Sims 3: End of story

So how did it end with granny Vanessa and the two girls? Did granny go beserk after Delilah and Elaine had shown such little support when Death was at the door that she had to be saved by the cat? I fear I'll have to disappoint my readers a bit in this regard.

First Vanessa thought it was time to retire. This apparently had to be celebrated with signs of agitated gorillas (if this is some unique American tradition, please fill me in).

Then granny did go beserk... in the kitchen. She bought an interesting device called "replicator" which was able to duplicate every five star meal right out of the fridge. In combination with the special nothing-ever-goes-sour-fridge (I think it was a reward for becoming a five star cook), this meant that she could supply Delilah and Elaine with endless five star meals without anyone having to cook ever.

The fridge needed to be filled, though, so she went to the shops to buy all recipes she could find and tried to make a perfect version of them for in the fridge.

It was too late, though. That day, Delilah turned 18. She gave a fabulous beach-party-without-beach and everyone seemed to have lots of fun. I couldn't help but feel a bit sad, because Vanessa was still around.

Vanessa spent a lot of time with the girls after her retirement, getting to know them a little better. They went to some super hot party with the four of them (the cat also joined but somehow got lost in the underground halfway), which they thought was awesome because granny as a celebrity could get them into all the VIP zones. They also went on a tour through town to get group pictures made everywhere.

Then, one day after Delilah's party, Vanessa died. Very appropriately too, in the kitchen after finishing her last recipe: a perfect tofu turkey.

This time, Delilah and Elaine were horrified. They put their plates on the floor as some kind of protest.

They clearly didn't know what to do. Granny did, though.

It was time to go.

Gently, she shook Death's hand and disappeared.

Everyone was sad, including me. My challenge had failed. And maybe, just maybe I was a little bit sad too because Vanessa was a pretty amazing virtual person.

But hey, life isn't so grim. In the end, everyone has to go and Elaine and Delilah at least have enough superb food for the rest of their lives. But first they buried granny and held a super sad ceremony.

And now? My times with the Sims is over for now, but who knows when I might return someday. Maybe with a family of bloggers, who knows? Either way, time to say goodbye to the McKay family for now.

Sims 3: The amazing Lady McKay

It's been a long while since my last Sims post, but I would still like to finish the story of the McKay family here. It just feels so unfinished now, it makes me feel a bit guilty. So here we go.

Quick recap

If you remember, the Mc Kay family consists of five-star chef Vanessa "Granny" McKay, her two grandchildren, Delilah and Elaine, and cat Lady. My goal was to have two teenage children without anyone to look after them, but the game doesn't allow you to start off like that. So it was down to hoping Granny would kick the bucket soon. Unfortunately, she apparently had led such a healthy life that she didn't seem to want to do so, even though her lifespan bar had already been filled for days. Elaine even turned into an adult already. Would Granny at least make it to heaven before Delilah, too, would turn 18?

BFFs

The girls certainly wouldn't miss her. Granny had to work in the evenings, and they went to school in the mornings, so there was barely any time to get to know each other. Besides, there as no need, since Vanessa always left some five-star food in the fridge for the girls to eat. Granny did grow a bit closer to Elaine the last days (since Elaine didn't have to go to school anymore), but her real "BFF" was Lady. 

Need a hug? Hug Lady! Social meter down to zero? Quick, pick up Lady! (Or alternatively, sniff Granny, it all depends on your point of view.) Lady always made sure Granny never overslept by meowing in front of her bed in the mornings (and unfortunately also sometimes during the night). And Granny was the only one who Lady would allow to bathe her when she was having fleas. Maybe I shouldn't have been so surprised by what was about to happen.

Saved by the cat

The time was finally there. When the girls were about to go to bed, the Grim Reaper showed up in their bedroom. Not for them, but for Granny, who was on her way to pay a visit to the toilet upstairs. Elaine exchanged an annoyed look with Delilah ("okay... does this have to happen in our bedroom?"), but for the rest didn't show any emotion as Granny begged for her life. One person, however, was about to show her discontent with the situation.

Lady McKay left out a heartbreaking howl as she understood what was about to happen. Who would give her a flea bath in times of dire need now? And more importantly, who would serve her five-star homemade cat food in the mornings?

