybe with Ivan wanting to woohoo already, we can make the most of it. The adults have all gotten jobs, and Rebecka is in school. I let the elders stay home. Not much has happened with them yet, but I still have a few days left on their rotation.

"This family threatens to bore me!"
I love it!

I am knee deep in puter kaka right now, Ari, but if I can get things rockin' and rollin' again and my heart is back into playing, I may join in on one of these fun projects.
As it stands now, I'm barely able to find it in me to create enough for a small update this weekend.
Don't even know when I'll have it all together at this point. Can't shake the dang queasiness, blast it all.

Anyhoo, I commented in another thread how much difference a GOOD graphics card makes.
I see things I never knew existed before. It's awesome, isn't it? Congrats on getting one at such a steal of a deal.
Can't wait to experience the fish myself. I can never remember to buy my Sims aquariums. lol

Thank you for posting your Sims adventures for us. I enjoyed this round, as always.

You're right about the graphics card! And I forgot to mention the best part - no lagging!! Even my second game, as small as it is, was lagging big time, but no more! The graphics card came with it's own memory supply which not only frees up more memory for my games, but having that extra power really makes my games run great. Even my main game runs nice and fast! I'm beyond thrilled. I had forgotten how fast triple speed was. It used to only go about 1.5 times regular speed, making each night and workday take forever to get through. And double speed was only about as fast as normal regular speed. A tad bit slower, actually. And regular speed was probably only about 3/4 to 1/2 of the speed it should run. So I'm VERY happy about the much improved game performance!

Anyhoo, I had a little more time for playing yesterday, so I got to visit a couple of different families.

Family #4 - The Ellis Family. Dad Dominick (fortune). His four children from left to right, Hale, Karena, Eva, and Rhett, and toddlers Johannes (held), Dustin, and Madisyn (she's behind dad's leg).


Poor Dominick really has his hands full. These aren't dog beds, they're...sleepy mats! Yeah, that's it. The toddlers putting themselves to bed frees up some time for Dominick to, you know, eat.


Now before you judge, poor Dominick was at risk of losing all his kids to the social worker. He could not keep up with the toddlers' constant needs, feed his other kids, and take care of himself. He was constantly starving, filthy, or exhausted for his entire four day rotation. Besides, it's not pet food, it's...baby kibble? Actually, it worked out pretty well. The toddlers fed themselves and put themselves to bed. Sleeping in a pet bed isn't nearly as restful as sleeping in a crib, so they would sleep longer. Eating pet food made them dirty, so Dominick would have to bathe them daily, which also raised their social. Also, playing in the food while eating it raised the toddlers' fun quite a bit. And one of the best things? The kids can refill the bowls, enabling dad to cook for everyone else, instead of running up to the third floor everytime the bowls were empty.


I had a pretty good time with this family. I almost forgot to leave after 4 days, lol. Now that the toddlers have grown into children, Dominick will get a job because they're struggling quite a bit. He'll help each kid with their homework, too.

Family #5 - The Brody Family - An elder - Lilja (romance), an adult (family) - Mariele, and a toddler - Brielle.


Having a grandma with a romance aspiration is just too comical. I was tempted to change Lilja's hair and clothing to something more suitable, but then I decided not to. There's something really humorous about a little old lady who is the perfect grandmother during the day (she's a virgo so she's constantly cleaning everything) and a wild child at night. Too many fun possibilities. Already, she has her sights aimed at one particular whippersnapper.


The family had a little money, so Mariele stayed home during Brielle's baby days to help teach her skills. Now that Brielle is a child, Mariele has gotten a job. Lilja will stay home. Mariele wants to find someone to fall in love with, so I'll be working on that during her next rotation.

Family #6 - The Cambridge Family. Two teens - Andrew (pleasure) and Alannah (popularity), and toddler Jude. The guy holding the baby is, um, a placeholder and met a nasty end.


I didn't get to play them very long. The teens will take turns staying home from school so they don't have to hire a nanny. They adopted a kitten, and have started teaching Jude his skills. I'll be returning to them today. One of the teens will probably get a job. Although they don't really need the money, they're not exactly rich, either.

