Round 1 Notes!

What are "Notes"?

The Notes posts will come at the end of each of the rounds. They will contain gameplay information that I wanted to share that is not part of the story itself. They are also a place for me to share answer's to questions I receive from readers during the round. So please, ask me questions!

What are "Rounds"?

So glad you asked! This story is a rotational game, which means I am going to be rotating between different households within the same save. Because they are within the same save, the households I am playing can interact with one another.

Each Round will be complete when I have played one week of each of the households that are currently in play. In Round 1 we had two households. In Round 2, we will have three households. I'm going to continue adding households until I feel I have just enough. I'm thinking we'll end up around five.

How I Select Families- The Twist!

This is the interesting part of the challenge! The households that get played each round will be DIFFERENT. We will probably end up with mostly the same ones each time. However, as the story progresses things might shift.

The first household was different. I wanted to select one premade household from Willow Creek (the first neighborhood of the game). I wanted a household that would give me the greatest chance of multiple storylines, so I went with a household that was three single young adults. After selecting them, I played them for a week.

Once the first week was done, I took a look at the external relationships of the household. What were the most significant relationships (either positive or negative)? In this case, the one that stood out the most was Summer's friend, Candy. Candy's household became our second one.

After I played Candy's house for a week, Round 1 was complete.

Summer & Liberty

I'm not preplanning these storylines. I'm letting them play out and seeing where they go. I will help them along, but I take my cues from the Sims themselves. Liberty's crush on Summer developed because on Day One, Liberty got the whim to "Flirt with Summer". I decided since that was the only desire for flirting that happened within the first few days (at least) and that it was Liberty's first whim for either of her roommates, that Liberty must have a crush on Summer. I then helped that crush along a bit throughout the story.

Setting the Stage for Round 2- Another Twist!

The Round 2 households were selected in the manner in which I intend to use in the future. I took a look at all the significant relationships from all of Round 1 and selected the households with the highest number of significant relationships to all the Round 1 households. So, anyone who had a relationship with: Summer, Liberty, Travis, Candy or Yuki.

Round 2 Households:

1. Summer, Liberty and Travis (thanks mainly to Summer's relationship with Candy)
2. Candy & Yuki (thanks mainly to Candy's relationship to Summer)
3. Jacques, Luna, Hugo and Max (thanks to Yuki who has a relationship with Hugo, and with Jacques)

In addition, I have a table of (currently) 70 different events that could happen each round. I will randomly select one each round (online die roll). Events vary drastically in severity. Here are some examples: Someone gets a divorce, someone adopts a dog, everyone goes out to eat, everyone's yards get an upgrade, a bakery opens in town, someone quits their job, etc... This serves to a) keep things interesting!, b) encourages me to explore DLC...many of the events are based on DLC packs, and c) keeps things more real by adding unexpected life events like divorce, babies, money problems and deaths.

Round 2 Event: Someone dies by a fire

(DUN DUN DAA)

And I will leave that as our conclusion to the Round 1 Notes!