A Starr Is Born - Sims 1->4

[Chinely]

Sul sul fellow weirdos, and welcome to...



The Sims! Namely The Sims 1: Complete Edition to begin with, but we'll end up on The Sims 4.

What's this then?

Starting with our very first sim in the Sims 1, I'll be trying to show all the content in that game that's relevant or interesting, creating a family along the way. Once that's been done, there'll be a delay while I create the family and home in the next game along the line, and then we'll continue on until we reach the Sims 4 and I've exhausted that game.

Might have to put Sim lifespans on short for that one.

Is this going to be a narrative LP?

Not really. I won't ever write dialogue like I'm the Sims themselves, but I'll try and get some storylines going to make it interesting. I won't be playing this TOO silly, as I feel everyone does that, but I'll try and be dramatic... and the Sims is pretty chaotic on its own anyway.

Will I, the reader, get to vote on what will happen?

Almost certainly! I'll be keeping a tight reign on for the most part, but I'll let people vote on a lot of stuff like who to marry, what career (within a range - I'll have to show off the fame system after all!) and what we'll do next generally. People might also be able to vote on how the kids of the family end up, once that's relevant. I'll roleplay accordingly.

What's the update schedule?

Chaos. I'm doing this for fun. Probably will miss Fridays for a while though, as I'm keeping a Hypnospace Outlaw LP going as well. This LP is also being simulcast on the SA LP subforum!

Without further adieu...



Let's go!

--

Update 1 - The Starr is Created
Update 2 - Studio Town(?)
Update 3 - Foot on the Ladder
Update 4 - First, Real Job

[Chinely]

Update 1 - The Starr is Created



First things first, we actually need to create our first sim. As this is our very first one, I'm taking complete directive control over who they are. Call me a tyrant.



Here we've got the basic system. We can give a sim a first name (they'll all have the same family name), change their head and outfit, give them a personality and do a little bio writing. We can also swap between an adult and a child, which is important. Children can't age (with exactly one exception) and adults will never die of old age, so they're almost entirely different types of sims. We'll deal with children later though.



Heads are permanent. We can't change a sims head no matter what, and they'll keep it in every outfit. This means if you give a sim this lovely sun hat, they'll be wearing it in the shower. There aren't too many, so I'll just pick one to go with my sims personality.



Oh, DARLING. Outfits can be changed later on, and have a pretty big variation in body shape and size. You can make an old lady in a big frumpy dress but when she gets in to a bikini, she'll have the same rockin' bod as anyone else.



We'll also give her the perfect personality that gives her... er, my own star sign. She's a complete bitch, but extremely outgoing, active and fun. Perfect for...



Mia Starr. The new and upcoming rising star who'll take the world by storm. There's a pretty big reason my first sim is so geared towards fame, and that's that... every other career sucks! This game had a pretty limited system for work, and pretty much they all involve getting in to a carpool for a few hours and then arriving back at home. The fame career is actually pretty involved and fun, so that's what we're going for.



The spotlight was only meant for one (for now!).



Every sim gets §20,000 to begin with, regardless of how many people you add.



Now... houses in neighbourhood 1 are pretty affordable, so I can try and get somewhere nice. An interesting thing to note is inflation actually happens in the Sims games - I can afford a house in the Sims 1 that would easily be in the §35,000 mark in later Sims games!



We'll start with the crappy starter home, however. Fame needs a decent amount of money to get started!



Just kidding, there's an even crappier starter home down the street! Welcome to the Sims 1, ignore the giant grey void outside the house.



Our house is pretty unforgivably atrocious, but it'll be enough for now. I will give it a few little touches just so Mia isn't in quite as bad a situation.



Guaranteed none of you are unfamiliar with build and buy mode. It's the same in every game, buy to purchase furniture and build to actually remodel the house. What most of you will remember though is the bitchin' build and buy music!



There are also item descriptions that, criminally, got stopped in the later games. They're usually pretty funny.



Just adding a couple of things. Burglar alarms work within a five tile range outside, or protect an entire room inside. Fun facts!



Spacing is incredibly important as, despite the massive gap here, sims in the Sims 1 can't walk anywhere unless there's an entire empty tile for them. This room is far more cramped than it looks.



Here we are, a little bit upgraded for our starlet. All the training she needs, along with some fun and booze facilities.



First things first, she's going to need to know how to cook without setting the entire house on fire.



