I attempted to try this challenge for the first time last night and everything seemed to being going fine. There was a fire but that was expected. Then on day 2, about 4 sim hours until my sim Tiana was due back from work, another fire started. So those 7 loonies were left to fend for themselves. 5 of them died in a fiery death while the stove, fridge and 4 counters burned down. Tiana made it home in time to plead for 2 of the other sims lives but the relationship wasn't high enough for either.

I decided to play a little bit longer out of boredom, and noticed the only ghost that seemed to scare Tiana and the other two sims was Naomi, the one no one seemed to like very much. Tiana tried to save her but I think their relationship was at 13/13, but still you'd think Naomi might be grateful! She scares Tiana every 5 minutes. Hmm, maybe Naomi didn't like Tiana very much.

I decided not to save because I really liked the sims I made. So, I'll start over later today.

This challenge looks like it could be hilariously fun, but I'm sadly EP-free, so none of my Sims have Lifetime Wants. So, for myself any anyone else who DOES want their player-sim to eventually escape, I have a few idea for challenge-finishing goals.

It wouldn't be too hard to set a goal like "reach top of *random career*" for anyone, or "Be BFFs with every other sim on the lot" for popularity sims, or "full skills points" for a knowledge sim... I could manually track money for a wealth sim, too. Family sim... I dunno. Any ideas? Romance sims could be... "whoohoo with every other sim on the lot" or something like that.

Suggestions?

I'll go ingame later and try to find a list of LT wants for you. I know the fortune sim has a LT want of make 100,000 and another of reaching the top of career, and I think a Romance sim has a LT want of woohoo with 20 different sims, and a Knowledge sim has a LT want of maxing all of their skills.

Sounds like a plan If you want to play the challenge just set your sim a goal that mirrors the lifetime wants you get with EPs. Reach top of career, have 20 simultaneous best friends, have 20 simultaneous lovers (ie. the red heart), woo hoo with 20 different sims). The family sim ones are difficult because they usually want to have 6 grandchildren or graduate 3 kids from college or reach golden anniversary, which would be impossible for you. They also have lifetime wants related to some careers - basically the "non-aggressive" careers, like cooking, medical, business.

So give your sim a goal and go for it!

Edit: OK, I found this list of lifetime wants (taken from University FAQ by Warfreak at www. gamefaqs.com):

Reach Golden Anniversary
Have a Family Reunion (**I've never seen this one come up!)
Have X Children Abducted by Aliens (** never seen this one either!)
Max Out 7 Skills
Have X Lovers at Once (** 20)
Have X Best Friends at Once (** 20)
WooHoo with X Different Sims (** 20)
Have X Grandchildren (** 6)
Have X Babies (** usually 10, I think)
Marry off X children (** 6)
Earn §100,000
Reach the Top of the Military Career
Reach the Top of the Medical Career
Reach the Top of the Law Enforcement Career
Reach the Top of the Athletic Career
Reach the Top of the Criminal Career
Reach the Top of the Slacker Career
Reach the Top of the Politics Career
Reach the Top of the Science Career
Reach the Top of the Culinary Career
Reach the Top of the Business Career

The numbers in brackets are the numbers I have seen in my game associated with that want.

And again from Warfreak:

Fortune Wants
Earn §100,000
Reach the Top of the Athletic Career
Reach the Top of the Business Career
Reach the Top of the Criminal Career
Reach the Top of the Medical Career

Knowledge Wants
Max Out 7 Skills
Have X Children Abducted by Aliens
Reach the Top of the Medicial Career
Reach the Top of the Science Career
Reach the Top of the Criminal Career
Reach the Top of the Law Enforcement Career

Family Wants
Marry off X Children
Have X Children
Reach Golden Anniversary
Reach the Top of the Law Enforcement Career
Have a Family Reunion

Romance Wants
WooHoo with X Different Sims
Have X Lovers at Once
Reach the Top of the Slacker Career
Reach the Top of the Culinary Career
Reach the Top of the Athletics Career

Popularity Wants
Have X Best Friends
Reach the Top of the Political Career
Reach the Top of the Military Career
Reach the Top of the Culinary Career
Reach the Top of the Law Enforcement Career

I have deleted the University-specific Lifetime wants from the lists above.

I don't know if Scout is still around but maybe it would be a good idea to have this list somewhere close to the front of the thread (like amongst the rules in the first post ) so that those who only have the base game don't feel like they don't have anything they could actually achieve with this challenge.

