Introducing my Sims 4 Self-care Challenge 2.0

I’ve been posting about this on Twitter and a few people have taken an interest so I’ve decided to write up a quick post explaining my ideas more thoroughly so you can follow along and give me some feedback.

Edith Walsh from my Bullet Journal challenge reading on her couch.

I’ve done a similar challenge before, a couple years ago, which is why I’m calling this challenge 2.0. I experimented with giving my Sims a Bullet Journal and a therapist. I’ve decided I wanted to do something similar, but I’d like it to be more of along the lines of a “wellness coach”. For those of you unfamiliar with my past efforts, I’ll explain in more detail what I have in mind below.

Main Goal of the Sims Self-care Challenge

The essential point of this challenge is to have a Sim that starts out in a negative situation and turn that situation around with a self-care routine. I plan on using actual self-care advice and I will try my best to cover all the types of self-care. My blog has a self-care focus so it ties in nicely. I plan to blog about the challenge here and like some of my other challenges, I plan to give my readers some agency in how things progress by using polls and comments.

The Setup

• One Sim: There will be one Sim that is the target of the Self-Care challenge. In the future, I might expand that challenge to cover a group of Sims in a “wellness clinic”, but for now I’m going to focus on just one Sim.

• Personality Traits: The sim will have a collection of traits that are more challenging to live with then other traits. For example, the hot-headed trait means Sims get angry much more often than other Sims.

• Character Traits: I’m considering using the Parenthood DLC and raising the Sim from a young age so I can give them one or more of the negative character traits such as “Argumentative” which comes from not learning conflict resolution.

• Family: If I raise the Sim as a child, I will also be able to create a cast of family members that have a negative influence over the Sim’s life and will need to be dealt with.

• Lot Traits: I plan to use lot traits such as “mean vibes”, “cursed” or “grody” to make the Sims life even more challenging.

Playing the Sim (Initial Rules)

• Needs: At the start of the challenge, the Sim doesn’t pay much attention to what their body and mind are telling them. Actions to fulfill needs are only taken when the need is in red or if the Sim has a related whim.

• Work/School: A Sim will attend work as often as they are able as they do not understand the benefits of vacation/sick leave unless instructed to by a whim. The Sim will not participate in activities that lead to a promotion or improve job performance unless instructed to by a whim.

• Whims: When not resolving a need that is in the red or working, the Sim will be instructed to take actions to fulfill whims. The Sim isn’t concerned with long term planning or their overall wellness, so preference is given to whims that are:

  • easy or quick to fulfill

  • have the lowest satisfaction points

  • are based on an emotion

Self-care Routine

• A selection of self-care activities (based on actual self-care advice) will be listed out in a poll. Readers will vote on what activities they think the Sim should pursue next.

• I will do my best to make sure the activities cover the spectrum of all the different types of self-care.

• Readers are acting as the Sims “wellness coach”. In addition to voting, readers are encouraged to leave comments with ideas for things to be added to the polls.

• Self-care activities that do well in the polls will be translated into a “self-care rule” that will be used in the challenge to build a self-care routine.

• Self-care rules will override the above listed rules under the section “Playing the Sim” as needed.

Goals & Keeping Score

• Our goal is to give the Sim a better life by:

  • creating self-care rules that override their established habits

  • achieving aspirations and rewards that help counteract the Sims negative traits

• I’m not sure how we will determine our success just yet. Some ideas I’ve had:

  • emotion stats

  • completion of aspiration goals

  • satisfaction points

  • reader feedback

  • overall observation

  • points based on work, family, skill, etc… success

  • a rubric that covers all of the above

Follow along!

I’ll be blogging this challenge (of course) and I’ll be posting more info on Twitter too. I hope you follow along and participate!