Alice and Kev Challenge?
Blech:
The Legacy Challenge posted by Pinstar reminded me of a challenge I'm currently trying out in my game. I love the Alice and Kev story by roBurky, and thought it would be fun to do my own version. With the Awesomemod allowing famblies to not have an adult, my poor sims are a girl child and her older brother, who's a teen. They're not exactly homeless, they live in a small one room shack in the woods. I'm mostly making up the rules as I go along, but some of them are: randomized traits save for family oriented for the teen and frugal for the child, no free food in the fridge, no free books on the shelves, no free clothes from the dresser, and they have to take the first LTW offered. After moving in, I sold all the food and books then used familyfunds to take their simoleans down to 0.
Their shack has only the bare essentials. For the kitchen area: cheap fridge, cheap stove, and one cheap counter. Living area: 2 cheap beds, 1 cheap loveseat, and 1 cheap bookcase. I agonized over allowing a bathroom but decided a cheap toilet and cheap shower were okay. No decorations are allowed until they can buy them with money earned. No other skilling items, besides the bookcase (which is useless until they can buy books), either. Also, no alarms are allowed when first starting out, anything lost to fire or burglar is lost until they afford to replace it. They are allowed to earn money any way they can; busking, painting, or writing, provided they can save up enough to buy the tools and have the necessary skills. They are allowed to skill at comm lots though. In my game, the teen has a part-time job and is saving up to buy the child an easel because one of her traits is artistic.
As I said before, I'm mostly making up the rules as I go along, so it's not a real Challenge, just something I'm doing for fun. I'd love to hear of anything someone else is doing similarly or new ideas for this to add to my own game.
McCrea:
Yep, I did an Alice and Kev. As today is the father's birthday, it's a fine time for a report.
Rodney Mallard: Young Adult Male
Dislikes ChildrenHot HeadedLoserSlobNo Sense of Humor
8 Gardening1 Handiness1 Charisma
Karen Mallard: Teen Female (started toddler)
GoodSlobGeniusAngler
3 Fishing
I allowed them to start with only a bench. The first week's bill was $1. They took that lone lot near the lake, because it was furthest from town. But it turned out to be an excellent locale. I too used one key rule that still made it too easy to be interesting:
Quote from: smellyarmando on 2009 June 21, 15:34:32
They are allowed to earn money any way they can
Rodney looked up from his bench and saw rocks across the road. He picked up the kid and then the rocks. He walked over to the lake to go fishing. Walking around the lake, he found the apple trees (and lettuce and bell peppers and grapes), so food problem already solved with a practical garden only 100 yards away. Pretty early he had a 3 apple opportunity, which he was able to fulfill just by harvesting at the lake. He never got around to fishing; he was too busy gardening. He also found 3 more rocks near the orchard. Regarding the rocks, I think he gets 2 gemstones and 3 space rocks every couple days right near his lot. So he sold them, and had enough for a potty chair and a crib. Selling rocks and gems and a crop of mediocre produce every few days allowed him to buy a wall and toilet stall. He later got a shower and more walls, and swapped out toilets. He won the junior olympics with his zero atheletics skill. The kid did learn to walk, talk and potty and aged up well. It took a while to get a double bed, and I made a house of a 4x4 bedroom and 3x3 bathroom.It took a few days before I bought the two ceiling lights. I just noticed I did put in a cheap sink, so they must have had a couple bucks. ARGH! They have a foundation! Now you know they are rich! When the kid aged into a teen, there was no need to get a part-time job. The time would be better spent skilling.
The kid has learning some fishing, but she doesn't get much time for it while running A's in school and visiting classmates as the game proposes. His gardening is up to level 8 and he is growing all the common (buyable) crops. He's earned $1168 from gardening. He's analyzed 9 rocks and had 5 gems cut. I think he did complete a repair opportunity, and his 1 point charisma was a "meet someone" opportunity reward, iirc.
Storywise, it could have been interesting that he is a Gold Digger, and the kid's first acquaintance was Agnes Crumplebottom, but nothing developed on its own.
And that was enough for me. They'll be NPC's for me now. It was just too easy walking right into some rocks and apples. It would have been harder if I at least had to hunt for them, but still not hard enough. But, what did I learn... What could make it better?
Need a negative "sleeping outdoors" or "need shelter" if outside more than 20 hours or something. *the only reason to buy walls is for privacy for tub/shower and placement support for things that must be placed along a wall*. Maybe we need dingos to run off with toddlers. And pigeons to ensure all your clothing has that undesirable "spattered" look.
I think the "it's dark" should be more severe.
Special case: Sims that hate children shouldn't be able to sleep in the same bed as a child ... unless they plan to let the kid fall asleep and then physically kick her out of bed for the lawls.
Collectibles kill any semblance of poverty.
Since I started Sims 3 I have wanted to announce the cooking is worthless (except ambrosia, I guess), just based off of buying a $30 pizza every few days if you have a fridge to store leftovers. Now I see that perhaps you just need one apple tree per sim? Wow, so challenging when you don't need to buy a fridge or stove. And obviously I'm already completely disregarding the free meals at the park(s?) and gym.
So, it would be definitely more challenging if you weren't allowed to leave your lot. But like that's so easy to call stupid. If you're not leaving your lot, why bother playing TS3 than TS2? If you're not leave YOUR lot, your not homeless are you!!?!? Stuff like that :)
I mean, next time I have a broke homeless sim, I have a simple plan of attack, still without power-playing:
Find apple. Plant apple. Victory is ours.
P.S. I see there that they had to splurge on a little table to put a birthday cake on.
Doc Doofus:
Splurge on a table? I always hold my birthdays in the park, by my sim-self.
MistyBlue:
I also did a version of Alice and Kev, but my goal was not to hold them down or keep them homeless. I played it as if the woman I started out with had lost her job and hubby and had nowhere else to go. She started in a "park" type lot next to that place that has the chess tables in sunset valley. She mostly earned her keep by harvesting other people's gardens and using the pot at the park. I never went looking for seeds, bugs, or rocks, but if she happened ot be passing one, she was allowed to collect it and sell it for profit. I let her get a job as a test subject where she met a guy she fell in love with. He, of course, did a hit and run (not planned by me). She had his baby, but he was already in love with someone else. Heh...and I actually thought it would be an easy out for her since he had a spiffy beach house. Anyhow, it took her whole young adult life, but she finally earned enough to move into the cheapest starter and then sell it off for the next one she could afford. Absolutely no cheats were used during this...and I'm very proud of myself for that.
J. M. Pescado:
Alice and Kev isn't a challenge, it's how I usually play the game. The fact I voluntarily CHOOSE to do so as a PREFERRED starter option should tell you that this is, in fact, BETTER.
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