The Sims

The Sims is a video game series developed by Maxis and published by Electronic Arts. The franchise began with The Sims, which was released in February 2000. The Sims is a spin-off of the older SimCity game franchise, which were both created by Maxis co-founder Will Wright.
The games in the series generally lack defined goals, unlike most other video games. The focus of the games is on the simulated lives of virtual people called "Sims". The player is responsible for directing their actions, attending to their needs, and helping them attain their desires. Players can play with pre-existing Sims and families, or create their own. They can place their Sims in pre-constructed homes or build their houses using the in-game building tools, then furnish the homes with objects from an in-game catalog. Numerous add-ons and expansion packs greatly expand the number of features, tools, and objects available to play with.
The success of The Sims ultimately led to the creation of three sequels, over two dozen expansion packs, numerous console and non-PC platform games, and several other spin-off titles within the series. As of September 2013, there have been more than 175 million copies sold of games within the franchise. The series is the most successful PC gaming franchise ever.
== Overview ==
Strictly speaking, there is no primary objective to The Sims; it is open-ended and players are free to decide for themselves what constitutes success or failure. The game does, however, have plenty of clear secondary objectives, such as career and relationship success, although there are no set rewards for this. The player will need to make their Sim successful in many ways. Players must fulfill their need to sleep, eat, and so forth, just like real human beings. They will also need to find a job, be promoted, or even marry other Sims so that one can have a successful family life.
The architecture and the artificial intelligence system have both been praised by players. Players will need to build a well-designed house and put in different objects to fulfill the Sim's needs. Sims can only interact with the objects in their house. A player can control a maximum of eight Sims at a time; the Sim currently being controlled can be identified by the PlumbBob over its head.
== Gameplay ==
In The Sims, there is no primary objective or goal to achieve, and instead of fulfilling objectives, the player is encouraged to make choices and engage fully in an interactive environment. This has helped the game successfully attract casual gamers. The only real objective of the game is to organize the Sims' time to help them reach personal goals and succeed to the best of their ability.
=== Creating a family ===
In the beginning, the game offered players pre-made characters to control, as well as the option to create more Sims. Creating a Sim consists of creating a "family" (identified by a last name) that can hold up to eight members. The player can then create Sims by providing the Sim with a first name and optional biography, and choosing the gender (male or female), skin complexion (light, medium, or dark), age (adult or child), a specific head and body (bundled with a specific body type and clothing), and a personality (from among Neat, Outgoing, Active, Playful, and Nice.). The player cannot change a Sim's face, name, or personality once they have been moved onto a lot. However, a player can edit a Sim's biography by holding down the Ctrl key and clicking on the Sim's face's thumbnail.
=== Building/furnishing a house ===
Each family, regardless of how many members are in it, starts with a limited amount of cash (§20,000) that will be needed to purchase a house or lot, build or remodel a house, and purchase furniture. All architectural features and furnishings are dictated by a tile system, in which items must be placed on a square and rotated to face exactly a 90 degree angle with no diagonals permitted. Walls and fences go on the edge of a "square" and can be diagonal, whereas furniture and Sims take up one or more squares and cannot be diagonal. There are over 150 home building materials and furnishings for purchase in the base game.
The player can purchase several objects for Sims such as televisions, showers, beds, and fridges, each of them has a purpose which ranges from fulfilling a certain need or raising a skill or simply being decorative. Each item takes up a number of tiles on the grid and can be rotated to meet the player's desires. All items are pre-rendered.
=== Controlling Sims ===
Sims are controlled by instructing them to interact with objects, such as a television set, a dresser, or another Sim. Sims may receive house guests, which are actually based on the game files of other Sims in the neighborhood. The player cannot control 'visiting' Sims, although it is important for Sims to interact with one another in order to develop a healthy social life and gain popularity.
Sims have a certain amount of free will (if it is enabled in-game), and although the player can instruct them to do something, Sim characters may decide to do something else, or simply ignore the player's commands. Unlike the simulated environments in games such as SimCity, SimEarth, or SimLife, the Sims are not fully autonomous. They are unable to take certain actions without specific commands from the player, such as paying their bills. Thus, if left alone without any player supervision, the Sims will eventually develop overdue bills and their property will be repossessed.
The inner structure of the game is actually an agent-based artificial life program. The presentation of the game's artificial intelligence is advanced, and the Sims will respond to outside conditions by themselves, although often the player's intervention is necessary to keep them on the right track. The Sims technically has unlimited replay value, in that there is no way to win the game, and the player can play on indefinitely. It has been described as more like a toy than a game. In addition, the game includes a very advanced architecture system. The game was originally designed as an architecture simulation alone, with the Sims there only to evaluate the houses, but during development it was decided that the Sims were more interesting than originally anticipated and their initially limited role in the game was developed further.
=== Limitations ===
There are some limitations to The Sims, most notably that while newborn babies do eventually become children, they will never grow up to become adults without expansion packs or hacks. There is no concept of time moving foward (every new day is the same), and therefore adult Sims never age and cannot die of old age. Adults and children are expected to go to work and attend school, respectively, every day. There are no genetics or family relations, and as such there are no family specific social interactions. This includes children grown up through expansion packs or hacks. Sims also have path finding issues such as not being able to walk past chairs, walking on paved or carpeted surfaces even if it means taking the long way, and getting stuck in doorways if another Sim is coming in/out from the opposite direction.
