When I read about this Challenge, I couldn't resist. 20 sims on one lot--no skills, no relationships, three toddlers, and three babies? I had to try it!Meet Charity and Mercy Givens--altruists, idealists, and plain fools!
Charity and Mercy moved onto their 3 X 2 lot, as instructed, and we added the orphans--six teens, six children, three toddlers (all female) and three infants (cloned from Charity and Mercy, and thus all male.) Ahem, here is where I panicked! Argh! Run, screaming, and never turn on the computer again! No, in all honesty, I was psyched.
My orphanage was a very simple, square, one-story building. Following the requirements, I had a girls dorm, a boys dorm, a room for Charity and Mercy, and a big, open living area. I created a bathroom block--rather than using group restrooms with privacy toilets, I just created lots of small individual bathrooms. There were 4 with just toilets, one with just a shower, two with toilets and showers, and one with a tub and toilet. Thus, 7 toilets, three showers, and a tub for the 20 starting sims on the lot.I wanted small, individual nursery cells as well, to keep children from waking one another up--however, I planned poorly, and only created 5 nursery rooms. Thus, one infant had to sleep in the hall.
I also added a small pond, and minimal garden--I figured that adding fun, socialization and fresh food could only be helpful. To be honest, although the garden did get kept, the children only fished once on the first afternoon, and then not again until the following summer! I was just too busy and it was too hectic.
The layout worked well, but managing so many sims was really difficult. Everyone kept mobbing the toddlers, dragging them out of one crib, and then complaining because the other cribs were already full. In desperation, I turned free will off until the toddlers grew to children. This meant that for the first week, I had to tell every single sim to do everything. I would pause, look around for sims just standing still, and send them off to take care of things, then repeat.The first toddlers only got some of their skills, and it took me until Friday to get everyone taught to do homework. The adults taught the teens, and the teens taught the children.
I didn't allow any visitors, unless they somehow slipped by me--I figured that it was hard enough to get my residents to know and be friends with one another, without adding in sims from the outside.I didn't use any cheat objects, but I did take full advantage of cheap custom content, so my orphanage was painted, floored, and fully furnished from the start. No one needed to get a job until the end of the first week, at which point Charity finally had the opportunity to get into the slacker field (her LTW.)
I thought it would bother me to play all those ugly Maxis sims, with their default clothing--but in truth, I was so busy I hardly noticed. It took me a long time to even know their names or recognize them. I didn't even change any hairstyles or add makeup until day 18.Some of these sims were really hideous--take a gander at Sierra, the blonde in the back of the picture above! There was also George, who had a face exactly like a frog. However, he was a really wonderful, sweet sim--a teen who was always caring for the littler ones. He's now a townie and despite his repulsive appearance, he'll probably get married into some playable family, because I really love him.
Here's the remodeled orphanage at the point that the three original toddlers and three original infants had all grown up to children. As you can see, there is now only one nursery for the new little ones who are added once a week. The girls dorm was fully remodeled, with bunks, and now sleeps 8, plus there is a private girls room. The boys dorm remains unchanged (I couldn't afford any more bunks, they are expensive!) but there's an adjunct boys dorm sleeping three, on the other side of the house.
There go the six original teens, now grown to adults and townified. So, at this point, the orphanage contains twelve teens, one child (the first Monday addition) and one new toddler girl (the second Monday addition.) My goals for the next sim week are for my teens to get jobs, actually max some skills (there are some who are close, but only 5 have maxed anything so far) and get some promotions. Right now, on day 18, my score stands as:- 200 2 new spawned kids (1 toddler, 1 infant)
- 45 Charity's 3 promotions
- 30 6 family friends (the six original teens who moved out)
- 5 Mercy (adult) maxed logic
- 40 Teen maxed skills
- 180 A+'s on birthdays (18)
- 10 Gold asp. at grow-up (1)
- 420 Platinum asp. at grow-up (21)
- 420 Toddler skills taught (21)
- -10 One cooking fire
- -90 6 sims passed out
- -------------------------------------------
- 1250 Grand total of points thus far!
I am continuing to have fun with this challenge, but as Phoenix has pointed out, it gets a lot easier once those original little ones are grown. I figure adding careers and maxing skills should keep me interested for a while. I actually considered modifying the challenge to state that whenever adults moved out, the government replaced them with infants and toddlers--but the challenge wouldn't ever end in that case. However, it still seems like it might be fun as part of an ongoing neighborhood, and I'm considering adding one to my old Royal Kingdom neighborhood, where there was a war and orphans would be a sadly normal consequence.
Hope you enjoyed hearing about the Givens Orphanage!
