Saving Starving Sims Challenge

[sonyamontapupupu]

There are far too many people in this world for every human being to be fed a healthy meal. And even in the seemingly pleasant world of Sims there are starving children who need a new home where they can grow up to be healthy and happy. Fortunately, there are other sims who dedicate their lives to the well-being of these poor children. Although these sims seem to have an overwhelming task of feeding and clothing the children of the world, they receive the biggest reward by knowing they’ve provided opportunities to children who would otherwise might not have survived. But wait! They’re not completely fulfilled by only helping children -- these sims must tell the world. There are others who need to know, and the only way of doing so is to write books inspiring others to do so.

[THE GOAL]
You must adopt and raise as many children as possible before you die. Your sim must also write books to make a living and to share their love of children with the world. Raising children is quite a job in itself, meaning you cannot officially have a career. This means that your only source of income is the books you write. You are also going at this alone -- no romantic relationships allowed. Period.

[THE SIM]
Create a YA sim (either gender). You may customize the looks of the sim as much as you would like.
Your sim may not have any of the following traits:
Dislikes Children
Lucky
Unlucky
Party Animal
Ambitious
Evil
Insane
Mean Spirited
Flirty
Hopeless Romantic
Great Kisser
Workaholic

Your sim must have TWO of the following traits:
Family-Oriented
Good
Natural Cook
Frugal
- You may choose the remaining 3 traits yourself, as long as they are not career or romance related.
You may choose whatever lifetime wish you want. HOWEVER, this lifetime wish cannot be a career-related wish (aside from Professional Author) or a romantic wish (such as Gold Digger or Heartbreaker).
You may customize all other aspects of the personality, such as voice, favorite food, color, etc.


[THE LOT]
If you would prefer to build your sim’s house yourself, feel free to do so. You may also simply use a pre-made house (unfurnished).
“moveobjects on” is not allowed. However, all other building cheats are.
You have a limit of 100,000 simoleons to build and furnish your house (hint: use “familyfunds (family name) 100000” to accomplish this). Be sure to plan wisely when decorating and building, because after you spend this, you cannot use any more money cheats.
You may only have one bathroom -- one toilet, one shower or bath, one sink, and one mirror (optional). Toilet paper or other decorations are up to you. After all, what’s the fun in having a large family if you can’t fight for a bathroom?
You may have as large of a dining room table as you’d like, but you can only have one. The chairs in the dining room must only be around the table. Seating at breakfast bars/counter islands is not allowed. Eating together at a single table is crucial to a happy home.
You may have a maximum of three bedrooms in the house -- one for your sim and two for the children. Your bedroom may have any type of bed. The children’s bedrooms must have only two single beds per room. No cribs are allowed (see “the gamplay” for why).
Telephones are allowed. However, fire alarms and burglar alarms are not allowed. You are responsible for making sure your children don’t burn the house down, not an alarm.
Only one television and one computer is allowed. You may have as many radios as you’d like, but keep in mind the simoleon limit.
You may have as many skill building objects as you’d like (e.g. telescopes, chess tables)
Custom content is allowed, as long does not change gameplay any differently than

[THE GAMEPLAY]
Aging must be set to a normal lifespan (90 days).
You may not use any mood or money cheats.
Only mods that do not affect gameplay are allowed (e.g. additional CAS sliders are allowed, but increasing the length of the day is not allowed)
Only children are allowed to be adopted. No babies, toddlers, or teenagers. (Hint: Since you cannot have babies through adoption and having babies biologically is not allowed, choosing the lifetime wish of “Surrounded by family” is not a great idea, as you won’t be able to raise ANY children from babies)
Your adult sim may not have a career. Your only source of income will be from your writing.
You are not allowed to hire a babysitter. You must be the person taking care of your children at all times.
When you take a trip, every child must come along. This includes going to the grocery store or the park. Children may leave the lot only to go to school or to their part-time job (teenagers only).
You may buy new items as the game progresses, such as more furniture. However, you may not change the rules for building. For instance, you cannot buy more than the number of beds allowed.
When your sim dies, the challenge is over.
NOTE: If a child is taken away by the social worker, you will no longer be allowed to adopt. Therefore, it’s crucial that you keep your children safe and healthy. If a child DOES get taken away from you, you may still play with your sim until all of the children are grown up or your sim dies.

