We had a HUGE wind storm yesterday, which knocked out the power all day long. Sims-less, I spent a lot of time plotting what I would do as soon as the juice returned.
Last time I wondered, who should I kill next? Sitting in the dark yesterday, trying to knit by flashlight, I decided the answer was: Everybody.
“I’m going to be having a series of pool parties. I hope you’ll come!”
Some technical talk. In Sims 2, non-player characters were generated by the game on the fly, for the most part. It always tried to keep things in balance, so there was a good mix of adults and kids, skin tones, genders, etc.
Sims 3 has something called “story progression.” This means that each town is seeded with some NPCs, who then go on about their lives in the background. (This is what happens to Sims who get kicked out of the house.) They get married, have kids, and die, and your town’s population fluctuates thusly.
I began to wonder, what would happen if you killed everyone off? Would you be left with a ghost town, or would the game sneak people in on the sly?
The first step was to take a census. I wrote down each house, the address, and the number of occupants. I took a head count several times during the day and night, because it would only show who was in the house at the time.
Then I sent Pearl out to knock on the door of every house in town where she hadn’t met the occupants.
“Lovely home! How do you feel about swimming?”
“Nice digs! I just got a new pool put in, I hope you’ll come check it out.”
“What a great view! But the ocean is so salty. Wouldn’t you like to come chill in my swimming pool?”
My census showed that there were about 50 other Sims in town, give or take.
Now it was time for Phase 2.
This was my first design. My thought was that the spiral would slow them down on their way to the door. So that I could get as many in the water as possible.
But it turns out that NPCs need line of sight to understand that a door exists. Crazy, right?
Pearl slips out quietly as the first batch of victims digs into the hot dog lure.