The Sims

The Sims is a social simulation and strategy video game created by video game designer Will Wright, developed by Maxis and published by Electronic Arts in the year 2000. Since then the franchise has sold more than 100 million copies (counting the first two generations), being the best-selling PC video game in history.

Since 1991, Will Wright had achieved similar results with the popular game SimCity and all its sequels. The success of his video games is based on his creative philosophy of applying scientific theories to the design of life simulators, be it a city, a planet, an anthill or, as in The Sims, a neighborhood community.

The Sims is the first videogame of this genre in which each living being has its own personality and is directly controlled individually. As a curiosity, before being published, the creators called the game "house of dolls" or "the toilet game", since it was the only video game that incorporated a fully functional toilet and that characters of different genders used it in different ways (they lifted the lid or not).

In 2002, The Sims achieved the world sales record, surpassing the famous video game Myst.

Game system

The game consists of creating characters called Sims and satisfying their needs, fulfilling their aspirations and fulfilling their dreams, that is, "build them" a life. The game, in pseudo-3D isometric perspective, allows Sims to design a house and stock it with all the objects required to satisfy their needs. The game has a free mode option (free will) with which the characters can carry out their activities on their own, although it is normal for the player to intervene giving them orders, which may not even be respected by Sims in specific situations. The player must satisfy the basic needs of the Sims, such as eating, sleeping, or going to the bathroom, among others. To support the household economy, the Sims must look for work and earn Simoleons (the fictional currency in the Sim world), the game offers a varied line of jobs, and the character can go up in his career. work depending on the skills you have and the number of friends.

Needs

Among other things, one of the challenges in the game is meeting the needs of Sims. Not satisfying them can have consequences, from the Sim becoming depressed, refusing to obey some orders, to the death of the Sim himself. The eight needs are displayed on the screen as horizontal bars. When the need is completely satisfied, the bar will be green, and it will change to red, passing through dark green and pink when the need is urgent. The needs are:

• Hunger: It just fills up eating. If the meter reaches zero and the Sim does not eat, he will die if he is an adult, and if he is a child he will be taken by a social worker and will not return to the family.

• Comfort (Sims 1 and 2): It is filled sitting in a chair or sofa or sleeping in a bed. Each object has a level of comfort that determines the speed at which the bar is filled. Be long standing or doing activities lower the bar.

• Vejiga: The bar empties slowly at a constant pace. To fill it, use a toilet. If the bar reaches zero, the Sim will pee on top, lowering the Hygiene meter to zero.

• Hygiene: Any way to wash up this bar. Washing your hands or teeth provides a light rise, while taking a shower or bath fills you in much. He'll come down when he exercises, turn off fires or pee on himself.

• Energy: The power bar is gradually emptied at constant pace. To complete it to the maximum, the Sim must sleep a few hours, influencing the speed of filling the quality of the bed or sofa where it sleeps. If the bar reaches zero, the Sim will faint and fall asleep on the ground, lowering comfort and filling the power bar depending on the hours left in that state.

• Fun: Many activities can help meet this need, depending on the personality of the Sim. Some enjoy more of the exercises, others of reading, others of television (determined channels, also provide more fun than others according to their tastes)... There are numerous objects aimed at increasing the fun meter and improving the mood of each Sim. Children and adolescents lose a lot of fun at school or doing homework.

• Social: According to the personality of the Sim, their social needs will be different. Some Sims need more effort to keep this need high, although on the other hand, others with a High Charism or with a Cordial personality will find it less difficult to raise it. The most effective way to do so is to have extensive conversations with other Sims, either face to face or phone, or to do activities with them or pets.

• Environment: The environment depends mainly on the decorative and lighting objects in the room in which the Sim is located, although it also influences the size of the room or the price of walls and floors. If the room has dirty dishes or countertops, water ponds or shed beds, the meter is reduced. To climb it, it is enough to clean or fix the room, acquire more expensive furniture or decoration, or simply make the Sim pass to another room in better condition, which makes the bar go up immediately (it will also go down to a room in worse condition).

