I also have BO's Kids and Pets Unattended. I could not say I was irked by the fact that the vacation destination "secret lots" have ROADS in front of them, but only because I didn't pay attention. I do agree that if you'd have to hike along a dirt trail before accessing these lots, it would be better.

I like the Urban Family. I enjoyed reading about them and looking at the pictures.

So, a few updates to the Day family.





The Sims Wiki Fanon pages

• Cody Day
• Jaden Day
• Christian Day
• Ethan Day
• Bradley Day
• Taylor Day

Good for Cody, Dream Dates are awesome. [Edit] Whoohoo in Elevators is what a lot of My Sims do. heh.

I am sorry that the boys are having a hard time. Hope that it does get better for them.

I enjoyed your update, great pictures.

Good for Cody, maybe, but those five boys are his legal responsibility... and he's not being responsible at all! If SimVille had a "bad parent" list, Cody would be at the top of it.

I mean, heh, on the night Cody went out with Beth the boys had to order a pizza themselves, since Cody sure as heck wasn't cooking anything when he was going out to eat (Don't you wish Sim kids could prepare at least some meals on their own? Even cereal? I poured my own cereal as a kid). By the time he got home, Jaden was yelling at me about being desperately tired. Poor soul; his brothers let him sleep through the whole night this time. I think he really needed it.

Cody should buy a Party Food Thing and then maybe have the cheat that keeps it filled with food. heh

Cody is a Terrible Parent, I make my Sims be better at parenting lol

I am fairly sure Sim kids can get leftovers for themselves.

Another non-nuclear family idea that originally had a much deeper backstory... or at least, one that I tried to develop. Initially I was going to write a fully-fledged novel based on this family I created in The Sims 2. However, I lost my bearing on which direction I should take the story on, and consequently lost my writer's flame while trying to find it. Combined with the fact that I got distracted by other novel projects that were far more appealing to me, and the scanty amount of writing that I wrote for this novel was shelved. I barely wrote four paragraphs of the novel, and two of them are one-sentence paragraphs (And, if you are not aware of the struggles a writer must face, abandoning projects when the circumstances call for it can be quite difficult at times). The best paragraph in that piece so far also happened to be the last paragraph I wrote before abandoning the project:



...and then I got distracted by For my little brother. Ah well. I at least make some effort to archive the stuff I wrote, which comes in handy later on in life when you're making a conscious effort to learn from the successes – and the failures – of the past.

Anyways, even though the novel project was scrapped, I kept this family in my game, and being the Simmer that I am now, I created a story for them as I played. I don't have a novel for you, unfortunately, but I do have something to write about! Without further ado...





This actually isn't the first time I revealed these two Sims to the public, although I have mostly teased the idea for it. I posted an image a year ago here along with a brief explanation, but I mostly left it at that.









Conclusion

While the novel project is dead, the characters certainly lived on! During the "Golden Days" of living on their own, Simon was awfully preoccupied with work and didn't spend an awful lot of time with Lucas. Being unemployed might not necessarily be the curse a lot of people imagine it to be, though. As the saying goes, "When God closes a door, He opens a window."[2] Maybe Simon needs to stop looking outside of his family for answers and instead look inside. Lucas isn't unhappy at all, and it's not because he's ignorant or that he's selfish. Frank may be dead, but not having a father doesn't mean not having a future.

The Sims Wiki Fanon pages

• Torres family
• Simon Torres
• Lucas Torres
• Frank Torres
• Lil' Apartments

Notes
1. Reference to All You Need Is Love by The Beatles. Well, it just came into my mind while writing this.
2. http://www.ywamsalem.org/learning-t...in-gods-timing/

This is a hard knock life for a teen brother and his sibling. It's unfortunate Simon was fired but could he still do the little self-made things for some cash? Such as rapping for tips, playing for tips (if he has an instrument) - if you had a business sim, could they hire him if they saw him wander by? Could he and his brother paint and sell the art for money? Just spit-balling a few of the things I know of to help their financial situation.

Absolutely! It's actually pretty hard to keep my Sims poor (Money grows on trees and falls from the sky in this universe, after all), so it's going to be a bit of a challenge ensuring that the family is able to make just enough to get by while simultaneously making sure they don't get too much money.

Ahh I think you forgot to put the [ img ] [/ img] tags around a few of your pictures.

I enjoyed your update though and I hope that Simon gets another job or earns some money somehow.

