I don’t even know what to say. The Sims games are notoriously buggy, but Sims 4 has been great for me… until now.
Let’s start at the beginning.
I surrounded the pond with high-tech security fencing and covered it in a concrete pad. Surely that will fix the problem!
Now to address the way Joaquin Le Chien has apparently lost the part of his brain that handles parenting. Here we see Morgan, filthy and exhausted, who woke up from taking a post-work nap to come downstairs to tend to Henry, because Joaquin Le Chien was standing there letting the baby cry.
This kept happening. Any time I instructed Joaquin to take care of the baby, as soon as he was done with the assigned task, he set the baby down and walked away.
Luckily, I had a fix ready – or so I thought. The cowplant was all grown up and getting hungry!
And not a moment too soon, because while Joaquin sat in a rocking chair and stared into the middle distance…
… Henry was lying on the floor in the nursery behind him, furious and sad and starving.
WinterFest put my plans on hold. I couldn’t bring myself to feed Joaquin to the cowplant while Father Winter was there hanging out and holding the baby and being jolly.
Wait… Father Winter, where are you going with the baby? Father Winter! Bring the baby back!
Oh well, I cemented over the pond, so it’s safe out there.
WRONG.
I accidentally left a teeny tiny sliver of pond, which Father Winter decided would be a great place to put the baby, on a cold winter night.
Father Winter, no!
Okay, forget it. At this point I snapped. Christmas or no Christmas, it was time to take action before someone unalived the baby.
I deleted the cement and the fencing and flattened the entire lot. Then I went over it with the “remove water” tool, just to be sure I didn’t miss anything.
Next, it was time to get Joaquin some delicious cake.
Byeeeeeeee. Or so I thought.
- Death arrived, but was unable to take Joaquin.
- Joaquin was still a living, playable character, but he didn’t respond to any commands. He just sat there inside the cowplant, thinking, “Oh boy, cake!”
- Every other Sim in the household came to grieve Joaquin’s death, which wasn’t happening.
- This went on for three in-game days with no change.
- None of the resetsim or debug commands helped.
- I couldn’t exit the game, have Morgan leave the lot, or enter Build/Buy mode, because the game won’t let you do those things when “A Sim is dying.”
Eventually I was able to get Morgan detached from his grief cycle enough to pick up the baby and go use the bathroom. I didn’t mean him to do those things at the same time. Also, he sat on the toilet for another full in-game day before I gave up.
I exited without saving and tried again. This time, I started by moving Joaquin out of the house. I kicked him out without assigning him to a lot, so he would get filed away in the gallery.
Next, I hired a nanny. She had a unique aesthetic.
Imagine my surprise when Joaquin Le Chien showed up and started complaining about stuff to the Nanny.
Here, he’s complaining about how the baby smells bad.
(How much do you love Joaquin’s outfit, though? I named it EllenCore.)
I instructed Morgan to take away Joaquin’s house key. In response, Joaquin took a nap, on Morgan’s side of the bed.
Sir, this is, in the strongest possible terms, unacceptable.
I instructed Morgan to wake up Joaquin and divorce him.
Yeah, yeah, cry all you want. Somewhere else.
Na na na na, hey hey hey, goodbyeeeeee.
Phew, I thought! Finally, we can get back to our lives.
BUT NO.
It’s a little hard to see what’s happening because this is the middle of the night in the middle of winter, but the nanny took Henry out to where the pond was, and tried to “Dip Henry’s toes in the water.”
Are. You. Kidding. Me.
I took a few deep breaths, then moved Morgan and Henry out of the Splines Gabled Farmho. The house I spent so many hours designing to get it just perfect. The house where suddenly everyone wants to unalive the baby.
New day, new lot, hopefully a new life! I moved them into 36 Bayani Place in San Sequoia.
This lot was designed by Deligracy, so that’s fun! And best of all? IT HAS NO POND.