• Note: The MaxMotives trick (Sims 1 and 2) and Testingcheatsenabled true (Sims 3) or Testingcheats true (Sims 4) can modify the needs bars.

Jobs and Skills

Sims need money to buy food, construction, and purchases of furniture and other items. To obtain it, they must look for work with the help of the newspaper that arrives daily at home. In this way, daily, the Sim with a job will leave the house and go to their workplace during the stipulated hours, and they will earn a salary when they return. Each Sim will also have the opportunity to be promoted at work, improving his working hours and his salary. To do this, he must achieve a certain number of friendships with other Sims and must also develop a series of skills. All adult Sims have the same skill record, with a score from 0 to 10. To develop the skills, you must practice an activity that develops them for a certain time, until completing the full point, represented by a vertical bar that appears on the Sim and it fills up until it reaches the top, at which point the point is won. At that point, the bar empties and the next point begins to develop. The first points are developed faster and as you progress it takes more and more time to complete the point. In addition to work, some skills will also be useful in the Sim's life within the home. The skill log is as follows:

• Kitchen: The Sims that have few or no skill point should avoid approaching the kitchen, as if they try to cook there is a high probability that they cause a fire. On the other hand, the more points they have, the more they will feed the meals they make and better fill the need for hunger. To develop it, you should study Kitchen with a shelf.

• Mechanics: The Sims with the skill of developed mechanics will be able to repair the objects that are broken, and the more score they have, the less time it will take. Like the kitchen, it develops by studying it.

• Charism: The Sims with a High Charism can easily please and persuade others. Besides, they tell better jokes. It develops by practicing speeches in front of a mirror.

• Physical: This ability refers to the physical form of the Sim, and develops by exercising in a weight machine.

• Logic: To develop logic you have to practice playing chess. With expansions, you can also develop this skill with a telescope, practicing with the chemistry lab or playing the ladies.

• Creativity: It consists of the artistic capacity of the Sim, either in music or painting. To develop it you have to play a piano or paint a painting, among other artistic activities.

Child Sims obviously don't work, as they have to go to school every day. They don't have skills either, and instead they have an indicator with the grade they are getting at school, which can improve or worsen. The qualification follows the Anglo-Saxon standard, being a letter accompanied or not by a - or a +. The maximum grade is A+ and children who stay on that grade for a long time will receive sporadic financial rewards (for example, with the message "Grandpa gave me 100§ for my good grades") that will be added to family funds. The minimum grade is F-, and child Sims who reach this grade and don't improve quickly will be sent to a military academy and permanently removed from the household. Absences from class will penalize the grade by one grade for each day of absence (for example from B+ to C+) and going to school in a bad mood and without meeting the needs of the child can reduce it by one point (for example from B+ to B). Going to school with your needs fully satisfied will raise it by one point, although the most effective way to raise your grade is to study at home with a bookstore, which will gradually improve your grade.

Expansions

The Sims has 7 expansions, which complement the game by adding new options, objects, professional careers, lots, and even cities:

• The Sims: More Live Than Ever English The Sims Livin' Large) (made for sale in August 2000): more objects, actions and skills are added to the Sims, so that they can relate to neighbors. Also new work and topics of conversation.

• The Sims: House Party English The Sims House Party) (assembled for sale in March 2001): the Sims can make parties in their houses, add new items of the theme, new music and new clothes, such as: a disco floor, a disc jockey cabin, new audio systems, a mechanical bull, etc.

• The Sims: First Quote English The Sims Hot Date(on sale in November 2001): For the first time the Sims can leave their homes, go to the city center, to discotheques, to restaurants for a romantic dinner.

• The Sims: Holiday English The Sims Vacation(located for sale in March 2002): the Sims can take holidays in tourist destinations, such as beaches, snowy mountains and camping forests.