It appears even the Grim Reaper couldn't bear such honest emotions and he decided to spare Granny's life.

Things soon turned to normal within the McKay family. Or did they? Vanessa McKay certainly had something on her mind from now on. There were only a few days left until Delilah's birthday...

Sims 3: Elaine's outfits

When a Sim grows into another life phase, the computer makes up random new outfits and - much to my dismay - saves it over the existing ones. When Elaine grew up to be a young adult, I thought it was time to give her a proper look. All her time tagging walls and making ground murals got her more interested in art and she slowly lost interest in skulls, roses and working in the deep night on the graveyard (she came home with a terrified moodlet each day, and street art turned out to be more rewarding anyway). So it was time to rip the rose out of her hair and get some serious outfits going.

Purple, black and bright green

As with all in-game fashion, I invested a ridiculous amount of time to come up with all the outfits, so I thought I could just as well post them here. Maybe it can be a source of inspiration or amusement. Enjoy!

F.l.t.r.: 1) Tiger hates this outfit with a passion. So much actually, that I he kept bugging me with negative comments for the whole Saturday. Without going into specifics, I do like the bit of odd combination now and then. I guess it's refreshing that I'm not the only one having such a passion over outfits for a change. 2) This is what I imagine Elaine wearing on a cold rainy day when she's inside. Cosy-looking but a tad rebellious on second glance with the purple boots and fingerless gloves. 3) An artsy outfit for a visit to the museum.

F.l.t.r.: 4) A formal outfit that could also work for a normal day. 5) A hip outfit that could work for both formal and normal days. This might actually be my favorite of the group. 6) A chique dress suitable for a gala. My least favorite of all outfits, but will work for those occasions.

F.l.t.r. 7) Sports outfit. Elaine seems to be a fan of Brazil. 8) Hip pajamas. If you stare at these long enough you'll get dizzy and fall over without any effort on your side. 9) Cute bikini slightly outside of the colour palette.

Sims 3: Life in a penthouse

Granny is getting quite old by now, and after having become a three-star celebrity master chef and earned quite a bit, I thought I would grant her her wish to move to a penthouse. Elaine helped to bring some cash in by tagging some walls for the municipality (my guess is that they decided they rather give out commissions to her than have to deal with the stuff all over town being out of control) and after three days of hard work (Delilah even asked her blog followers for more donations, but this only brought 30 simoleons more to the table) they had gathered enough.

The new house! It has two floors and almost twice the space of the previous flat. Finally no bunk bed anymore now the girls are growing up. However, there was no place for granny's bed as a result, so she'll have to sleep on the balcony for the last days of her life.

The household actually made some money back by selling the old kitchen equipment, as that of the penthouse was already very good. The furniture was very depressingly dark brown, though, so I replaced it and made a new design. Fluo green is the new red, I suppose. Oh, and there's some lilac in the girl's room as well, to keep things a bit happy. Elaine is out of luck: no skull design in the new house, but I think she's getting over that phase a bit.

The most epic thing was installing a bubble bath on the balcony. My Sims run out there to skinny dip all the time. It gets better at night.

Now it was just time to wait and see grandma drop dead and get rid of the bed on the balcony. However, granny didn't seem to want to die. Even though her aging bar was totally filled, the Grim Reaper refused to pay the house a visit. I guess even for Sims death comes unexpected.

Oops, now it was already time for the eldest of the two, Elaine, to grow up into a young adult! She got a special birthday dress and all her schoolmates were invited. I think she tried very hard not to mind the shrimp she got as a birthday present (being a vegetarian).

And I had to spend an hour sorting out new outfits for Elaine, because the computer gave her a horrendous-looking makeover. But the drama had already occurred: one teenager already grew up, so my whole party-teenagers-living-together-without-elder idea has failed. What will happen next? Will granny survive Delilah growing up as well? Find out in the next Sims post.

Sims 3: Supergranny

Afternoon, broad daylight. Mr shineypants just entered the apartment and took a vacuum XL out of his pocket (let's say it was his pocket, really) and started absorbing the mirror (yes the mirror, apparently the PC wasn't hot enough for him, or the mouse pad with skulls scared him off). 

