*Our trip to Sims Camp was sponsored by EA*
Hello, Simmers! (clique aqui para ler em português)
As you already know, this month we attended The Sims 4 City Living Sims Camp at EA Games in Redwood City, California, and also the local event in São Paulo.
See below all our notes, 15 pictures and 10 minutes video about The Sims 4 City Living expansion pack!
Tonight we will also post our interview with SimGuruJill, so do not forget to return to Alala Sims to check it out! We hope you enjoy this post.
- Before creating a new expansion pack, it’s common producers check themes they had already done before, and analyze how they can reuse them but adding new twists;
- One of the inspirations for City Living was Sims 3 Late Night, producers looked at it and thought “we can do better!”;
- San Myshuno has four distinct districts: Spice Market, Fashion District, Arts Quarter and Uptown. Also, it has a park called Myshuno Meadows;
- To develop the four districts, producers thought of the four main things about a town, the kind of people for each one and inspiration from other cultures:
- According to SimGuruJill, San Myshuno was the most complex city that she has worked on;
- The city map was at the same time challenging and fun to create;
- Uptown was the biggest challenge of San Myshuno due to the district heights;
- There’s no secret lot on San Myshuno;
- Originally the building plants were smaller, but when analyzing them, the producers realized that they wouldn’t fit four apartments with the basics: a bedroom with a double bed, a bathroom and a kitchen, and then they made the plants bigger;
- According to SimGuruJM, the three main goals for the apartments were: fiction, neighbors and exclusive designs – which means that apartments should be able to tell fun stories and for that they were inspired by TV shows apartments like the one from Big Bang Theory; neighbors should show up sometimes; and also the possibility of creating places differently from normal lots;
- Lots now can have up to three traits. Some of them already come with the lot and are fixed to it (you can’t change tem), and some you should add it yourself with the possibility of changing it anytime you want;
- Lots we had before City Living won’t have any trait, but we can add the traits we want to them;
- Lots with cursed trait are more likely to burn on fire, elders may die earlier, Sims can be electrocuted, mice may show up more frequently;
- Mice and cockroaches will only show in apartments that they are set to show. So if you put the traits filthy or cursed on fancy penthouses, that won’t be enough to bring those little animals to your place;
- Lots with haunted trait won’t have mice and cockroaches. They’re set for ghosts;
- When a lot has the “quake zone” trait, it will have an earthquake sometimes. The frequency should be around one small earthquake a week, and a big earthquake every two weeks (but you’ll only see that if you remain in the lot, not on the street);
- Small earthquakes wake Sims up and scary them, while big earthquakes break things in your house;
- Sims react differently for each type of earthquake, and they have different moodlets too;
- At the beginning, the landlord will only show up when you have a problem in your apartment and complain to him (he shows up to solve this problem). After you relate to him, you can call him whenever you want;
- You can give your apartment key for your friends, and they may show up sometimes at your place;
- Landlord Sims are new NPCs, not the same faces of old NPCs;
- There’s no NPC like the matchmaker gypsy;
- Even when the player chooses to play with the apartment walls down, the neighbor’s walls will remain up in order to give the player a confinement feeling;
- There’s no entrance hall on the buildings;
- It’s not possible to buy elevators on the buy mode;
- It’s not possible to build your own apartment;
- It’s not possible to download apartments from gallery;
- There’s a loading screen when you visit your neighbors;
- You can check what’s inside of the apartment before renting it;
- It’s possible to rent any lot in the game;
- You can find the mail boxes on the hall outside of the apartments;
- On the hall outside of the apartments there’s also a mural where you can leave or read notes. You can also check which is the next festival in town, when and where;
- You don’t need to worry to check the mural for the next festivals every time, because when a new festival begins, you receive a notification informing anyway;
- Five festivals happen in the city: GeekCon, Humor and Hijinks Festival, Romance Festival, Flea Market and Spice Festival;
- The festivals frequency is around two in a week and the other three in the following week;
- Each festival has its own snow globes and t-shirts;
- There are 15 snow globes to collect;
- It’s also possible to collect posters around the city;
- Each festival has its own challenges – like the one to eat spicy food on the Spice Festival – the winner gets a champion t-shirt;
- It’s possible to see and plant new/exclusive/rare plants on the Spice Festival – such as collect their fruits;
- As in Dine Out, when Sims eat new food on festival or in the city, they learn how to cook them;
- There are 27 new recipes to learn and cook;
- It’s possible to force a Sim with vegetarian trait to eat meat, but he/she won’t like it;
- Geek skills will increase faster during GeekCon festival;
- It’s possible to see couples entering together in GeekCon rocket ships to woo-hoo;
- At the Flea Market, it’s possible to both buy and sell stuff for your house;
- Food carts show up both on festivals and in the city. Every 2am the city food carts move their positions;
- Uptown has two exclusive food carts: cupcakes and American;
- Producers decided to add Sims that aren’t really Sims (people walking around town) and cars to let the city more alive and dynamic;
- Between 2 and 6am weirdos will show up in the neighborhoods, such as raccoon Sims;
- It’s possible to choose protests causes;
- Advertisings are dynamic and change sometimes;
- Sims can earn tips by playing on the open street;
- When a Sim tips a statue, he/she gets the clothes to be a statue too;
- It’s possible to set off fireworks inside the apartments;
- Children can also play with fireworks;
- Sims can become friends with the talking toilets;
- To graphite you need to place a mural on the floor or on the wall – they’re available on buy mode;
- There’s a cheap karaoke and a expensive karaoke;
- There are karaoke lots in the town, but you can also include karaoke in any other lot you want anywhere in the game;
- It’s possible to add karaoke on Dine Out restaurants – Sims will be able to watch karaoke while they eat or wait for food;
- Artistic skills increase faster on Arts Center;
- The only new official skill is Singing, but there are some hidden skills like bearing spicy food;
- Basketball doesn’t have its own skill – it increases the fitness one;
- Sims with high fitness skill can put the basketball ball on fire;
- Sims with some Singing skill can sing on the shower;
- There are three new radio stations, among them s-pop;
- There are new songs playing on CAS, build and buy modes;
- There are two new TV channels: political and worldwide;
- There are three new careers: politics, social media and critic;
- With the new careers it’s possible to work from home, so the Sim must fulfill tasks during the day;
- There’s a new death when a Sim eats pepper fish;
- The new death’s ghost has a little fish swimming inside of the ghost’s chest;
- If you have Dine Out, an evil tip is to create a killer restaurant that only serves pepper fish;
- If you have Get Together, you’ll find new club activities to do with the group: basketball and karaoke;
- For the first time ever, pre-made Sims can be pregnant;
- There’s no pre-order gift;
- Producers are aware of the themes that Simmers ask for next packs, not only pretty common themes like toddles, seasons, pets and cars, but also Sims with physical disabilities and access ramps for example – they talk about it even though they don’t know if we are going to have it or not on The Sims 4.
We hope you liked this City Living super post, and do not forget to come back tonight to check out our interview with SimGuruJill!
Clique aqui para ler em português.
Special thanks to EA Games for sponsoring Alala Sims trip to California in order to attend The Sims Camp! Thank you, The Sims Team!
Sul sul!