• The Sims: Animals to Raudales English The Sims Unleashed(assembled for sale in September 2002): allows the Sims to adopt a variety of pets and expand the city (baptized as Old Town), where community plots such as shops, parks, etc can be built.

• The Sims: Superstar English The Sims Superstar) (market for sale in May 2003): added City Studio, a new area where the Sims can become famous and record albums, model, act, relax on the spas and co-ordinate with the most famous.

• The Sims: Magic Potagia English The Sims Makin' Magic(on sale in October 2003): Sims can use magic and learn powers. The Magic City and the "magimonedas" are added.

Most of the expansions in this series usually have an equivalent in the following generations:

• The Sims: Animals to Raudales: The Sims 2: Pets; The Sims 3: What a wildlife! and The Sims 4: Dogs and Cats.
• The Sims: On vacation: The Sims 2: Bon Voyage; The Sims 3: Trotamunds and The Sims 4 Acampada.
• The Sims: First Date: The Sims 2: No. The Sims 3: Falling Night and The Sims 4: Are we staying?
• The Sims: Superstar: The Sims 3: Jump to Fame and The Sims 4: Turn to the Fame.
• The Sims: Magic Potagia: The Sims 2: Share Apartment: The Sims 3: Supernatural creatures and Sims 4 And the Kingdom of Magic.

Compiler Packs

• The Sims: Deluxe Edition English The Sims: Deluxe Edition2002: inclusive The Sims, More alive than ever, deluxe objects and The creator of The Sims.

• The Sims: Megaluxe English The Sims: Double Deluxe2003: inclusive The Sims, More alive than ever, House Partymegaluxe and The creator of The Sims.

• The Sims: Gigaluxe English The Sims: Triple DeluxeMay 2004: The Sims, More alive than ever, House Party, Vacation, deluxe objects, megaluxe objects, gigaluxe objects and The creator of The Sims.

• The Sims: The Family to the Full English The Sims: Complete CollectionMarch 2006: The Sims plus the 7 expansions collected on four CDs or a DVD.

• The Sims 2: Ultimate Collection (extraditionally this has no Spanish translation) The Sims 2: Ultimate CollectionJuly 2014: The Sims 2 including all expansions, packs of accessories and technical service. (Quality that will be removed from any previous version of The Sims 2)

Aftermath

Due to the popularity of the original game, several sequels, Spin-offs and DLCs have emerged, adding more features or changing the dynamic or objective a bit.

The Sims Online

In December 2002, Maxis released The Sims Online for sale in the United States, which allowed players to play the classic The Sims in an MMORPG version, where different real people They interacted in rooms. The game was looking to catch on with MMORPGs, but unfortunately, that didn't happen. Due to its failure, it was not exported to more countries.

Many Sims players were looking for a game in the style of the rest of the series, but found that they couldn't modify objects in the same way as they did in The Sims. This fact combined with the lack of cooperation (which did mark the game during the testing phase) turned it, according to most magazine reviews, into a great chat room (chat room) in instead of what could have been.^{[citation needed]}

In 2008 a project called EA-Land was created in which The Sims Online game was offered for free under that new name and for which they offered weekly updates in order to revive the game. Soon after, EA dismantled the EA-Land development team led by Luc Barthelet and announced the service's final closure.

The Sims 2

It is the second video game in the series, developed by Maxis and released in September 2004. In the Sims world timeline, it is set in the same neighborhood 25 years later, with many of the families from the first game quite changed. The biggest novelty is the change to 3D graphics, something that makes the game more attractive compared to the first part of the series (although there is an option to play with the camera style of the first game). Genetics, growth in stages, family generations, more intelligent and independent Sims, desires and fears, a much more worked Sims Creator, a movement of the Sims not so robotic and later, with the expansions are also added. It would add the weather, the seasons, the own cars, the businesses and many other improvements with respect to the base game. With 8 expansions, 9 accessory packs and 2 collection packs, it forms the second generation of The Sims.