Now I thought I was well prepared for any kind of intruder with my aggressive cat (of which the tooltip read that it would catch any burglar) and my brave granny (of which the tooltip read that she would fight any burglar). However, Lady didn't have any interactions available with the burglar, whereas she usually can at least sniff a person she hasn't met before, and Granny had a moment of instant senility and was just staring at him in disgust, unable to do anything.

A quick search through the internet taught me that this has happened to other people before, and it's probably a bug. Because it was pissing me off, I went back to the latest save game and tried again.

This time it took three whole days before a burglar visited the 11th floor, and it wasn't some shineypants from the next century, but your regular classic burglar. He was called Blake. Blake didn't get past the hallway or Granny ran to him, the two circling around each other (appropriate music) and deeply staring into one another's eyes.

Things became a bit disturbing when the text "Blake thinks Vanessa is okay." turned up, while Granny got a positive moodlet from being "near an attractive Sim". Soon there was nothing to be seen besides a lot of dust and stars in the hallway.

I'm not sure how she did it and if she played it by the rules, but Granny totally won the fight and Blake dived into the elevator to get away. I hope he's going to take some time to rethink his life, because he was just totally owned by a granny like a boss. In her pajamas, that is.

Sadly, no exciting romances were initiated as the fight left a negative affection rate with Vanessa. Perhaps this is a good thing, as a relationship of this kind could prove a bit too adventurous. For Blake, that is.

Sims 3: Two wild girls in a boring town

Rakuno's hilarious posts about his Sims 3 household following the Immortal Dynasty challenge made me want to play the Sims again and try a challenge myself. And so I did, but I started with a normal little household without challenge, because it was years ago I last played it and I needed some catching up first.

I was immediately absorbed into the game and didn't do much else than play the Sims 3 this weekend. Tiger surprised me with four (!) Sims expansions (I only had the vanilla version) that were on sale. He is such a sweetheart! (There, now it's official.)

Meet my two teen girls: Delilah (left) and Elaine (right) McKay running to school. My deep plan was to play around with two rogue party girls, living together. But the game didn't allow me to start a household without a grown up, so I got them Granny (aka Vanessa McKay) who will hopefully die of old age soon so they're left alone after all.


Hey, that's not heartless, that's Sims tactics. You need a certain amount of craziness to spend your time bossing around imaginary characters in the first place.

Besides, I bought Granny a cat to have someone to talk to. See how nice of a God-like creature I am? Following her dream to become a master chef, her day and night rhythm isn't exactly compatible with that of the girls. They mostly get remembered of her existence by the leftovers she leaves for them in the fridge. *picks away tear*

The girls live in Riverview town and Delilah decided to follow in my footsteps and started a blog. It's called "A wild girl in a boring town". She already has over 100 followers or something now. I obviously should've called my blog like that instead!

She did not know that her blog title would be outdated very soon, though...

For Tiger gave me the Late Night expansion pack and the girls moved from their Riverview rustic house to the big city for MOAR PARTY!!! However, this caused some frustration because their new apartment was on the 11th floor and there was no garden for Vanessa and Elaine to go nuts on their gardening skillz. Elaine went all rebellious and now leaves tags all over the city.

What I forgot

...is that it's so much fun to design a house!

I totally stressed out when I saw how small the new apartment was for three people to live in, but it was actually a nice challenge that ended up looking quite well.

It's easy to overlook what exactly the house looks like in reality if you're viewing it from above all the time. Making screenshots makes me realize what's still missing. The top picture: cushions on the chairs and something to cheer up that wall.

When I move into a new house in real life, I should definitely recreate it in the Sims first and try out the paint on the wall. I might just end up with a less crazily coloured house than I'm living in right now.

I can't do else than be happy with my teen Sims, though. Even though they are party girls, as soon as they're done with school they start doing their homework. They're as hardcore as to just go sit down outside school on the pavement and do it right there if I don't watch out (I rather let them do it together at home so they pick up some social as well, though). If only real people would be this motivated (starting with, for instance, me)!

I've been playing way too much Sims lately. I hope it's going to be a source of inspiration: some real-life homework would actually be in order.