That's all the families I have so far. I might go nutso and make another one. If I were following the actual rules, it says between 2 and 6 families. I originally rolled a 2, but how boring would that be? So naturally I created 6. Having fun so far. The different type of gameplay is somewhat challenging to me. And the sims have to actually make friends to advance in their career. But the short rotations keeps things interesting.

I'm going to play with you, Ari! I'll go ahead and post it in my own thread though. Maybe in the future we could make separate threads for each challenge, so it's more like we're playing together.

I have a really cool sim generator I downloaded long ago. It will let you create random sims (name, age, gender, skintone, fat/fit, sign, aspiration, and turn ons. I love having random turn ons as an option. I hate chosing them myself.) random pets, or random families. I wish I could figure out where it came from, but my searches aren't turning up anything. It's either called the randomizer or The Sims 2 Generator.

You have some fun families there, Ari. It cracked me up that you're feeding the toddlers out of the pet bowls on purpose. LOL Well, you do what you've got to do!

I wish I could tear myself away from creating long enough to play!

This looks like so much fun!!!!!!!!!

Hooray, Em! I'd be thrilled for you to jump in.

Your generator sounds really cool. It randomizes everything. Even pets. I can't wait to see what you come up with.

I hate choosing turn-ons and turn-offs myself, too. I always end up picking the same things. A long time ago I wrote all the choices on little pieces of paper and put them in a cup on my desk. Then, if I ever need to pick random ones, I choose out of there.

Hunter - aw. We all do what moves us, so you shouldn't feel guilty. I've been looking for ways to get re-interested in my game for a long time. I get burned out on it easily, but then I miss it, so I try to find new ways to play. So far this one is working for me, and I'm missing my little families. So much so, that I have my day off at my friend's house today (where my hubby takes my computer over and sets it up for me and we compute all day) and she wants to play Ulitma Online. I want to play my simmies.

Thank you for sharing your challenge experience, Ari. I'm exhausted just looking at all your screenshots. I can't remember the last time I had a bunch of kids in one household. I normally do just one bambino at a time.
You're so good at managing everything, even without cheats.

I look forward to the next round and am glad you are enjoying yourself!

Thanks, Sugah. I'm having a lot of fun and really enjoying these random families.

Well, it turns out the Ultima Online wouldn't work on my computer. Don't know why, but I was glad, because I was able to spend all day Sunday with my simmies. I got through almost an entire rotation of the whole neighborhood. Not a lot of pics, but I'll update you on all the familes.

My rotation started with the Cambridge family (#6). Some neighbors came by to visit. Inacio (from family #1) autonomously flirted with Mariele (from family #5). They're both single, so I guess he figured why not? But she wanted none of that. Inacio looks dejected, lol.

Inacio - Is it because I stink?


I went ahead and added a seventh family. This one is a teenage girl, and her three young siblings. Family #7 - The Kelley Family. Teen Ciara (family), child Shauna, and toddlers Brett (held by teen), and Crystal (held by the placeholder who no longer lives in the house). I'm supposed to either kill him or move him to the bin and delete him. I've done neither, so far, he's in the bin. But I'll get to it.


Things are really tough for these guys. Ciara barely managed to teach her toddler siblings to use the potty before they grew up. And she had to skip school to stay home with them. They are hard pressed for money, because teen jobs do not pay enough to cover nanny costs. I'm going to have them adopt a dog and send it to work so they can have some income.

Back to Family #1 - The Balduino Family.
Inacio is getting pretty lonely. He flirts with his good friend, Renee. He has much better luck than with Mariele.


Then he gave me a funny look.


Things are looking pretty good between those two.


Clara grew into a teen at the end of the rotation. I think she rolled popularity, but I can't remember for sure.


Then it was off to family #2 - The Halsten Family.
Hannah got pregnant again, Marcos got a promotion or two, and Blake grew into a cute child.


Family #3 - The Brennan Family. My least favorite family. Time moved ever so slowly while visiting them, and I was getting tired of them, lol. Ivan, the romance sim, kept wooing a townie, but would not take any action to get her in the bedroom. I was becoming very disappointed in him, lol. Here he is making googoo eyes at one woman, while thinking of another.


The last time I played this family, Ivan had lost his job in the music career track, and he finally found another opening. His dream is to be a rock god. We'll see, lol.