[THE SCORING]
+20 for each child adopted
+20 for each child that makes it to adulthood
+10 for each skill mastered by your sim (aside from cooking or writing)
+15 for mastering the cooking or writing skill
+5 for each trait you are allowed to pick when a child ages up
+5 for each time a child makes it onto the honor role (you may only do this once per child, regardless of whether they make it onto the honor role twice)
+10 for every 1000 simoleons your furnished property is worth
+20 for dying of old age
+10 for completing your lifetime wish
+5 for each skill a child masters
+20 for writing an autobiography
+5 for every 1000 lifetime happiness points left at the end of the game (not including that spent on lifetime happiness rewards)

-20 for each child that dies as a child or teenager
-20 for each child taken away by the social worker
-10 for dying of an unnatural cause (not old age)
-15 for each time a child is left alone at home
-20 for each time a child is brought home after curfew
-10 for each time the repo man takes something
-15 for each fire started on your lot
-10 for each time your sim woohoos with another sim
-1 for each time food is wasted (your sim will get a moodlet if this occurs)



Hopefully this works out. It’s my first challenge I’ve ever made. I’d love to see people’s pictures and scores. I’d also love to get some constructive feedback to improve this challenge.

[CinderEmma]

I like this challenge, though I think that you should only use a 50k cheat for the home, not 100k :) It would be more challenging :)

[AnnaIME]

This sounds interesting, and most of the rules make sense, but why no moveobjects? Isn't that mostly for esthetics?

And why no babies or toddlers (not criticism, just curious to how you thought)?

And why confine the children/teens to the home lot? A parent who doesn't let their children visit their friend's houses, play in the park or visit the library is creepy, not caring. (at least if it's a safe neighbourhood, like Sunset Valley or Riverview)

[sonyamontapupupu]

I like this challenge, though I think that you should only use a 50k cheat for the home, not 100k :) It would be more challenging :)

That's a good suggestion. I just wanted to make sure there was enough to begin with. After all, writing takes a while to get a decent amount of money.


This sounds interesting, and most of the rules make sense, but why no moveobjects? Isn't that mostly for esthetics?

And why no babies or toddlers (not criticism, just curious to how you thought)?

And why confine the children/teens to the home lot? A parent who doesn't let their children visit their friend's houses, play in the park or visit the library is creepy, not caring. (at least if it's a safe neighbourhood, like Sunset Valley or Riverview)


As for the babies and toddlers, I wanted the children to already have a few traits and to get past the basic baby skills. It's also just for the fun of it. After all, if you're saving the starving sims, a lot are children. And you're also more apt to get more children from it.

And whether the parent is creepy or not, it adds some fun. What's the point of playing with a large family if they're not cooped up with each other the whole time?

You make a good point about the moveobjects. I feel like I had a reason.... but now I can't remember why. If I can't remember in the next few days, I'll change it. :)

[VampireRalts]

Hmmm... I actually spent a weekend in a place like the challenge describes in real life last week, it was called a group home and it houses several adults who have mental issues who cannot live on their own due to them having problems in society. (For the sake of protecting the innocent I am not going to say the names of the program or the people in it.)

It was just like you described, only none of the 'customers'(people doing the program) were allowed to remain in the house between 9 and 3 on weekdays, they had to go to a day work program.

This is an interesting challenge which hits close to home and got me interested - I love to adopt a child once in a while in Sims 3 as they are easier to raise than toddlers or larvae(babies); I might try doing this challenge someday, but not right now as I have other stories to do. But if I do it, I will let you know. Merry Christmas folks. :gjob:

[CinderEmma]

My mom works in a group home, it's good you didn't mention the name/people. I volunteered at another group home once and was warned sooooo much about confidentiality.
Anyway, awesome challenge, I want to do a variant of this in a more group home setting using sims I know of from group homes as a basis (obviously I would change the names and wouldn't share them XD). Pretty much like nooooo free will and no controlling seven sims, while one is desperately trying to keep the 7 sims ALIVE XD

[sonyamontapupupu]

Thank you for your support! I actually thought it up because I have three adopted siblings and we are very active in the adoptive and foster community. I thought about how adopting all of these kids would be such a good thing, but without the drawbacks of money and other things like that. (Also, there can never be too many Sims challenges...)

