Ways To Keep Yourself Entertained On The Sims

As the COVID pandemic carries on, I find myself searching for new forms of entertainment as I remain mostly inside. It feels as if I’ve gone through every movie ever created and worn out my obsession with Animal Crossing. After all, there are only so many movies to watch and so many times you can buy and sell turnips at Nook’s Cranny. As I seek out joy and outlets for creative expression, I find myself returning to my favorite video game of all time — “The Sims.”

I first fell in love with “The Sims” series with “The Sims 2” back in the early 2000s. However, my love for the game has only grown throughout the years. As a creative storyteller, “The Sims” is the perfect outlet not only to write stories and create characters but to live out those stories however you please. From building mansions for your millionaire Sims to live in to creating the Sim version of yourself and living out your dream life, there are endless possibilities when it comes to “The Sims.”

Create Your Favorite Celebrity

If you’re as obsessed with and invested in pop culture as I am, you will find making celebrity Sims thrilling. Back in the mid-2000s, I recreated the highly talked about love triangle between Miley Cyrus, Nick Jonas, and Selena Gomez, and it was a blast. I’ve also created and played with other celebrities like Taylor Swift and Shawn Mendes.

You can either live out their careers or create your own drama to tie into their already chaotic lives.

Build Your Dream Home

Whether your dream home is a huge mansion in the hills, a penthouse in the city, or a small home in the suburbs, there are unlimited options on “The Sims 4.” “The Sims 4” offers a large variety of different furniture, wall colors, and floor designs. You also have the choice of three different wall heights, and with the new update, you can build platforms of various heights, finally giving us the option of split level homes.

The expansion pack, “The Sims 4: City Living,” introduces the new town, San Myshuno. San Myshuno is the first city in the game and contains three different neighborhoods with apartments for your Sims to live in. Two beautiful penthouses can be renovated however you want. For anyone who dreams of being a wealthy city dweller, you can bring your dreams to life in San Myshuno.

Manifest Your Dream Life

In times like these, when many people feel trapped, the world feels uncertain; it’s a great time to re-evaluate what you want for your life. In “The Sims,” you are limitless. You can plan out your dream life and play through it without holding back. The bigger you dream, the better.

With the Sims 4 expansion pack, “The Sims 4: Get Famous,” you can become a huge celebrity with fans begging for pictures and autographs everywhere you go. “The Sims” also includes cheat codes like motherlode, which allow you to supply your Sims with unlimited cash without having to lift a finger. Depending on which expansion packs you have, you can also explore careers like acting, writing, photography, and even politics. However, if your dream isn’t to be rich and famous, you can skip out on the cheat codes and fame enhancing careers. “The Sims” also offers more humble careers like tech guru, chef, or gardener. And if your dream life includes settling down and starting a family, that’s possible too.

Renovate Existing Homes

Most homes in “The Sims” are decorated basically to keep them affordable for players who don’t choose to use cheat codes. However, these homes can also be bland and outdated. One of my favorite pastimes is to go through each town and update the homes. With landscaping, brighter colors, and more modern furniture, it’s always exciting to see how well these homes can be refurbished.

Sabotage Their Relationships

I strongly advise you to treat people with kindness and respect in the real world. However, once you turn on “The Sims,” do as you please. It’s all fun and games when you’re playing with simulated people’s emotions and not real people’s emotions. After all, if the creators didn’t want us to mess with our Sims’ relationships, they wouldn’t have coded it into the game.

It is so much fun to create love triangles on “The Sims.” In my most recent gameplay, I created a very Mamma Mia-esque storyline. My pregnant Sim had three potential fathers. To make it even more interesting, I had her propose to the biological father while simultaneously being in a relationship with someone else.

Then I had the biological father find out about the affair and call off the engagement only for my Sim to then cheat on her current boyfriend with a wealthy Sim who lived in a beautiful penthouse in Uptown San Myshuno. Sadly, he mysteriously died, and she took all his money. Again, this is only acceptable on-screen and should never be taken into the real world. But at least now, my Sim can support her three children and budding painting career.

Make Them Kleptomaniacs

During the Create a Sim process, you have the ability to give your Sims personality traits. Some are positive, like ambitious or creative. However, some are not so positive, like mean and the fascinating kleptomaniac trait. With this trait, anywhere Sims go, they have the ability to steal.