No, I have those tags around all of my image links. Don't know why some of them occasionally fail to load, though; blame Imgur?

EDIT: There's another version of the forum post here. The images seem to load more reliably there since they're uploaded locally, rather than being hotlinked from Imgur.

Ok I didn't think of Imgur being at fault. Maybe use a different site? I use http://modyourpanties.com Works with MTS.

I did go to your sims.wikia.com page, it loads the images really slow, but it did work. It was a good update on your sims.

We're going to take a look at lots again. Next up: Amar's Restaurant





For a town of its size, SimVille sure has a lot of restaurants. There's Bernard's Botanical Dining, Restaurant 'Down The Bridge', and Cooke's Place, three dedicated restaurant lots that see quite a bit of business during the day. There's a bistro on the second floor of Wellness Center 'H.E.R.E.', as well as the spacious restaurant in Amar's Hangout. When Amar opened this restaurant, people thought he was crazy; could he really compete against all of these other restaurants? The restaurant in Amar's Hangout, while critically acclaimed, sees very little traffic during the day, except for evenings and weekends. But Amar was determined to make his robot vision come true (I assure you that Amar is not Skynet, and is not plotting our demise), and when the county expanded the boundaries of SimVille and permitted the town to expand across the river along the once lonesome stretch of SimVille Street that fringed the lake and hills, Amar picked a cozy corner, near where the road turned, as his restaurant's home.



SimVille grew quickly, and Amar's once "naked" restaurant was quickly surrounded by newly-erected buildings. Though it's still a little bit of a walk for Sims living inside the old part of SimVille, they were quick to agree that Amar's Restaurant was "well worth the walk as well as the wait". And wait they did: a few days after Amar opened his restaurant, the place was so busy that Sims were seated on the curb, eating from their laps. The restaurant never did see such a successful (or horrific) day again, but it's still quite popular, and has certainly earned its place in SimVille's culture.

...ahem. So let's get to the point, shall we? Let's go on a tour!







Conclusion
Amar's Restaurant is SimVille's most critically acclaimed restaurant, and sees the most traffic out of all. Sims love the atmosphere, the patio, the music, and the menu: the restaurant has the largest selection of food in the hood, and offers them all at a competitive price. Amar's Restaurant is located near some of the cheapest apartments in SimVille, and the Sims there sure do love Amar's reasonable prices. While it may not be as lavish as Restaurant 'Down The Bridge', for most Sims, Amar's attempt at getting into the restaurant industry more than exceeds their expectations.

If you liked this lot, there are more images of it over at The Sims Wiki.

The Sims Wiki Fanon pages

• Amar's Restaurant

Notes
1. You can build a basement using foundations. A game guide for it can be found here.

Oh very nice! A particularly fine basement as well.

I have a summer job between the start of July and the start of September. I'm working out of town, and while I will most likely bring my laptop with me, and while I might be able to come home on weekends, I probably won't have time to update this thread with in-game developments. However, I still check this thread regularly, and I'll be able to see any feedback/questions/comments here. I might be able to get some things in, but do expect a dearth of updates for the next few months. My apologies if you like how this hood is turning out and wanted to see more.

Anyways, those are some recent developments in the real world. Now back to the neighbourhood I have been working on:





I first created the Kovax family in The Sims 1, and it was one of the families that I played most often. They had a massive house and lots of furnishings (All thanks to cheats), and they lived quite a comfortable life. The family consisted of Jones and Angela Kovax, and their two sons Joey and Tim. During the course of the game, Angela had a baby boy (Sans the pregnancy and toddler stages... remember, this was The Sims 1), which I handily called Justin Kovax. The two existing siblings opened up just enough to include the new arrival into their family.

And then my computer died.

à²*_à²*

â—”_â—”

Oh well! It was my old, piece of crap Windows Vista PC, and I was not too terribly sad to see it go (And when Microsoft killed support for Vista earlier this year (2017), hardly anybody mourned). I moved on to my older XP desktop (Which still works fine), where I installed The Sims 2. In my old, corrupted Pleasantview, I recreated a number of Sims I made in The Sims 1. Then I abandoned that corrupted hood for several other hoods, recreating some (but not all) of those TS1 families. Now I'm onto SimVille... and the Kovax family was the sole survivor of them all. But not unscathed! I never recreated Justin Kovax in The Sims 2, perhaps hoping that eventually Angela would get pregnant with him again... but that hasn't happened. Yet.