Again, I'm glad you liked my challenge. :)

[VampireRalts]

Okay, I am starting this challenge, but since I have a bad habit of cheating up moods and can't break the habit - don't tell me that I can't do this because I love the idea of doing the challenge, but I suck at having to tend to needs so I am hoping playing Sims 3 for X-Box 360 breaks that habit - I decided to put some extra rules to make it fair to the rules:

(1) Every morning and evening, the household must eat one meal, even if they get stuffed from it. So this motivates my caretaker(named Buster Myth after the legendary training dummy used by Adam, Jamie and the build team - Discovery.com is the place to go!) to learn how to cook. The group home I visited had a schedule of having breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day and you had a choice - you either ate with them or sat with them and watched them eat. No shirking being at the table.

(2) Every Sunday, the group must go to 'church' - aka, they must go the cemetery dressed in formal wear and tour the mausoleum before noon. I have grown up in a Catholic background and even in the group home I visited, they went to church - the church mass was actually a non-denom group that had mass in a movie theater, but let's not get into religion. I wanted to establish that my adopted kids learn about the circle of life and respect the dead and living, call me sentimental, but if real people have to go attend a religious ceremony every Sunday, so do these Sims.

(3) This is more of a bending of the rules - teens who have a steady relationship(boyfriend/girlfriend) may leave the house to go on a date, but ONLY on weekends, no sneaking out after curfew on school nights! Also, if the unthinkable happens and SoWo takes a kid away due to bad grades, instead of failing the challenge, I make it so that Buster gets a reprieve and can adopt again, but only after a 'three-day investigation'; if this happens two more times, THEN the funding is pulled and the challenge fails. (But since I am a stickler for keeping the kids up in grades, this shouldn't be a problem.)

(4) I allowed Buster to travel to Egypt and learn the photography skill and he sold off the photos. However, this is an exception because the photos at that level were so worthless they didn't add anything to the income, and he wasn't allowed to sell anything else when he got home - but I had his adopted kids put the items in their inventory and sell them from their inventory. You didn't give any rules on forbidding having the kids sell their "daddy's" stuff indirectly. Loophole! ^_^ Another thing - I did have Buster sell off statues from his sculpting bench until his first kid became a teen, then they sold the sculptures off the bench. I wanted to have Buster get Ice Personality so he could display a basement gallery of the kids he adopted when they became young adults as well as have their photos taken.

(5) Finally, I had Buster self-employ as a writer but that was only because of the grants he got from topping the career. It's a slight violation of the rule since he's making extra money on the side, but after he topped the career and got all the special awards for writing, I had him quit that job and focus on novels.

Also, I decided that I'd have the last kid he adopted before he went to the great Myth in the sky take over the house and continue adopting kids and this would go on for as long as I could stand it as there are many names I could use. Right now, I'm just starting but I'll give progress on the kids - for the house, I placed an Unfurled on a lot next to the junkyard and transformed two of the bathrooms into a laundry room and computer room. I'll give a report on the first kids - I plan on adopting one kid a day each day after returning from Egypt until we have four kids and then not adopt until each kid grows up to young adulthood and leaves home, so it'll be a while.

EDIT: Adopted my first four kids - I'm trying to go co-ed(half girls half boys) to keep it fair. The first was the boy JATO Car Myth who is going to romance Bella Bachelor when she grows up, then Biscuit Bomb Myth, who became best friends with Miraj Alvi, who is now a teen and will be wooed by BB when she grows up tomorrow, the third is Chair Balloon Myth, who was dark-skinned, and finally we had Gold Shirley Myth, who is also dark-skinned.

JATO and Chair grew up into teens, even though BB was adopted before Chair. JATO is working on his guitar skill and I had Chair meet Cora Francisco in hopes that she'll be his girlfriend when she grows up. I stupid threw a birthday party for JATO two hours before he was to return home from school but it was still epic. :D

Buster sold his first novel, a non-fiction work called "My Mission - Saving the Kids", and he'll write his second after Chair's party ends as he has been sculpting ice and letting it melt to get Ice Personality. I have taken child photos of all the kids and teen photos of the boys and will have them pose for young adult ice Sims to remember them by when they move out. :)

Great idea for a challenge, but I'm slipping into my cheating ways - I have a lot of trouble tending needs, but it's interesting that the kids do their homework as soon as they come home automatically.

I also randomize good traits and re-roll if they have a bad trait. I do not see how raising a kid well leads to them being evil or mean.