Awesome~ thank you both! ^^

LOL Engram, you beat me to it. I was just about to post that same thing.

Whoot, I just finished this one with 384 points total. Most everyone maxed out their creativity and their logic, since the only two real "fun" objects were the chess table and the piano. They fought like crazies over the piano. I finished it a day before the start of day--sorry, week-- 5.

There was only one close call when a fire went off seconds after my sim left for work for the day. Luckily, though, I answered a chance card correctly earlier in the day and she came home early enough to call the fire department and extinguish it herself before anybody died.

This was actually a lot of fun, and I think this challenge was good for spicing up my game when I needed a break between Legacy generations.

My "winner", Caprina Magnolia, was a knowledge sim with the LTW to max seven skills. She moved out of the Asylum and straight into the Messy Messalot challenge. I fear I'm being cruel to her, but the truth was I liked her too much to let her go into sim normalcy just yet.

I finished mine a few weeks ago - Sim-me and 7 women. I managed to get 315 points. I was lucky no fires started when "I" was at work.

I blogged it starting here : http://shinybrian.blogspot.com/2008/02/begin-begin.html

Be warned, it contains strange humor and turned into a bit of an epic love story.

Today I fineshed my first challenge. I really loved this one. My fellow Latvian Simaddicts are really enjoying this challenge too, I had translated it in Latvian.
At first try I 'failed because I hadn't found the right job to fulfil my sims LTW when all the patients had died in fire accident.
But now I finished with a score of 303 ^_^
Had somebody actually counted and posted here their final score?

what if my sim wants to marry off six children as a lifetime want? how am i supposed to do that in this challenge?

Use the Lot debugger to re-roll the LTW.

I don't think that want was supposed to come up in the first place... The controllable sim isn't supposed to be Family (see first post). But the Lot Debugger will allow you to re-roll the want to something doable, anyway.

Get the version for your particular set-up from here: http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/ffs/

I just found the other Asylum thread and have moved my post to there. Apologies for bumping this up unnecessarily.

This is fun. It is the only challenge I have done really couldn't see myself lasting for the legacy one. My fortune sim is really suffering though he has gone into aspiration failure loads of times as has my pleasure sim. I don't know what aspiration one of my sims is but is constantly going from green to platinum. Two sim days into the challenge though One of my sims libby died. Death by exercise bike really I would avoid this and get a treadmill. Most of my sims collapse after refusing to come of the bike. Officially the sim died of starvation but after raiding the fridge she goes upstairs and cheers the toilet. I am halfway through my lifetime want so when I am finished I am going to stay there a while and treat them to a life of luxury with motherlode. They have suffered so much

yah I did it. I only had one death. Thing that got me though in the beginning I didn't have a single fire but four of my sims ended up with 2-3 cooking skills and there were four fires one of which I started on 6 cooking skills luckily I was there for all of them so no big deal. Finished with 422 points and wads of cash well 20 000 as I couldn't buy anything but food and pay bills. as for the bike I put it in my inventory so no more death by bike. Came very close on many occasions so I think removing it was a bit cheaty. The only sim not in melt down at the end was the family sim and controllable sim the family sim was the one who kept going platinum. Off to build my simmies a mansion through continous use of motherlode.

I, also am a rule bender- I think I've done this thing a couple of times now, and I always put way to many chairs in-my excuse is it gives them more of an oppurtunity to interact I also tend to peek at their wants and mood, so if one of them dies at least it won't come as a shock.

Ok here's a small (only the 1 generation) challenge for when you just need a break. I based it off the I'm Surrounded by Idiots Challenge. A couple of people from the Prosperity Challenge Yahoo Group went over the rules for me and found a couple of errors of mine so I think it's good to go now. Just to be clear THIS IS NOT A CONTEST AND THERE IS NO PRIZE. It's just a challenge.

You should consider this beta testing of the challenge as it's my first one so it will probably need a little tweaking. Especially the scoring. And my inner control freak emerged and created a lot of rules for what started as a simple challenge. So I apologize for that. Please post comments, feedback and scores so I can tweak anything that needs tweaking and learn from my mistakes.

Asylum

You have been committed to a run down mental health facility against your will. In order to prove that you are fit to rejoin society and earn your freedom, you must achieve the goal your psychiatrist has set for you – your lifetime want.

The catch? You need to achieve your goal as quickly as possible, while keeping 7 other patients, who you don't know and are out of your control, alive and as happy as possible. Add to that budget cutbacks leading to a lack of decent furniture and limited supplies, and your task gets harder.