Pictured: clomping all the way to the bookcase. The sims walk cycle cracks me up.



She'll be here for a while. Let's leave her in peace while she finishes reading.

[Chinely]

The SA one is about three updates ahead, but I'm just going to go ahead and put them all up now as I'm watching something with friends and I've got the time.

[Chinely]

Update 2 - Studio Town(?)



Well, that took a while! 3 cooking skill. I suppose it's time to deep dive on the skills just because they're fairly interesting!



Unlike later Sims games where every skill is useful, a lot of the Sims 1 skills are... pretty much only for jobs. Later expansions help a BIT but still. Three cooking skill is the classic first thing, as otherwise your Sim will set fire to food. A LOT.

Mechnical skill makes you repair things faster, but I'm just going to phone a repairman. It also affects how quickly you make gnomes and gargoyles, and how good they are. I think there's also a magic show based on mechanical?

Charisma is, as far as I know, kind of useless outside for jobs. Except we're going to be famous so we need it. Hurrah.

Body is again semi-useless, but it will at least make us less crappy when snowboarding. Also we win more fights, maybe??

Logic is also... sort of useless! There's the infamous potion table that is based on logic, and we can do a logical magic show. But that's about it.

And the last one... creativity. The higher this is, the more paintings sell for and the less our piano playing sucks!



Here we are with our initial things. The box is a free magic wand and ingredients that I won't nab just yet, as I'll save the magic stuff right for the end.



There's the newspaper, which lets us find a job. One random job a day in the newspaper, three on the computer. However we don't care about that shit, what we want...



Is the star magazine right next to it. Finding an agent is how we start the fame career.



Let's get Mia an agent!





Now the fame career is pretty unique. For one, it looks like this.



There are ten levels, same as any career, except some minor differences. We get promoted after we go to Studio Town and do fame making actions, and we have a star power. Unlike normal careers where you'll need a certain amount of friends to get promoted, all that matters is how FAMOUS our friends are.

It's accumulative, so a single 5 star friend is worth two 2.5 star friends. We've got to schmooze with the rich and famous to get anywhere in this town.



We can now go to Studio Town once a day. If we don't go two days in a row, we'll get less famous. There are no weekends in The Sims 1 so instead you can just safely not show up to work every now and then.



Now on to the main hurdle. Your needy ass sims. Their needs fall SO fast in The Sims 1 and take so long to go back up.



Especially as Mia is outgoing, which means her social need falls super fast. She'll also get in to hot tubs naked.



She's also a disgusting slob who won't flush the toilet or clean her hands. But you can't say she doesn't have star power!



Now on to our beautiful TV. Mia is outgoing, playful and nasty so she'll love horror, romance and cartoons. Here she is, laughing at a horror show.



Quick tipple before work. She hasn't even started yet and she's already chugging vodka cranberries like they're nothing.



Off we go to get famous!



Welcome to Studio Town, baby! Based on the golden age of Hollywood! Areas are grouped based on what they're about. Golden roof means it's film and TV, black roof means it's music based and a blue roof means FASHION baby. The group in the middle is just a general lot for milling about and getting a spa treatment.



Mia is far too much of a nobody to even get a simple modeling gig, so it's off to the town square for us.





Here we are.



There are three types of sims in Studio Town. NPCs who, as anyone who has played TS1 knows, are basically fancy objects and have no role outside of the one thing they're programmed to do. And then we have Somebodies and Nobodies.

Nobodies have no fame level and will, eventually, take the role of fans once we're famous. Somebodies ARE famous, and can be spotted by their high fashion clothing.



I'll say hello to this dweeb just for somebody to talk to on the phone, but unfortunately...



Oh shit, he's famous! Well that leads us on to the... actually cool thing. If somebody is MORE famous than you, all social interactions are replaced with...



Being a sycophant. If they're less famous than you - which shortly everyone will be - you can only act as a distant star towards them. People of the same friend level, or people who are already friends, get a normal interaction wheel. This means until we're famous it's going to be hard to befriend other famous people.

...not impossible, however. Anyway!



Let's dress like we're more important than we are!







There are only three outfits for the new 'High Fashion' category, and is the easiest way to tell if somebody is famous as they'll USUALLY be wearing it. We'll get the first one but wearing it is just too pretentious.

For now!



As it costs a whole §249! For a single outfit!