His brothers are moving steadily up their own career ladders, and really couldn't be more dull. The elders are cute and everything, but all they do is serve food and study cooking. Rebecka is a whiny child, and always wants to dance on someone's toes. Which was really cute the first 5,000 times I saw it, but now I'm seriously considering getting the hack that disables that (I think it's from MATY).

I finally figured out why Ivan and his girlfriend (who he's in love with) would not take their relationship to the next level. He had no attraction for her at all. Not one single bolt. So I had him set his sites on another townie. And sure enough, it wasn't long before the two hopped into bed together.


Rebecka grew into a teen at the end of the rotation. Now she's a little more interesting. She rolled knowledge, and her hobby is tinkering. It fits her well, because as a child all she wanted to do (when I canceled her dance on toes action) is play chess. She kept rolling wants to gain logic points.


Next up, Family #4 - The Ellis Family.
Things continue to be hard for this family, but not bad now that all the toddlers are children. Dominick got a job in military, though he would really like to reach the top of the crime career. Military pays much better in the beginning, and they needed the money. Toward the end of the rotation, the children grew to teens, so now the family has 4 teens and 3 children.

We have Rhett


Karena


Hale


and Eva. She rolled romance. I forget what the others got. She's beautiful, isn't she?


On to Family #5, The Brody Family.
I was getting pretty bored with them. Romance granny didn't try very hard to woohoo her young love. She never even rolled up the want. Though they did autonomously cuddle under the clouds, which I thought was cute. Check out where his hand is, teehee!


Mariele had the want to fall in love for quite a long time. But didn't have too many interesting prospects. The one guy she has double chemistry with, she also doesn't even know, so I was having her call him to try to up their relationship score. But she was pretty busy with her dance career.

This cute little elf man strolled by the house one day, and I had Brielle, the daughter, invite him in.


He and Marielle got along pretty well, and have natural double chemistry. That's good. And then...HOLY GUACAMOLE they just upped and jumped into bed together after granny and the little girl went to bed. I was so surprised I just sat there, stunned, while they went at it. They only had like an 18 for their daily relationship score. I was certainly not bored now, though they waited until the absolute end of the rotation to do this. Dang it! I had to move on to a different family. But it looks like she has chosen the man she wants to fall in love with. Kind of good, because I would have picked him, anyway. I mean, he's an elf. 'nuf said.


And back to the Cambridge Family again (#6).
Andrew is very good friends with Rhode Balduino (family #1), and apparently, Rhode and Alannah are quite attracted to each other.


This picture cracked me up. Rhode is talking about first woohoo , and Alannah is not thrilled with the topic of conversation.


That's it for now. I think the Cambridge Family is where I go next. I can't remember for sure.

Ari - I LOVE this post.

It's so funny. I've never played this way - the closest I've come is doing Mail Order Spouse type of project which I'm thinking of doing here. In fact......I think I will.



I'm losing my mind. I THINK I want to play - then my creative side takes over and I start doing "projects". That's it - I am INSANE.

So - the Mail Order Spouse project goes like this.

1. You decide if your Sim WANTS a Mail Order Spouse - or if you WANT your Sim to be a Mail Order Spouse.

2. Sims are created and played to a point of character development. They'll live in a small house - no more than 2 bedrooms. They HAVE a life.

3. Your Sims place ads - which will be posted in the challenge/game thread - and like REAL LIFE - your Sims can tell the truth OR LIE.

4. Then your Sim hooks UP with the Sim that they choose. Either way - YOUR SIM moves IN with the Mail Order Spouse - and journals are kept of their adventures and whether or not they actually fall in love and make it to the alter.


The funny thing is when I did this - my Sim was a pretty well adjusted Lady. The Sim that I moved her in with (who was developed by another player) was UNEMPLOYED, FILTHY, RUDE and completely anti-social. His ad said he was in the medical field, smart and chivalrous. It was pretty funny.

What do you think? Do you all think that would be fun here?

Sorry Ari - didn't mean to take away from YOUR project. I just got to thinking.

I LOVE your characters - BUT - GRANDMA CRACKS ME UP. If Demi Moore is a cougar - WHAT is Grandma???????? Freaking hilarious stuff. Clara and Eva are gorgeous, but Inacio reminds me of Jeff Daniels character in Dumb and Dumber for some reason!!