Deciding where to start

So an idea I’ve been mulling on for a few months is a sort of, analysis of the way Sims players have changed the way they tell stories and the way the game has changed alongside that. Where the storytelling has been game led and where it has been player led, and what the reception to these changes has been both initially and in retrospect.

I’m also interested in comparing my findings about the Sims to the new game inZoi and upcoming game Paralives. The recent remastering of the Sims 1 and 2 has given me an excellent way of doing some of this research. I can now literally play old sims games on new hardware and explore what storytelling looks like in-game and how the game guides or doesn’t guide it.

I also want to look into storytellers. There are many many sims youtubers, sims bloggers, instagram accounts, twitch streamers, etc. I remember in around 2010 reading a blog someone in The Sims 3 living as a homeless man and his daughter. I think that was the first time I realised that other people were taking this game as seriously as I was, and were as interested as I was in exploring narratives through the games. I went on to find out about Legacy Challenges a little later, and I became kind of obsessive about them. I’ve written more than one set of rules for Legacies. I want to see what other people are doing with their legacies. Who is following the rules strictly vs adapting them? What kind of adaptations are people using? What are the common throughlines in stories and how have those changed over the years as the playerbase has aged and the game has changed?

Finally I want to look at the modding scene. Sims mods are full on. There’s a mod for drug use and drug dealing, there’s mods for making your sims have sex instead of just turning into a blur and some fireworks, there’s mods for making sims homophobic (really), and mods for making university more expensive. I don’t use mods much. Sometimes I’ll install one, use it for a little while and then stop when there’s an update and I can’t be bothered doing the necessary admin or waiting to make sure everything’s working. And some mods can’t really be streamed or posted to youtube (Wicked Whims I’m looking at you) because their content goes against all sorts of TOS. There are also mods that people use to do elaborate storytelling that uses almost no gameplay at all. Instead, they use these mods to pose their Sims like dolls and create almost comic strips with them doing things that are impossible in game. Like, driving a car, or sitting in a realistic but not game-compatible way, or giving birth without The Machine.

The question is - to do this project I’m looking at tens if not hundreds of hours of research, gameplay, and I’m not sure what format I even want it to be in. Should I be making it as a series of youtube videos? Some sort of book? It’s gonna be long. There’s a lot to get through. Sims youtuber Plumbella has several multi-hour videos on the in-game lore and the game’s development history, and while I’m not trying to rival their knowledge of in game details, I do think that the “canonical” or as I think of them “pre-built” stories in the Sims influence the way people play. So yeah, it’s a big project and I need to work out how I’m going to take it on.

The other day I started a Sims 1 save the way I would start a sims 4 save, and quickly discovered that that’s a wonderful way to soft lock yourself into death unless you use cheats. I wish I’d recorded it, honestly, it was a real reminder of how much easier they’ve made it to keep your Sims alive over the last 25 years. Or at least the last 22, which I think is how long I’ve been playing.

Anyway, if this is a project you’re even morbidly interested in seeing happen, I’d love your input on how you’d like to see it. A series of youtube videos? A series of essays (in this newsletter, or a different format?) or all collected into one massive publication at the end (ie. several hour video essay or a short book).

If you’d like to support me in doing things like buying games for this project (my copy of the sims 2 is not the remastered one, for example, and I don’t yet have inZoi or Paralives), then as always please feel free to visit my Patreon and Kofi.

Thanks to my current supporters and anyone who has given me a one time donation to help out, I really appreciate it. ❤️

Last, a little housekeeping! After a lot of busy-ness I should finally be back to my regular stream schedule! Obviously we’re still participating in the Microsoft Boycott and not streaming Minecraft, so we’re currently doing The Long Dark tomorrow unless I feel like playing something else, and variety on Saturday. (On that note, I don’t currently have a Sims stream - I used to, but it got lost somewhere along the way. Do we want that back? Let me know!)

See you in stream, or next week for another newsletter!