The Urbz: Sims in the City

This video game was released in 2005 for PS2, Game Boy Advance and other portable and desktop consoles, this game is mainly based on the story mode, where the Black Eyed Peas help you become a star of the show, achieving explore the big city, unlike the other sims, this one has different textures, as well as a more extensive creation system in terms of hair colors and piercings and a wide range of new abilities such as fighting in hexagons or riding motorcycles, just Like the The Sims 2 on Consoles, this can have two players at the same time and control the Sim directly with the controller.

The Sims: Stories

This is a new line of products, based on The Sims 2 game. They are indicated for players who are new to the Sims world, and to play on laptops, since the requirements are not so demanding, even so you can play on desktop PC. It is a set of three independent video games and the only thing they have in common is that you must meet the objectives of the sim and thus follow the story of each game until you reach its outcome. So far, 3 games from this saga have been released: Stories of Life, Stories of Pets and Stories of Shipwrecked.

The Sims 2: Castaways

This video game was based on the original The Sims 2 game, but with a completely different theme. In this edition, the neighborhood is an island that had to be explored, it was inhabited by native Sims and Sims who had been shipwrecked due to a boat accident, compared to other Sims games, this one did have an ending in which Sims who had been shipwrecked returned home after being rescued by a plane. This game is somewhat similar to The Sims: Castaway Stories, being available for computers, although it is not a direct port for consoles as such.

The Sims 3

The game is set 25 years before the original The Sims and features improvements to the user interface, more customization in Sims, objects and the environment, as well as an open neighborhood, without loading screens between solar and solar, with so Sims can freely roam around the city. The actions a Sim performs will depend on the context in which they are performed and will be recorded in their "memory" to such an extent that if, for example, a Sim violates a social norm, he will later have the option to apologize for what he has done. It has 11 expansions: The Sims 3: Globetrotters, The Sims 3: Achievers, The Sims 3: After Nightfall, The Sims 3: What a family!, The Sims 3: What a fauna!, The Sims 3: Showtime, The Sims 3: Supernatural, The Sims 3: Seasons 3, The Sims 3: College Life, The Sims 3: Island Adventures, and The Sims 3: Into the Future, in addition to having 10 accessory packs and various special editions, as well as an online store where you can get special items that are purchased with Simpoints.

The Sims 4

It is the fourth installment of the social and life simulation video game. Electronic Arts announced the game on May 6, 2013, and it was released for Microsoft Windows on September 2, 2014 in the United States and England, in the rest of the world two days later (09/04/2014), and on MacOS systems. X on February 17, 2015. This game also already has ten expansions that are: The Sims 4: Get to work!, The Sims 4: Urbanites, The Sims 4: Let's meet?, The Sims 4: Dogs and Cats, The Sims 4 and The Four Seasons, The Sims 4 Rise to Fame, The Sims 4: Island Living, The Sims 4: College Days, The Sims 4: Eco Living, The Sims 4: Snowy Escape, The Sims 4: Town Life, and counting. In addition, they have 12 content packs that are: Camping, Spa Day, Gourmet Getaway, Vampires, Dads and Moms, Jungle Adventure, StrangerVille, and the Kingdom of Magic, Star Wars: Journey to Batuu, Interior design, Yes, I want to!, Lycanthropes, and counting. Then, they have 18 accessory packs that are: Glam Party, Dream Patio, Divine Kitchen, Spooky, Movie Night, Romantic Garden, Children's Room, Backyard Fun, Vintage Glamour, Bowling Night, Fitness, Infants, Laundry Day, My First Pet, Moschino, Tiny Houses, Wonders of the Point, Paranormal, and counting. Finally, they have 13 kits that are: Cleaning Zafarrancho, Country Kitchen, Retro Fashion, Oasis in the Patio, Fashion Street, Airport Fashion, Industrial Loft, Men's Fashion, Plant Decoration, Carnival Colors, Maximalist Decoration, Chic Nights, Minicampers, and counting.

