Winklecheek 1.1: Humble Beginnings

First and foremost, I’ve never actually participated in a legacy challenge like this before. I’ve tried my hand at a few other kinds, but I almost always used money cheats because I wanted nice houses for my Sims. But Pinestar’s challenge doesn’t allow that, and when I saw that the rules were posted….I figured this might be a good opportunity to really try not to cheat. It won’t be easy and the “challenge” in “legacy challenge” will be painstakingly obvious. Haha. Especially since I generally use houses made by other players because I can’t build for shit. I will admit though, I’ve been testing the build mode in S4 and I’m actually enjoying it in this game. S3’s (and all the previous games) build mode was headache-inducing and I stayed away from it (except for decorating the inside of houses, I’ve always loved doing that). But because we have to build our own legacy houses, I guess I don’t have much of a choice this time! As a sidenote, I love….and I mean love taking and posting pictures of my Sims. Not sure why, I just always have. So my posts will probably be image heavy! I’m also pretty wordy so, consider yourself warned. 😀

If you are interested in this challenge, here are the various important links:
Rules
Succession Laws
Random Trait Generator
Challenge Scoring

After perusing the succession laws, I choose the following:
Equality: The Founder may be of either gender. Both boys and girls are eligible for the title of heir.
Strict Traditional: To be eligible to be named heir, a child must be naturally born from their previous-generation parents and be able to trace an unbroken bloodline back to the founder. Adopted children may never be named heir.
Living Will: The eligible child with the highest friendly relationship score with their previous-generation’s parent will be named heir.

I’m also trying this, even though it isn’t official yet…I thought I’d challenge myself even further:
“The family may move/marry in any number of townie Sims. You may not move/marry in any sim who is the last member of their household, (Thus all incoming Sims will bring $0 to the family). You may merge single sims into common “not present in world” households in order to make desired townies eligible for marriage under the new rule.”

This should be interesting. :S

For my actual founding Sim, I wanted to get into the challenge as quick as I could and decided I’d use a Sim from the gallery that I thought was really unique looking (and his name made me lol something awful). He was made for one of the official S4 challenges and his name is Donny Winklecheeks by ahholladay. I don’t know, there is something about this guy that I really like and I thought he might make interesting children down the line (I hope?). His aspiration is Musical Genius and his traits are Geek, Goofball and Creative. He also has the Muser trait.

After getting him into the game and on the appropriate 50×50 lot (I always knew the 50×50 lots were huge, but you can really tell when your Sim is living on the lawn), I bought the Knight statue and managed to snag a few other odds and ends to get this poor guy (literally and figuratively) started. All he managed to buy was a bed, toilet, shower, trash can, fridge, a small table, two chairs and one counter. It’s a sad, sad start….but it’s something. I never knew how much I’d miss walls until my little Simmie couldn’t afford them anymore! With only has $120 to his name, I got Donny to make a call to get himself a gig. Lord knows he needs it. Since his aspiration is Musical Genius, I figured Entertainer was the best bet.

After taking the job as Amateur Entertainer, I sent Donny off to the library. But before he could even get into the building, he jogged by a few potential girlfriends. Lmao. I can’t remember their names, but I made Donny chat the ladies up just in case they were eligible.

Turns out the redhead was only a teenager. Figures. It’s kind of hard to tell in S4 what age they are, since teenagers are the same height as the adults. But I wasn’t deterred, it was still early yet and Donny hadn’t even gone into the library yet. But I’m picky when it comes to who my legacy Sims will marry and I knew this was going to be an uphill battle for me because of it.

Can I just say that I absolutely love the Sims 4? So many new features that are downright amazing and such an upgrade in comparison to S3. I don’t mind the loading screens while traveling and have actually noticed a huge improvement to my gameplay because the game doesn’t have to load an entire neighborhood whenever I do something. It runs so smoothly – no lag, no nothing. The loading screens only take maybe 20-30 seconds to load, too! I’ve found myself sending my Sims out into the town far, far more often than I ever did in the S3. Tons (and I mean tons) of Sims show up when you load a new lot and with multi-tasking, you can have your Sims talk to several at once. So I of course took advantage of all the women on the lot and got Donny involved in a group conversation.

One Sim in particular seemed to catch his attention. Her name was Genisis Wilkinson and I liked her quite a bit, but I decided he would continue to search in case I found a female Sim I liked more. For a change, I actually find myself watching my Sims do things. Like talk to other Sims. In S3 my finger was always hovering over the speed up button because after a while it got really boring watching them do the same things over and over again, but in S4, it feels like actual conversations are taking place. But maybe that’s just me.

As Donny was leaving to go take care of his hunger need, he ran into two more women just before exiting the lot. So they got to talking…then for some reason the Sim in the bright red shirt, Blanca Thorne, wandered off, leaving Donny alone with the other Sim, Dakota Mooney. Little did I know what was about to happen.

Since I’m letting Donny do what he wants to and am trying not to control or micromanage him too much, I was surprised to see him diss Dakota in such an obvious way and realized, judging by his moodlets, that she had provoked him first and he was embarrassed and angry over it. Within seconds I had a full-blown fight on my hands and they went from almost half a green relationship bar to just as much red. I was pretty shocked but did nothing to stop it. I wanted to see what was going to happen, haha, since none of my Sims in S4 had yet to experience the Angry moodlet.