So, without further ado, let's take a look at...







Conclusion

I was not big on storylines in The Sims 1, so it wasn't until recently that I properly came up with some background for this family. Given that this family is the only surviving family from my TS1 days, and given how TS1 doesn't run very well on Windows 10 (It works, at the very least, but I must either play it in fullscreen and never Alt+Tab away from the game, or play in windowed mode at a very uncomfortably small resolution; hence I never had much of a drive to play it recently), this family holds a special place in my heart. While all the other Sims they lived with back in the days of Old Town have vanished into cyberspace, and even though their lofty castle of the past was broiled to ashes, and even though their youngest son Justin disappeared along with their past, the Kovax family has survived all of that uncomfortable moving. Their story is one of loss but also of resilience; one not of failure but of success despite their struggles. The family may not be doing as well as they were in TS1, but they're alive, and they're still together. And who knows what the future holds? Maybe they'll get a daughter next. Maybe Jones will find another job and stop lamenting over his previous career. Maybe Angela will be able to man the stove at Amar's Restaurant. Maybe Joey will take up electric guitar lessons. Maybe Tim will actually move to Canada. Whatever the future holds, it definitely promises something for the Kovax family.

Thanks for reading. Stay tuned for more!

The Sims Wiki Fanon pages

• Kovax family
• Jones Kovax
• Angela Kovax
• Joey Kovax
• Tim Kovax
• 11 Marc Crescent

Notes
1. Did you know: In The Sims 1 vanilla game, the only meals Sims could prepare was a bag of chips (snack), a quick meal (requires no preparation, can be cooked or eaten raw), a can of beans (serving or making breakfast/lunch/dinner without a preparation surface), a plate of salad (serving or making breakfast/lunch/dinner with a preparation surface, without a cooking appliance), and a plate of steak and beans (serving or making breakfast/lunch/dinner with a preparation surface and a cooking appliance). That's it. The meals didn't even change regardless of the time of day! More dishes were introduced as expansion packs came along, but mealtimes in general consisted of the same standard meals. I'm sure Angela didn't like that!
2. Amar's Restaurant is open from 11AM to 11PM, which would normally mean an even uglier 12 hours of work (plus the time spent before and after opening/closing to set up and clean up the place; thank goodness there are Servos to help out!).

Oh we don't mind if you don't post much in the next few months, you need to do what you need to do in Real Life.

I used to play the Sims 1 a long time ago on my Ancient Mac and I still have the Makin' Magic disk around someplace.

I really like the Kovaxes and the background story you made for them is great.

The house you built for the Kovaxes looks really good.

I thought that your slice of the Kovaxes life was very good.

Next door from the Kovax family are the Logans.





Jake and his old wife just couldn't get along, could they? Fortunately there was no hitting or other kinds of abuse, but there was no shortage of tears, hurt feelings, and broken hearts. Over the course of three years, Jake just felt like he couldn't keep the commitment he made to his wife any longer. Jake took the kids and the dog, his wife took the house and the money, and Jake moved to SimVille, looking for a fresh start. Ryan and Jordan have settled in and spread their roots, while Tucker's just good at being a four-legged companion. Jake wants a new relationship, but can he keep it? Or is becoming SimVille's fourth ill-fated romancer on his bucket list?







Conclusion

The Logans seem like a fairly ordinary single-parent family on the outside, but on the inside, Jake's having some serious issues, both with his lustful quest and his video game addiction. Jake needs to take some time off and focus on other pursuits. After all, he does have two boys and a dog to take care of, and he does at least have a solid source of income, so why leave it at that? Jake's probably forgotten that he has family at home; he doesn't need to go to strip clubs to find company! If Jake's that interested in pursuing one-night stands, then he should probably take a look at Cody Day and see how he turned out. As for Ryan and Jordan, they should realize that their father's going through a pretty rough time, and he needs them more than ever. As tempting as it seems for Ryan to just give Jake the boot and toss him onto the curb, he shouldn't. Where's Jake gonna go if that happens? Regardless of the circumstances, Jake is still their father, and every Sim deserves a second chance. A third chance. Fourth chance. Seventy-seven times seven chances! No matter what, families can only survive if they remain unified. No one wants to see the family they grew up in fade from existence, do they?

Thanks for reading. Stay tuned for more!

The Sims Wiki Fanon pages

• Logan family
• Jake Logan
• Ryan Logan
• Jordan Logan
• Tucker Logan
• 9 Marc Crescent

Oh I loved the Logans. great pictures and a good story line.