SETUP

Create a group of 8 unrelated adult sims.

For the first sim (the only sim you will be allowed to control) assign them an aspiration using this chart and a die:

1 – Knowledge
2 – Fortune
3 – Romance
4 – Popularity
5 – Pleasure
6 – Roll Again

For the 7 sims you won't control use this chart and a die:

1 – Knowledge
2 – Fortune
3 – Romance
4 – Popularity
5 – Pleasure
6 – Family

You can choose the personality for the sim you will control, but must randomly assign personalities to the other 7 adults. Of course, if you really like randomness you may assign your controllable sim a random personality as well.

You can use the method from the Prosperity Challenge to randomly assign the personalities. Roll the die once to choose the set of astrological signs and a second time to choose the sign from that set. Keep the personality traits as they default for the sign.

Set Choice:
Odd (1,3,5) = Set 1
Even (2,4,6) = Set 2

Set 1:
1 = Aries
2 = Taurus
3 = Gemini
4 = Cancer
5 = Leo
6 = Virgo

Set 2:
1 = Libra
2 = Scorpio
3 = Sagittarius
4 = Capricorn
5 = Aquarius
6 = Pisces

Choose all other aspects of their personality and appearance as you want. Again, you may random it up if you want.

Remember you can never control the 7 other sims. You can't even look at any of their information after creating them. You can not know their ltw, their current wants and fears, or the status of their motives. In other words, once on the lot, never click on their pic. Also you may not ask them any questions or on a date, take them off the lot or get them jobs. They are heavily medicated patients and unlike you, they don't have day passes.

On the other hand, you may ask them to join you in activities or use influence (or as I like to call it – mind control) to get them to do things. However, there is a bonus if you never use influence.

You may only leave the asylum to work. You may have other sims visit. You can even date other sims as long as you don't leave the lot. You may influence visitors (you will lose the no influence bonus) to do anything, including cleaning, gardening and repairing.

No maid, no gardener, no repair person, no exterminator. You can not have a baby or move anyone else into the lot even if someone else dies.

If anyone dies (other patients or visitors) you must leave their tombstone on the lot and allow the ghost to roam freely. And congrats, you now have a haunted asylum. And if a patient dies, you must delete 1 bed and 1 seat (until you are down to 1 bed and 1 seat).

LOT/BUILDING

Choose any size lot you wish. You can also use a pre-made house if you want. Keep in mind, the design of the house matters more than it normally would in playing and you can’t redesign once you start. A little thought and planning will make a world of difference.

These aren’t free range patients so you must give them a building. All objects, excluding plants, décor and lighting must be placed inside of a building.

You may cheat for money to build but when you are done building before starting to play, you must reduce your funds to 100 simoleons. You may then NOT buy anything else from build or buy mode during the game except to replace stolen or repossessed items as long as you buy the exact same item.

If you do not cheat for money to build, you do not need to reduce your funds prior to playing and may continue to buy any décor items as the game continues, such as windows, flooring, wallpaper, pictures, plants, lights and pretty knickknacks. You may NOT buy anything that serves any purpose other than décor – including surfaces, seating, walls, doors and skill objects. The only exception is that you may replace stolen or repossessed items as long as you buy the exact same item.

OBJECTS

Custom content is allowed as long as it conforms to all other rules and has a reasonable price. All objects must meet certain requirements.

Beds – No bed may have over a 3 in energy or comfort. You may have up to

1 double bed and 3 single beds

OR

0 double beds and 5 single beds

Chairs/Couches – There can only be total seating for 6. That includes couches, lounges and chairs. If you have a dining table with 4 chairs then you may not use a couch that seats 3. You may have only 1 piece of napable furniture, so if you have a couch then you may not have a recliner and vice versa. No seating may have over a 3 in energy or 8 in comfort.

Plumbing – Only 1 toilet, 1 sink and 1 tub. For the tub you can have a tub or a shower or a tub/shower combo.

Skill Items – Only 1 skill building item per skill type. No different types of items that build the same skill or multiples of the same item. For example, you can have a painting easel or a piano but not both since they both build creativity. You can have one bookcase but not two bookcases. The only exception is to allow for a tv. You can have a tv and a bookcase even though both build cooking.

Entertainment - You can have a tv or a radio but not both and whichever you choose can not be more than 7 in fun. There can be no other entertainment items in the house – no mp3 player, no computer, no handheld games, no video games, no pool table, etc. This ain't The Ritz.