=== Needs ===
The player must make decisions about time spent on fulfilling the needs of the Sims, these are: Hunger, Social, Fun, Comfort, Hygiene, Bladder, Room and Energy. These needs are filled by activities in the daily agenda of the Sims such as using the toilet and eating food from a fridge. If the simulated humans do not perform the proper amount of maintenance, they will sicken and die. Not fulfilling these needs has other negative side effects, for example if a Sim has lowered their energy need they will pass out where they stand which will lower their comfort need, and if they pass out in a swimming pool they will die. Furthermore, Sims need to have fun; if they don't, the fun level bar eventually lowers and they become depressed, but however depressed they become, they are unable to commit suicide (they are not programmed to do so). They are, however, able to be nasty to other Sim characters by insulting them, slapping them, and even attacking them. This has more to do with their relationship score than their mood, though. Sims in a bad mood are more likely to ignore player input and autonomously seek an activity that will increase their mood. For example, if a Sim's fun level bar is too low, they may refuse to look for a job or pay the bills and instead sit and watch TV.
=== Careers and finances ===
In the beginning all families have a §20,000 limit to buy a house or build and furnish a house from scratch. Money can be gained by sending the Sims to find jobs and going to work. Promotions are earned by fulfilling the required skills and befriending sims. A good job performance will increase chances of getting a promotion. A sim will receive a warning if they miss one day of work, and get fired if they miss work for two consecutive days. If Sim has the creativity skill they can paint paintings and sell them for some additional money. Bills have to be paid occasionally and failure to do so results in the repo-man repossessing some of the household's items.
=== School ===
Children need to attend school every day. Children will need to study at home and go to school with a good mood in order for their grades to go up; this has advantages because relatives will occasionally call children up and give them §100 for having very high grades. However, if a Sim has F Grades in school for seven consecutive days they will be sent to military school, thus erasing them from the game forever, never bringing them back again.
=== Failure ===
While there is no eventual objective to the game, states of failure do exist in The Sims. One is that Sims may die: Types of death include starvation, drowning, perishing in a fire, electrocution, and with expansion packs, by a virus (contracted from a pet guinea pig, which can happen when its cage is left dirty). In this case, the ghost of the deceased Sim may haunt the building where it died. In addition, Sims can leave a household for good and never return: Two adult Sims with a bad relationship may brawl, eventually resulting in one of them moving out of the neighborhood forever; babies can be removed by a social worker if they are neglected, and child Sims can be banished to military school. Although considered states of failure, many players occasionally deliberately mistreat their Sims to observe the reactions and for entertainment. This can be done with no consequences if the game state isn't saved.
== Games ==
=== The Sims ===
The Sims is the first game in the franchise, released in 2000 as a spin-off of the SimCity series. The game was met with critical acclaim and received numerous awards, and has sold more than 6 million units to date. It ranks among the best-selling PC video games in history.
The Sims received seven expansion packs:
*Livin' Large
*House Party
*Hot Date
*Vacation
*Unleashed
*Superstar
*Makin' Magic
=== The Sims 2 ===
The Sims 2 was released in 2004 as the follow up to the successful first game, introducing fully 3D environments, age progression for Sims, and genetics, among numerous additions.
The Sims 2 received eight expansion packs:
*University
*Nightlife
*Open for Business
*Pets
*Seasons
*Bon Voyage
*FreeTime
*Apartment Life
=== The Sims 3 ===
The Sims 3 launched in 2009, introducing sweeping changes to the series. The formerly segregated lots are unified into open worlds that Sims can fully explore, the point-based personality system is replaced with a series of self-descriptive traits that influence a Sim's behaviour, and the appearance of objects can be customised using an in-game texture compositor, known as "Create a Style" (CAST). For the first in the series, new features were introduced in subsequent patches, including a basement tool, tattoos, diving boards, traits, improvements to Create a Sim, objects and other gameplay enhancements.
The Sims 3 received eleven expansion packs:
*World Adventures
*Ambitions
*Late Night
*Generations
*Pets
*Showtime
*Supernatural
*Seasons
*University Life
*Island Paradise
*Into the Future
=== The Sims 4 ===
The Sims 4 was released in 2014 as the fourth iteration in the series with major overhauls to Create-A-Sim (CAS), Live Mode and Build Mode. CAS has a new interface whereby players can simply click and drag different parts of a Sim to modify their features, instead of using numerical sliders. Build mode now functions as a room-based system, whereby individual rooms are recognised and can be easily moved or manipulated. Build Mode also sees the addition of multiple new tools, and increases flexibility in object placement. In Live Mode, Sims experience emotions which will affect their behaviour, the Sims around them, and extreme emotions can even be fatal to a Sim experiencing them. The Sims 4 also introduces an in-game content sharing system known as the Gallery. Players can instantly upload their creations to the Gallery, or seamlessly download the creations of others to add to their game.
The Sims 4 has received sixteen "expansion packs" so far:
*Get to Work
*Get Together
*City Living
*Cats & Dogs
*Seasons
*Get Famous
*Island Living
*Discover University
*Eco Lifestyle
*Snowy Escape
*Cottage Living
*High School Years
*Growing Together
*Horse Ranch
*For Rent
*Lovestruck
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==References==
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