Got to keep that guy from going off the deep end too much.

Speaking of video games in The Sims 2, I am glad to note that I have The Urbz video game and it works great.

Ryan looks just like his dad in profile! At first, when you depicted them getting out of bed I thought they were the same sim for a brief moment! Is Jake's ex-wife their birth mother? I am curious because you said over the course of three years that Jake decided he couldn't keep his commitments but then Ryan looks to be a teenager. Or was it just the past three years were turbulent in the overall relationship that led to divorce? Tuckers seems like such a good boy! it's been years and years and I still never managed to teach a dog to play dead, lol.

Oh, I've always wanted to give the Urbz a try. I've always felt like The Sims series have been too "suburban", and I've always wanted to give city living a try. Do tell us more about it!



Yep. Jake's marriage started out alright, and the two had Ryan and Jordan together, but the marriage soured after about a decade. The "over the course of three years" part was supposed to mean the turbulent time it took for their marriage to go from "Good" to "Really, Really Bad" (So not the length of the marriage). Jake's divorce was a process -- a painful and prolonged one -- and it seems that he never really fully recovered from it. Poor soul! He should probably get in touch with someone who knows couples counselling if he wants to mend that relationship, or at least, get some much-needed emotional healing.

I take pictures in The Sims 2 via the "Print Screen" button on my keyboard, and not the in-game picture taking feature. I have the Dropbox desktop app installed on my computer, and it has an option to automatically "Share screenshots", which means that any screenshots I take using the "Print Screen" button get converted into a PNG file that's uploaded to my Dropbox. This allows me to take multiple pictures consecutively without having to worry about pasting it into an image editing program later. I use Paint.NET to edit my image files.

Why am I mentioning all of this? Well, at the end of the day, while going through the screenshots I take, I generally edit the ones I want to include in my posts and ignore the rest. Out of the ones I select, I may exclude a few more at the last minute. This means that I generally wind up with a number of screenshots that go unused. Some of them are just crap, but others aren't too bad. I'm not exactly one who likes to throw away things (It's hard for me to let go), so I upload all of the screenshots from my Dropbox – including the ones I used – into Google Photos, which offers unlimited storage at slightly (but not noticeably) reduced quality. That's fine for me, if it means that one day I can look through my old screenshots, see one that wasn't too bad, and say "Hey, that's pretty good! I should share that!"

Well, today, I did a little bit of that. I went through my Google Photos folder, selected some screenshots that I took while making this thread but didn't use, processed and edited them, and here they are! Not all outtakes are here, only the ones I found... "more interesting".

Oh the Urbz: Sims in the City is an old PS2 and XBox game. I really love the game. You could probably buy it used if you have a PS2 or an Xbox. I gather that it might not have met expectations for EA Games as your Sim will find it and then trash it in The Sims 2 for PS2.

I first started playing The Sims with The Sims Bustin' Out on the PS2, only later did I play any of the Sims games on the computer.

I have played all of the Sims games for the PS2 and I like The Sims Bustin' Out, Urbz, The Sims 2 for PS2 and Castaways for the PS2 the best.

I like the console games a lot.

You take good pictures, I like your out-takes as well as the ones you usually post.

On my Sims 2 for my Mac I use the keyboard to take the built in Screenshots that the Mac does and then I sometimes crop them and some times resize them and I always change them from .PNG to .JPG, using the paid Shareware GraphicConverter 10 that I have, I use the Batch features that this App has. Then I go through them and delete the ones that didn't come out right or that are too redundant.

Fresh Rush Grocery was once a small, humble little grocery store in the Downtown subhood, a grocery store that saw relatively little use by those in the suburbs (After all, who goes Downtown just for groceries?). Nevertheless, it marked the end of the food desert and permitted the rise of nearby middle and upper class residential housing units, and was frequented by Downtownies. However, it wasn't a really good place to have a date, considering that most dates probably don't want to include chores into the mix (Like grocery shopping)...

Okay, enough of that. Fresh Rush Grocery's an unowned community lot, so it was easy to pop the lot into the lot bin and move it into whichever neighbourhood I wanted to move it into. Fresh Rush Grocery was built in SimVille after the town's boundaries were extended and was bought by Amar shortly afterwards. He drastically altered the place in order to suit his own entrepreneurial spirit – and to meet the needs of his customers.



