So about a week ago I made a post here titled If you create a world in the Sims 3 with a lot for a single Sim how difficult would it be to survive? Could you think of anything that could help?. In it I talked about the possible challenges of a post-apocalypse play-through where you have a single Sim in a town and you need to find a way to survive. I decided to give it a go and some people seem interested so I'll outline my attempts so far below.
Attempt 1:
I originally tried creating a Sim with the combination of the Loner and Insane traits so they wouldn't seek out social interactions and could talk to themselves as needed. I tried to kill everyone in the town to fit the post-apocalypse theme but eventually new Sims started taking their place and they would still continually spawn at community lots for events.
At this point I decided to build a basement and isolate my Sim by deleting the ladder and relocating my Sim (and the mailbox and garbage can) underground to test having a Sim that has no one to socialize with it. It went fine. I was able to work on my Sim's writing skill and make enough to pay the bills.
I had the Hates the Outdoors trait so none of this proved to be a problem.
Attempt 2:
After a bit of struggling I was able to get Create a World working with the "Steam" version of The Sims 3 and figured out the PNG thumbnail requirement and created a tiny island with a single lot free of all rabbit hole locations and item spawns.
Immediately after moving in and building a basic house two wild horses, a racoon, and (despite having the Opt Active Household out of Celebrity System option checked) three members of the paparazzi spawned as well as a lone onion in the same location. The animals never seem to leave the general proximity of the lot and occasionally it shows that they are hungry. I've fed the racoon.
Opening up my fridge I had some plantable items so I was able to work on my gardening skill. Apparently through using items, such as the time machine, you are able to acquire things like the omni plant's seed so I may do that eventually.
Despite not setting any spawn points I was still able to fish.
When calling for services the fire department arrives immediately spawning almost directly in front of my Sim, mixologists spawn immediately at the bar, and the child delivering the newspaper delivers the paper then pings out of existence. All other services from pizza to the police never show up.
Making one of the members of the paparazzi join my family and have a child did crash the game but the Sims Wiki says the following
If the school has been deleted then children and teens will stop going to school. This is the only way to not go to school, and is only possible in Windows and macOS as consoles do not have the ability. Also, if the player is controlling one ghost teen or child, they might not be signed up for a school. However, if the school is deleted then children and teens appear to be forced age up badly because they haven't been to school, but if an adult with a high enough logic skill tutors them, their grade can go up, and allow them to age up well without having to go to school.
So I assume having a child and no school wouldn't be a major issue.
The chess grand master challenges are limited to whatever Sim is on the lot.
That's about where I am at. It's interesting to see some elements of the game fall apart in confusion and the atmosphere reminds me at times of the original Sims game where you are basically limited to your lot. I am curious if adding a road would fix some of the service issues I mentioned.
I don't know if there would be any interest in me testing other mechanics and updating this post or uploading the very simple map I made for people to test out themselves.
If someone else wanted to give this a go an additional challenge could be trying to complete the various skill challenges.
For ages I've been wanting to create my own world in a washed up on an island and started from scratch kind of vibe, but create a world is too much for me and I also want to be playing it, not just building it, and this is the perfect solution, I don't know why it never occurred to me! Next time I take a break from my current game I'm going to clear one of the maps I have and give this a go, it definitely fits my game style of focusing on skill and job progression, and house and resort building, rather than relationships lol
What are your thoughts on the alchemy skill and elixirs? They almost feel like cheating, but they're right there and now I can't play without them, the goal is to always have a stock of potent invigorating, potent bliss, potent friendship and wish enhancer. Never need to sleep or socialise again, and wishes, including lifetime are double points.
I'm not sure how I would feel about using it in a desert island kind of situation. Have you been limiting what kind of items you buy, or are you going with - if you can afford it, you can buy it? What about plots you can build, like an elixir store that has a table to make them, or a library where you can at least skill up with books?
Would you add rabbit hole locations to your deserted island so job progression is an option? I really haven't tinkered much with the Island Paradise DLC so I don't know how it would effect the ability to build resorts.
I think that would be fine. I feel like exploits and figuring out game mechanics are part of the challenge. Like finding out how the "Chat with someone" option works when using a computer with no one else in the world
I think most things are fine. I wouldn't use buydebug, things to escape like the time portal, or businesses. I didn't think of businesses at the time and I was working mostly within the confines of one lot. I think adding another community lot to use for a business would cause Sims to spawn from nowhere like in my first attempt.
I might have to mess around with resorts and businesses this weekend. I've had a bit of a Sims itch lately.
If I'm not trying to earn a specific career award, I'll generally go for the self employed jobs (alchemist or gardener since those are the skills I always build first), so I hadn't really thought about rabbit hole jobs. As for resorts, shouldn't be an issue, you do need employees to run it but they spawn in to shift (you can try to run it alone, but you'll have to always be there to maintain any star ratings), and there is a rabbit holes for the spa and hotel, but that's for guests to go in.
Oh yeah, the laptop! There's also those holo spirit things from ITF you can socialise with.
I'm with you on buydebug, unless building a community lot that needs like a register or something, then I think you have to. I guess if time travel is off, so are other vacations and uni.. At least until the society develops enough for that kind of travel to be reasonable? My idea has been to build a whole little town from scratch, including community lots (so if my sim built it, I guess there could be a business with a rabbit hole job for example), either alone, or once other sims arrive at/are born there, but then you have to start switching households and stuff which I hate. I think this is where I've been having trouble - I wish I could play the one sim but also control the whole community, rather than just my one lot. But this is definitely the closest I think I'm going to get to something like that!
Once I gave Hobart's Hideaway a good go instead of half assing it, I was hooked. So I have that one, and a cruise ship resort I made which I love and have some ideas for more. Then I started work on another on-land resort from scratch, but it's not turning out the way I'd like, so I'll probably abandon it. If you're good with CC, definitely get the resort tower rabbit hole rugs, that way you don't have to match your design to one of the existing towers in the game.