Also one really cool thing is, as NPCs aren't normal sims at all, they actually went pretty far in giving them unique voices. The cashier here sounds like he has a french accent. Sushi sellers have a japanese one, photographers sound german... It's just a really nice touch!



Now let's do what we were born to do!





Unfortunately, we stink! And using fame objects absolutely tanks your needs!

I tried a few more times, but it looks like we'll need some charisma before even getting the first rung of fame.



We'll be back, Hollywood! We'll be back!!!

[Chinely]

Update 3 - Foot on the Ladder



Dreaming of fame... they just don't know talent when they see it, Mia!



Waking up fully rested at... eh... 2am. One of the weird things about both TS1 and TS2 is that they snapshot the time of day when you leave to go anywhere else. This unfortunately means you'll leave at 2:21pm with a full energy bar, and return at 2:21pm dead tired and ready to drop.

Not that it really matters for Mia, as she makes her own hours and Studio Town is bustling even at 3am!



On waking up I'll do a routine. I'll show it once but trust me, I'll have to do it a lot.



Mia is extremely messy and so the toilet needs to be cleaned after a single use. I'll uh. I'll leave what she's doing up to your imagination.



Mia showering in her hair wrap/beanie, glasses and lipstick.



One outfit change later and it's time for her two breakfasts. Her cooking skill is too low to make a filling steak, beans and greens.

For the longest time this was the only cooking, but Makin' Magic DID add an actual cooking method. We'll get to that later!



Oh he famous. Let's ring him up for our social need. Sims get social CRIMINALLY slow when talking to people they don't know, but the phone is pretty good.



Sims actually have interests, and it'll choose whether they gain or lose relationship. I'm not sure, but I think nice sims will gain relationship even if you disagree?



Appearance of the paper girl... and as a treat, I found a clip of this: https://lpix.org/3790128/nancywhistle.mp3



Right, hilarious horror marathon done. Time to work on some skills... and it's only 9 hours later!



But first, we famous now. Let's get a maid.



Time to talk in the mirror until she's sick of it.



Four hours later, she's got three charisma points. Now it's time to... HIT THE BARS.



Ever the Diva, she spent four hours working and now she's too tired to do anything. Come on Mia, you think fame just comes naturally?!



Oh, I guess she's just going to bed again. I don't have to do this for you, you know, Mia.



Get back on that 2am burn!



Oh for piss sake. Her mood is too low, but what's really tanking it is room. She just KNOWS there are 4 moldy old newspapers in front of her house, and she is NOT working out until they're gone.



Time to drink your breakfast then, Mia.



With the courage given by two vodka tonics, she can now stomach working in the same lot as some newspapers. Such bravery...





That done, it's time for plan B. I said before that all sims not of your fame level don't get proper social interactions, and that's TRUE...

But what if we were talking over some delightful 6am steam n' beans?



Welcome to the newspaper zone, Aidan. You will soon be... my celebrity boyfriend!



He won't speak to me, but he's completely willing to come to my crappy starter home and eat poorly cooked steak. All guests in the Sims 1 arrive RAVENOUS and if you don't feed them within three hours, will promptly leave.



They will then, without fail, take the only good bathroom because sims have a digestive tube as opposed to tract.



Uh, Mia tried to go to the bathroom and he followed her to talk about himself. You're pretty weird Aidan...



Now get out!



To go... talk to that dog I guess?



Quick tipple, and then it's time to get away from this weirdo and off to work.



I don't even know what's going on here.



Oh it fucking would be, keeping up traffic. Anyway, let's have a second crack at this and...





We actually have fame now! Sort of! We've got an agent! And we made §10!



It's a start!



Haha, yes, it is me Mia Starr.



Hey, it's a nobody. So we're more famous than this guy. Although even the game acknowledges we aren't famous, and so we deign to talk to him like a human being.



It's tough being this talented.



Time for a celebratory smoothie I think... and then maybe I'll take the spa out for a spin.



Uh-oh. Creepo alert.



Let's get pampered!



Mia it... it's too soon for your first controversy.



Oh I'm tired too, sweetie.



What a great days work! Time to go back home at...



12:17pm. It's a tough life being famous.

[Chinely]

Update 4 - First, Real Job



If you're not waking up at 8pm, are you really living?



Fun TS1 fact, the maid will clean the toilet but she won't flush it.



Hey, famous weirdo, want to come over at 10:30pm for some steak and beans?