This trait is a fun alternative to money cheats. Give your Sim this trait and have them go around town stealing expensive objects and then sell them until they are millionaires. The best object to place around your world is the most expensive computer. I once set up tables full of these computers, had my Sim steal them all, and then sell them for thousands of dollars.

Recreate Your Favorite Movie or TV Show

One of my favorite things to do in “The Sims 4” is to create 8 Sims, the maximum amount of Sims per household, move them into a house together, and create various photoshoots in which the Sim with the worst picture is eliminated and moved out of the home. I call this Sims Next Top Model where I am Tyra Banks, and my Sims are aspiring supermodels. This requires the expansion pack “Get To Work” in order to access the camera, photography skill, and photo studio.

There is a lot of joy that comes from experiencing your favorite movies and television shows with the power to tweak anything about them. A popular movie that has been recreated with “The Sims” on various Youtube channels is Titanic. Particularly one uploaded by SimgmProductions, which incorporates the Kardashians. In this Sim recreation of Titanic, Britney Spears and Nicki Minaj are crew members, and instead of falling in love with Rose, Jack falls for the uninterested Kourtney Kardashian.

Try A Youtube Sims Challenge

If you’re really out of ideas, Youtube is flooded with challenges, including the 100 babies challenge and the homeless Sim challenge. The objective of the 100 babies challenge is for you to create a female Sim and have her give birth to 100 babies. Depending on which version of the challenge you choose to complete, this can either be done throughout generations of Sims or through cheat codes. For the homeless Sim challenge, you must create one Sim, move them into an empty lot with no money and have them acquire $20,000 through fishing and selling whatever your Sim catches.

I haven’t tested out the 100 babies challenge yet, but I have played with a homeless Sim. Though there are rules for each challenge, I find it more exciting to make up my own. After creating my Sim, I moved her to an empty lot and set the household funds to $0. I would take her to various community lots, such as gyms, to take a shower, use the bathroom, or steal snacks from the refrigerator.

I would also have her go fishing and search for rare crystals to sell for money. The kleptomaniac trait would have really come in handy here. Eventually, I got tired of this challenge and decided to have her marry someone for money and have an affair with her married neighbor. But I give props to all those who completed the challenge and played it fairly all the way through.

Build A Fun Community Lot

If you’re tired of playing with your Sims in their house, there are a number of community lots Sims can travel to. “The Sims 4” gave Sims the ability to travel between worlds. Sims can go to parks, restaurants, clubs, bars, cafes, and more. The lots offered in the game aren’t always so exciting. The parks and clubs can lack creativity and be pretty mundane. This is why it’s so fun to build and design your own.

“The Sims 4: Get Together” offers the ability to make and join clubs, and “The Sims 4: Spa Day” allows Sims to go to spas where they can do yoga, meditate, or sit in the sauna. Clubs are some of the most exciting lots to build. From installing bars and DJ booths to hot tubs on the roof, there are so many options. This is the perfect place to take your Sims when you want to keep them up all night.

Explore The Mythical Side Of The Game

Several “Sims 4” expansion packs have introduced different Lifestates. This means instead of being human; your Sims can be Aliens, Spellcasters, Vampires, Mermaids, and more. With “The Sims 4: Vampires,” a new world is offered in the game called Forgotten Hollow. Here vampires can hide from the sun, transform into bats, and build their vampire skills.

One of the most fun things to do with vampires is to move human Sims into town and have them suck their blood, which then transforms them into vampires too. Human Sims also have the ability to read books and do online research to learn about vampires. If vampire Sims want to trick others into thinking they’re human, the vampires have their own human disguises they can wear when they’re out in public. Just make sure not to keep them out in daylight for too long, or they’ll turn to dust.

Unleash Your Creativity With The Sims

“The Sims” was first released on February 4th, 2000. 21 years later, the game’s popularity hasn’t faded. Even when fans are frustrated with aspects of the game and feel like there is a lot that needs to be improved, they keep coming back for more. They continue to buy expansion packs, create youtube gameplay, and live stream on Twitch. Why, after all these years, has the game never lost its appeal?

“The Sims” never loses its charm because there is no other game like it. While some games have an objective or an overall goal, the Sims offers you the creative freedom to play the game however you choose. Since we’re allowed to make our own rules, it’s easy to get so invested in the game we forget that it’s just a game. Every time you grow tired and decide to return to the real world, you are sure to be back soon for more home decorating, relationship sabotaging, and partying with your Sims.