The Sims Medieval

It is a video game based on the engine of The Sims 3, CryEngine 2 but with technical improvements to make it lighter and more compatible, developed and published by Electronic Arts for Microsoft Windows and MacOS X, which was released on March 22, 2011 The game was also released for download on PC on the same date. Set in the Middle Ages, it allows the player to build a kingdom through game modes. On December 21, 2010, Electronic Arts announced that the Collector's Edition was now available and would be released at the same time as the Standard Edition.

The Sims: Social

In August 2011, The Sims: Social was released, an exclusive browser game for the social network Facebook, which had the same abilities as the original Sims, but interacts with friends on the social network. A year and a half later, the game was removed from the platform due to its low popularity, since the objects had to be built by Facebook friends and many others had to be bought with real money, which also applied to the houses that only had one floor, causing the game to be eliminated.

The Sims FreePlay

Formerly called The Sims Free to Play, it is a mobile video game released on January 15, 2011 exclusively for Android, iOS, BlackBerry, Windows Phone, Amazon Kindle Fire, and WebOS. Developed by Firemonkeys Studios, this edition is constantly updated and each one always adds new features, events and interactions, the time that elapses here goes with the user's, so many of the Sims' actions can last for hours in real time, such as it is sleeping, eating, bathing, working or doing any other activity. In this version pets are available however there is reference to other creatures in the game such as vampires, mummies, mermaids and werewolves, but they do not have their abilities, they are merely disguises. This game includes references to The Sims 3 expansions such as Island Adventure, Supernaturals and Achievements, and some The Sims 4 packs, such as Camping.

The Sims Mobile

It is the third installment of the franchise for mobile systems, with the trailer being announced on March 9, 2017. It has initially been released in Brazil, although it is already available in other countries such as Argentina and Mexico. The game is exclusive for cell phones with Android and IOS systems, it is based on the saga that bears the same name, even having the same camera angle and textures that are highly influenced by The Sims 4, as well as the elements of the base game, expansions, content packs and accessory packs, such as Get to Work!. This version does not eliminate The Sims FreePlay, since they are from a different developer, as a novelty this game implements the option to play online with friends in special locations. The time spent in the game is based on the user's time, but unlike FreePlay, actions take much less time.

The Sims: Console Edition

The first console edition was released in 2003 for the PS2 and Xbox, with a special version of The Sims 1, later arriving with The Sims 2 in 2004 for the PS2, PSP, Nintendo DS and Game Boy Advance as well as until 2006 with The Sims 2: Pets (here the Wii is included in the consoles that would launch it for sale) and The Sims 2 Castaways (the latter was only released for PS2 and Wii), unlike the computer versions, these do not give the possibility of creating children, babies or the elderly, the only ones who can have children are pets and they do not leave the place where they were born, the story mode in The Sims 2 on Consoles, is more important than on computers, because here you unlock more objects. locations and abilities, the only creatures that can be created are the Alien Sim and the Human Sim, for later in the Sims 2 Pets, only Humans can be created.

In 2010 The Sims 3 was released two years after its appearance on computers, this version was released for the PS3, Xbox 360, Nintendo DS and Wii, this being the first version of consoles in which you can choose the stage of the life of the sim. Unlike the computer version, on consoles there are "Karmic Powers", these help or hurt Sims depending on the player's choice or randomly at night. In 2011 The Sims 3 would be released: What a Fauna! as an independent game for PS3, Xbox 360 and Nintendo 3DS, having as its main difference from that of computers, the possibility of controlling pets and even these can get a job.

The only console exclusive games were: The Sims: Animals, MySims and The Urbz: Sims in the City.

In 2017, The Sims 4 was released for PS4 and Xbox One, and in 2020 for PS5 and Xbox Series, being the only game that is identical to its computer version, with the only difference being that there is no Possibility to install mods and expansions are added as DLC content, plus these usually arrive a few months or weeks after computer to console.