All they did was argue, provoke and every other mean social option under the sun until their relationship bar was completely in the red. I couldn’t believe it….how could that happen so fast? I’ve never had Sims hate each other like that before in any previous game and figured she had to have a Mean Spirited or Evil trait to warrant such a reaction. Nope. Her traits are Foodie, Neat and Romantic…..which was baffling, to say the least. I’m pretty far into the family now and they still hate each other.

Then Blanca decided to wander back into the conversation…..poor thing had no idea what she was walking into. She was “Happy” but Donny and Dakota were so angry and full of red that she didn’t stand a chance, lol, and before long….she, too, was angry. I saw Dakota fighting with Blanca just as Donny was leaving the lot…..I swear that Sim is toxic somehow!

Donny ended up fighting her at one point, but she glitched out and became invisible….so the fight basically looked like he was flailing his arms around at nothing. It looked like a total girl fight or like he was slapping at a bug or something until the big dust ball formed. It was pretty hilarious, even caught it with the recorder for laughs. Needless to say, he has no fitness skill at all….so he lost pretty horribly. He had the “Dazed” moodlet for a while, then it turned into Anger and he stomped around the lot trying to cool off. Luckily he didn’t pick a fight with any other Sims when I wasn’t looking! Especially since he’s supposed to be making friends and not arch rivals, lmao. Still pretty hilarious, though. And to think I was seriously considering breaking up Dakota’s marriage so that she and Donny could tie the knot and pop out a couple of legacy children. Yikes.

The next day I took him to the library again since he needed a mirror to work on his Charisma skills and I figured he could hit one of the bookcases, too….and as he was standing in front of the mirror, I was casing the lot, waiting for potential age-appropriate female Sims to walk by. It sounds kind of creepy when I say it that way, but he wasn’t getting any younger and I needed two Sims to work in order to earn enough money for, you know, walls? And then Aspen walked in. Honestly, I thought I’d found his future wife. She’s adorable and they hit it off so well and so fast. Within minutes, without me really directing anything except the initial greeting, their relationship bar was more than half-full.

Lots of laughter was had and I thought I’d hit pay dirt….until I decided to look for the flirt interactions. Couldn’t find any, then I realized she only had two traits listed. Teenagers. Again. The second picture is definitely the “You’re HOW old?!” face. Ugh. Blasted teenagers masquerading as adults! He’s going to gain a reputation for going after teenage girls at this rate. All poor Donny needs is a van.

While I was busy watching the street for passing Sims, I decided to zoom back in and get a closer look at what Donny was up to. I saw him chatting up a woman…and….I’m still not sure what she did to warrant that kind of reaction but his face was pretty priceless throughout the entire conversation. But his needs were plummeting and he needed some attention, so I decided to send him home for the day.

Donny was starving, so he attempted to make some garden salad. It didn’t end well.

After his needs were full again, I decided to send him down to the bar in Willow Creek. Since it has a piano, I figured he could learn the skill little bit while chatting up the ladies. He needed to find a wife and I was starting to lose hope. While I really liked Genisis from the library, I wasn’t sure if I really liked her enough. Their children would have both their genes, after all! And with Donny being so unique looking, I wanted a really pretty Sim to sort of balance their genes out. Anyway, when he got to the bar….the very first thing he did was spot a woman and talk to her. I quickly checked to make sure she was an adult — and she was, haha — before I sat him down at one of the tables. And who walks in? None other than Bella Goth. Boy, was I tempted. With that new potential legacy rule, Bella would become fair game….and I kind of love her. So I had Donny chat her up, and she actually sat down at his table. The two hit it off really well, until someone else walked in and decided to join the conversation.

Her name was Zoe Patel and I loved her instantly. Donny talked to both of them for hours, completely ignoring his piano (which he needed skills in to get a promotion) and the three really hit it off. For some reason Bella decided to sit at Zoe’s table mid-way through the chat though, haha. By the time Donny got up to work on the piano, both his relationship with the girls were more than half full.

While Bella headed off and did other things, Zoe stalked him around the bar for the rest of the night.

It didn’t matter which woman became the focus of his attention, Zoe had to be there, too. Not sure why, but it amused me. At least she’s persistent!

The next day I invited Bella over to his uhh….lawn…and who showed up less than an hour later? Zoe. She of course made herself comfortable and hogged all of Donny’s attention, leaving Bella to entertain herself with her phone since Donny had nothing of actual value on his sad little lawn.

I figured since Zoe was trying so hard, I’d throw her a bone. I’ve never actually had a Sim I didn’t control pursue one of mine so vigorously. She was always there. No matter where he went. The bar, the library….I even sent him to the other world’s lounge and she was there. Pretty sure Donny has a stalker. >.> A very pretty stalker….but still a stalker. Zoe dropped by his lawn every Sim day after that and would stick around until his needs were so bad I was forced to kick her out. The good thing about this was that their friendship was maxed pretty darn quickly and I didn’t have to focus on building it up — those two did all the work all by themselves. :S

I guess that’s a good place to end it. So that’s the first chapter of my silly little legacy story. Hope it wasn’t too long and that whoever bothers to reads this enjoyed it!

Until next time.