The Sims (Strategy)

Jason Samuel, Dan Amrich and the design team of The Sims, GamePro

04/11/2003 12:28:27

Success in The Sims is all about balance. Balancing your time versus your needs and improving your situation. Having been the top of every profession now, I can tell ya how to make your Sims' life way more interesting than you own. Dan Amrich of GamePro magazine has thrown in his opinions and so has the Maxis development team including designer Will Wright!

Character creation

Starting characteristics are important, but you shouldn't have to worry about them unless you make a completely unbalanced person. I tend to lean towards most characteristics having mostly the same statistics with two or three a few bars more important. Outgoing, nice and active are three good characteristics to have higher than the rest. Neatness is less important since you'll probably get a maid.

Don't name the first family you make after your own. Your going to make mistakes that first time around for certain, besides you are going to want to start single. Taking care of a family of Sims is better left to the experienced.

You can import Sims faces and bodies with different tools found on the official webpage, www.thesims.com. So if you want to see a likeness of yourself in the game, it's possible.

Tips from Will Wright, Designer of The Sims

Each kid in the family counts as a tax credit, your bills are 10% lower for each kid in the family. 4 kids = 60% (100% - 40%) of the regular tax bill.

Once you have a good pile of cash you can earn a nice living by just buying and selling the expensive artwork (buy low, sell high).

Make rooms on the larger side to allow them to hold more objects down the line.

You can build outside stairways to save on interior space. Just make sure the top landing for the staircase falls on a valid second floor tile.

You can build elevated walkways around your lot using the columns and floor tool.

You can use the flooring tool to entice your Sims to prefer certain routes outside. They will try to stay on a floored path if it's not too far out of their way (a useful trick for keeping them out of the flowerbed.

Sims prefer rooms with interesting shapes (rather than boxy, rectilinear ones).

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