Days of Their Lives

Telling the stories of simulated people, one day at a time.

I’ve been a long-time player of The Sims, and one of things that draws me into the game is watching the lives of my simulated people unfold and being able to share that with others. It’s like having your own personal soap opera that you can interact with and direct.

Past iterations of the game included a story exchange feature, which let you upload your screenshot albums to a central hub for others to browse. But over the years this has been deprecated and the current edition of the game, The Sims 4, doesn’t have one. This doesn’t meant that players can’t share their stories though, as a whole community of “SimLit” (Sims literature) authors has grown over the years, sharing their creations on various blogging and social media platforms.

Almost a year ago, I decided that it was time to take the plunge and join them… Continue reading “Days of Their Lives”

A World of Pure Imagination

Building the theme park of my dreams in Planet Coaster.

I’ve been a fan of theme park management simulators since the original Theme Park back in the 1990s. I would spend hours building a bustling park, watch all of the little 2D sprites of visitors queuing up for rides and get a lot of satisfaction out of seeing their happiness stats rise.

Fast forward to this millennium, and we have the current generation spiritual successor to the theme park simulator crown, Planet Coaster. The game was released back in 2016, and I watched streamers on Twitch giving it a try with interest. I was tempted by it, but at full price and with my taste in genres having switched from simulation games to MMOs, I instead just added it to my wish list.

With the game going on sale with a large discount during the Steam Winter Sale, I finally added it to my games library and became hooked. Continue reading “A World of Pure Imagination”

Plants Are People Too

PlantSims begin to appear around the neighbourhood in The Sims 4 for a new limited time challenge event.

I’d heard about challenge events happening in The Sims 4, but as I’ve only recently started playing it, I haven’t seen one before. But today I launched the game and got the announcement that the PlantSim Challenge has begun.

Challenges are events where you’re set a particular goal to complete within a timeframe, such as growing a certain number of special fruits or completing a special collection. I like how The Sims 4 isn’t just a static game – it receives regular patches from the developers and sometimes new experiences are patched in to keep things fresh.

I’ve read about previous challenges, such as the Day of the Dead Challenge and the Growfruit Challenge and was intrigued, wondering if I’d get a chance to try them if they were repeated someday. The PlantSim Challenge started on 13 April 2017 and lasts until 4 May 2017, and I believe this is a brand new event that hasn’t happened before. Continue reading “Plants Are People Too”

Welcome Back To The Neighbourhood

The lives of a new generation of virtual people has become my obsession, after I picked up The Sims 4 during the anniversary sale.

I’ve loved playing The Sims since its first iteration back in the year 2000. The game is all about virtual people, known as sims, who live out their lives and are controlled by you. You can choose to be benevolent and try to keep the sims happy by fulfilling their wants and needs, or be malevolent and make their lives a living hell.

2017 is the 17th anniversary of The Sims franchise, and so the publisher decided to have an anniversary sale. It’s been a long time since I last played a Sims game, and so the opportunity to grab The Sims 4 at a massive discount was too good to miss. Continue reading “Welcome Back To The Neighbourhood”

Finding the Missing Link

I finally got to experience the Missing Link during my replay of Deus Ex: Human Revolution and it delivered a great story.

During my original playthrough of Deus Ex: Human Revolution back in 2011, I completed the game before its story DLC, The Missing Link, was released. I’ve had it in my Steam library for years, but never got around to playing it.

One reason was because of its strange disconnected format – it wasn’t integrated into the main game, you had to launch it separately, and I’m not sure if it took into account your save state.

That all changed when Deus Ex: Human Revolution Director’s Cut was released, featuring all DLC and including The Missing Link as a fully integrated part of the story. Continue reading “Finding the Missing Link”

Replaying the Revolution

Deus Ex: Human Revolution was my favourite game of 2011, and I’m replaying it to get back into the mindset of being Adam Jensen.

The latest adventure in the Deus Ex universe has arrived. Deus Ex: Mankind Divided continues the story of Adam Jensen, a mechanically augmented human in the year 2029 – a dystopian future where augmented humans are feared and segregated into ghettos.

But how did that come to be? In anticipation of Mankind Divided’s release, I began a replay of its predecessor, Deus Ex: Human Revolution. Continue reading “Replaying the Revolution”