Lots of Rooms Just a bit of fun ... argh! I got carried away. It is now 9:30am where I live. The last time I looked at the time it was 9:30pm. Good job I don't have to go to work. I got engrossed in designing a new (luxury) house. I then spent an hour or more making an album to show it off. I just stuck it on the exchange (the album, not the house) ... It needs a few tweaks before I upload it (I'll also have to make sure that there are no hacked objects in it. (As far as I know there is only one ... but I'll have to check with JMP to make sure.) Anyway. Here is Seaview a villa in a fusion of mediterranean and 1960's kitsch styling. It features 4 floors (front elevation is two storeys!) All floors have natural light, including the basement. It has 5 double bedrooms all with en-suite bathrooms, 3 kitchens, a barbeque and a huge party salon. There are several balconies, a huge pool and a deck with a sunken hot tub. And all this on a 3 * 4 plot!
Designing houses sure is addicting. This weekend I wanted to move grandma out of the house so she wouldn't die too quickly and the kids would still have their grandma for a while. So I needed a Granny house. I had already created a character called Old MacDonald who had a lot of jiggle in his sporran Not wanting to use the money cheat any further, I moved Old MacDonald into the house and then proceeded to court grandma into marrying him. So that was my weekend. 1 and a half day designing a house, an hour or so of actual "simming" all so I could park grandma I'm starting to think this game requires as much a time investment as Online RPG's Nice house btw. I haven't yet gotten over preference for one storey houses. I like to be able to zoom out and see what all my sims are doing without having to go up and down floors. As a result all my houses look well.. flat.
Thank you. It does look good ... but sad to say it plays utter crap! (Am I allowed to say that? ) I've redesigned the inside 3 times and they're still getting stuck ... especially visitors! It is now turning into a serious drama ... partly because the way to test the efficiency of a house is to install a large slightly dysfunctional family. Ooh a family ... well we have to start somewhere. I cast my eyes around and they fell on a leaflet from the Halifax (for non Brits, it's a bank) and their oh-so-cutesy advertising icon, Howard (see pic). Half an hour BodyShop-ing later I had finished a not half bad sim Howard. Now I know that Howard is not exactly every female's notion of grrrrrrrowlll :bunny: but maybe it's a Brit thing. Anyway I thought H would be a bit of ladies man. So into CAS and I made Cora Mae. Black and beeeeyoootiful! I made them a teen girl, a child girl and then I wondered what a toddler would look like .... aw it wuz sooo cute it made my finger tips tingle ... (stop laughing at me!) ... I made a litle boy tot. So we had a family of 5. Not enough. Made coffee and thunked. Came back and made a red-headed, freckle-faced siren called Helene. Allocated her as a roomie of Cora Mae and then shamelessly made another tot -- and even cutesyier girl, Dolce -- with H and Ruth. The CAS stage was getting crowded and Wendy was looking like she might go autonomous on Wendy's derriere ... so I deleted her (Cora Mae that is ... leaving Hallie, Charlotte and Tobin motherless). This was getting out of hand .... Howard was like a love machine on nitrous .... The family was up to 6 now (down from 7 ). So I quickly made Helena ... a blond bombshell. I was now beyong reason ... I created a toddler with Helena & Howard ... this one was so cute I had to call her Lulu ... That made 8. I moved them into Seaview. It was a nightmare. I moved them back out. I'm going to gut the inside of the house and try remodelling it. Maybe a few less kitchens this time ... The pics are (from left to right) (1)Howard Perring & "Family", (2)The Sim Howard, (3) The Real Howard
Your Howard really looks like the pic! You did a great job. I've done some mansion building, but as you say they don't play well at all. Even my millionaire families just have large ranch style (one story) or two story houses. (Well, some have an attic where they put their reward and career objects so that they are out of the way. Sort of like a laboratory.) Mostly I get my house ideas from house plan sites (and the many books that I had bought over the years when house plan sites weren't yet available.) I have to fiddle with them to make them Sims playable (since we don't have such exacting architecture tools as you'd need to do them just like the plans have.) My big project has been a neighborhood where I've been following 24 families. It's been a hoot to work on and still has lots more to do. Most of the families only have a child and a toddler or just a toddler still. I haven't gotten any of the families to the point where a child has grown up, married and moved out. I suspect that I'll be pretty busy working on this project for quite some time. (Unfortunately, my lousy dialup means that I don't upload anything to the exchange and can't even get most albums to be viewable.)
Lovely house, Mirelly! I think I spend about half of my time on the Sims making houses. It's what Will Wright originally designed the Sims to be, y'know, an architecture game. 100% Sims fact! Really? MikeInside has some good guides for making playable houses, though don't go on his forums if you're offended by non-T-for-Teen shiznitz.
Oh wow Mirelly!! You've made the Halifax man!! He is so cool lol. How did you know he's called Howard? Does he have a nametaf or something on the adverts? More to the point, that is one stunning house. I can never make anything as good as that! Amazing
I some accounts at the Halifax hence the leaflets lying around. One offered a promo competitions with the tag line "get your hands on Howard's money". The Perring surname is pure invention. I have to admit that my Howard is pretty cool. I want to do a little tweak here and there but I think I'll have to make him available for download ... Kat, your neighbornood sounds a lot like mine. Loads of families of varying sizes designed for variety in the gene pool. I almost have too many now. I can't keep track of them all. Meanwhile, I don't know if it is my imagination or serendipity not, but my Howard is utterly magnetic, a high percentage of my female sims are attractred to him and he seems insatiable ... maybe it's cos I made he a romance sim (shy and nice, with medium levels on neatness, activity and playfulness).