In fairness, it's highly likely he's being sarcastic.



I'll be right there!



Jeez, your cooking isn't that bad Mia.



And your mood isn't even that bad! Sims are so melodramatic. Although she could be crying about having to talk to Aidan.



Midnight steak n meet.



And then the sink breaks. That carpet is never going to be dry again.



And here's the other way. You can TRY to befriend sims you can't talk to normally by watching TV and eating with them. Or talking on the phone.



It's slow going though. Now, someone mentioned that it's WORK to keep friends in TS1. And there's a hidden reason for that! If you're currently on the lot with a sim, your friendship will decay faster but you'll gain more 'lifetime' friendship, the lower bar.

Somebodies and nobodies will show up on Studio Town lots all the time. We need to keep famous friends.

The things you do for the spotlight...



We can also give this dweeb an autograph. Hilarious. Annoyingly though, Mia has decided she doesn't want any more fun and so will refuse to watch TV and talk with him.



So we're going to ignore him.



Come on Aidan, it's only 3am.



Let's get that creativity up for work.



First things first, I'm not going to repair that sink. Also because of the puddles, our 'room' score for the house is now low enough that I can hear ambient fly noises. It's not at all irritating! Fly swarms might also start spawning if it gets any worse.



Never mind, they're here. Apparently Mia has been storing food in bed.



We're also calling people just to talk because, despite spending hours talking to Aidan last night, her social need has BARELY improved. Unfortunately she has a bad conversation and so immediately hangs up.



And then this happens. After 1-2 calls, people will start telling you to just fuck off. Even if you're ringing other people. Gameplay! It only lasts a few hours though.



Uh-oh, bills. Bills arrive every 3 days no matter what. They'll slowly change colour the longer you don't pay them, before exploding and calling the repoman.

You don't get any warnings like later games, so uh. Make sure to check the mailbox.



Anyway! With that creativity point, we now meet all the criteria to get more famous. We just need to work.



And we'll be doing that by stopping off at the fashion district.



Featuring... a boutique!



Another part of the boutique!



The classic spa/boutique combination!



A catwalk!



Strut your stuff, Mia!



Yeah, we need to be actually quite famous before making it as a supermodel.



What we're actually here for is some photo modeling.



There's also a nice little cafeteria up top...



With, for some strange reason, an aquatic playhouse. Yes we can get one of these for our inevitable starlet mansion.



So, doing these jobs requires a little minigame.



uh



wait



Whoops! She's actually not famous enough for modeling yet either. I need to do the advert.



Here we go.



Oh come on, she wears this anyway!



So. Mia will talk to the director/fashion designer/photographer/sound technician, who will say what they want. Except it's in Simlish so we have no way of knowing that! HOWEVER, unlike the little minigame we will have to eventually play, this one is just a fail/succeed.



If you have an X through your sims head, you failed that take. If it's fine, you didn't. Here we have Mia successfully selling a copy of... hold on.



This game.





Some congratulations...



And §60! Six times what we made in tips doing a dramatic reading.



And our needs didn't even fall that much. Fun and social were this bad going in.

This will quickly change. Also of note is the camera operator has the same voice as several of the sims in The Urbz GBA. Namely Crystal. Just something I noticed while playing.





Oh, well, you can always have a second go. Also the hawaiian music that plays goes wonky when your sim is messing it up.



It's just not happening with this mood. Celebrity sims can have a career destroying breakdown if they get stressed enough, but luckily Mia is just going to be stroppy with me.



Yeah, there we go. She completely refuses now.



Honestly, celebrities are so hard to work with.



Mia that... that's not how you use a road.



Back home and... you know... with a mood like this, she seriously needs some cheering up.



Here you go Mia. This cheerful picture will help.



And it's so beautiful!



Jeez. You had one bad day on set that lasted with you getting insulted for seven hours. Drama queen.



Still, you can dream it all better. Sweet dreams, Mia.

[Grumpy Turtle]

You don't think a small rodent to play with would have cheered her up more?

Sims 1 - 4? Good luck, this should only take you about ten years!

[Mazo Panku]

Good luck, this should only take you about ten years!

Perhaps. My estimate is that it'll take ten years just for Sims 3 and a fraction of that for every other game, but it really depends on whether you go full LizWiz with it or not.

[Chinely]

Nope! We'll see how far I go. This'll be a longie no matter what.