Electronics – You can have as many phones as you want. But due to the shoddiness of the asylum, no burglar alarm, no smoke detector and no sprinklers.

Appliances – You must have an accessible stove for the patients. How else can they play with fire?

Aspiration/Career Rewards – not allowed.

Misc – You can not use any lockable doors. And no rearranging of furniture to reserve or use something for yourself. For example, you can not move the tv into a bedroom and turn it on just to get an uncontrollable patient out of bed so you can sleep in the bed. Nor can you remove a door so others can't gain access to the bathroom so you can use it when you come home from work.

Most Importantly – You may not buy any objects that serve any purpose other than décor after beginning the challenge – including surfaces, seating, skill objects. You may buy windows, flooring, wallpaper, pictures, plants, lights and pretty knickknacks after starting. So choose wisely grasshopper. The exceptions being that you may replace stolen or repossessed items as long as you buy the exact same item.

Cheats/Hacks – not allowed with the exception of aging off.

SCORING

Once you achieve your ltw you calculate your score.

You begin with 100 points then:

The Good:

* never used influence = + 20 points
* each skill point your living fellow patients have at the end (you can look now) = + 1 point
* each 1000 aspiration points your living fellow patients have at the end (add them all together and then round up) = + 1 point
* each friend of the household = + 1 point

The Bad:

* every sim day that you remained institutionalized = - 1 point
* each roommates death = - 20 points
* each visitor death = – 30 points

The Ugly:

Here's some links to items you may want to use. You aren't required to make your asylum look like an asylum and you get no extra points for it, but it can make for some great pics. Especially once the aspiration failures begin.

* SailorJune has links to hospital items if you want a more institutionalized appearance. http://chukhin.brinkster.net/Lynne/...s/hospital.html
* Hospital Gown MTS2 ( http://forums.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=116936 )
* Hospital Gown MTS2 ( http://forums.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=116301 )
* Padded Walls/Floors MTS2 ( http://forums.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=133097 )
* Both Berg and Binkl3y at MTS2 have some interesting full sims you may want to look at. Here's 2 samples of their work. Berg's Baglady ( http://forums.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=85718 ) and Binkl3y's Trashy the Clown ( http://forums.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=83353 )

Questions that have been asked:

1) When does a day end? 8 a.m. everyday equals 24 sim hours. So excluding that first 8 a.m. Monday when you start just count all the 8 a.m.'s you have at the asylum.

2) Can we buy a car? Sure, but remember you can only drive to work.

3) Can I cheat for money? The rules say no. But, you should also have fun. So if you need to do that to set up the place then go ahead. But once you've done your initial setup you should remove any remaining money. And if you post a score make sure you notate the money cheat at the beginning.

4) Can we keep date gifts? No. It really gives an unfair advantage to Nightlife players. So put them into your inventory and if you manage to survive and choose to play your sim in the land of the free you can take them with you.

I have a question...most institutions have counter space. Can I have counter tops? I've got waaaay ugly boring ones!

Yes you can have as many countertops as you want.

I should warn you - the no smoke dector rule is in debate right now, since one of the testers lost their playable sim in a ghost scare due to the vast number of fire deaths that occurred. I think the chance of failing adds to the fun, but we want to make sure there's enough chance of success at the same time.

ETA: I forgot to celebrate the first person posting here. Yeah!!

LOL Be brave...no fire alarms! I am all about tring this out. One generation...so when my sim achieves thier lifetime want, that's it, right? This looks like fun.

Right. It only lasts as long as it takes you to achieve your ltw or die a miserable failure. And of course some ltws are easier than others. But then again some of the other inmates are more determined to kill themselves than others. So it all works out in the end.

Those who have tried are enjoying it so far. Or they're lying to me. Either way I'm ok with that. Let me know what you think once you try it.

How about all other kitchen appliances...allowed or not? Sink and trashcan only? Fridges are allowed, but must look trashy? Can we use the InSIM to make the roommates unselectable to make it easier? Also how about interactions... everything except have a baby is allowed?

Hi Mandie. All other appliances are allowed. If you want a microwave, coffee machine, dishwasher, trashcan or food processor then by all means get one. And the fridge can be as nice or as trashy as you want. You can have a kitchen sink but it will count as your 1 sink.

You can use whatever cheat you want to make them unselectable if temptation is too hard to resist or you just want to be extra careful.

And you are right, all interactions except have a baby are allowed. So you can woohoo or fight or pull pranks as you see fit.

Hope that answers all your questions.

This challenge sounds awesome. I am definitely trying this sometime. I love asylums!