Fresh Rush Grocery has only one usable floor and a very high ceiling. Amar mostly kept the original structure of the store intact, although he did build an extension of the building. He also changed the exterior quite a bit, getting rid of the bland pavement in exchange for more shrubs, flowers, and trees.



At first glance, though, you probably won't notice much change. Amar kept the main entrance intact, and the swings that townies randomly go on because they're the only fun objects on the lot are still there.



The right side of the lot saw quite a bit of change, though. Instead of boring pavement, Amar ripped it all out and planted a ton of flowers, shrubs, and even a fountain here. All of this is visible through the windows looking out from the "dining area" inside. Sure is better than looking at asphalt while enjoying your cheeseburgers.





The left side of the lot also saw a lot of change. Amar removed most of the asphalt and planted some produce-bearing trees and plants. He also added in a number of compost bins for fertilizer.



Yes, as you might have guessed, Amar grows produce here at Fresh Rush Grocery, and he sells them exclusively here too. Most Sims in SimVille don't have room to grow their own food, so Amar grows all of the fruits and vegetables introduced in Seasons. His dream is to encourage more local farming in SimVille instead of relying on food imported from elsewhere, and for Sims who don't have the money or the space to do that, they can still purchase locally-grown food that didn't hitch a ride in the back of a truck. Sadly, no other Sim in SimVille actually grows food of their own... except for Serge Barb, interestingly enough!





Moving along. Inside, some parts have hardly been touched. The checkout aisles have been left intact, as have the cell phone kiosk, photo booth, video game rack, and freezer.



The fruit and vegetable stands have mostly been left alone too.



If you read my story about the Torres, I mentioned that Fresh Rush Grocery sells some premade food, ready to eat immediately upon purchase. Well, here's where that stuff is sold. Amar sells pancakes, grilled cheese sandwiches, toaster pastries, lunch meat sandwiches, mac and cheese, chef salad, spaghetti, salmon, Santa cookies, layer cake, gelatin, cheesecake, turkey, and Baked Alaska. It's not everything, but it's a lot, and it's certainly enough to impress the Headmaster if you choose to invite him over.



The dining area is a good place for guests to enjoy their purchased meals. I have the Build Buy Enabler mod which allows me to simply pull out a customer's food from their inventory after purchase and place it out here for them to enjoy. I had a date here once, and it went quite smoothly. Nothing quite like buying a delicious meal and being able to enjoy it at a table of your choosing without having to deal with restaurant staff and pricey menus. For Sims that do not know how to cook, Fresh Rush Grocery can be a way to get some healthier food instead of just living off of pizza and Chinese food.



On the left side of the store, you can find the display counters where the grown produce is sold. Currently it only sells peppers and tomatoes, but Amar's working on expanding his inventory and eventually sell all kinds of fruits and vegetables here. Amar promises that everything sold here is in mouthwatering quality, and he'll never run out of stock! That is quite the thing to promise, and even Amar needs some time to build that up.



The bathrooms were left untouched.



The premade food sold at Fresh Rush Grocery is usually prepared here. There are kitchens in Amar's Hangout and at home too, so some food sold here may come from there, but most of the time the food is made on-site. The first kitchen shipped with the default lot, and can be used by customers during normal business hours. The second kitchen, located behind a locked door, can only be used by employees. Before opening and after closing, Servos are usually here to replenish the food supply.



The latter kitchen is also part of the office, located at the very back, and is part of the extension that Amar built. It's a nice enough office, I guess.



Conclusion

Well, it certainly has been great that I was able to crank this out away from home. Fresh Rush Grocery is located near some of the lower-class apartment units in SimVille, so Amar keeps his prices competitively low. Fresh Rush Grocery is also the only dedicated grocery store in SimVille, and Sims who want a larger selection of food to choose from tend to go to Amar's grocery store (As opposed to the frozen food sold in the corner store). Amar likes the fact that his business is the backbone for many a family's diet in SimVille, and he's happy to give back to the community. Even though not everyone is fond of the Newbie's wealth and influence in the region, they at least have to agree that, without Fresh Rush Grocery, the standards of living in SimVille – especially the west side of SimVille – will probably go down.

Thanks for reading. Stay tuned for more!

The Sims Wiki Fanon pages

• Fresh Rush Grocery

I like your Fresh Rush Grocery. Looks good. Makes me want to have one of my Sims buy it.

I enjoyed your post and I am looking forward to your next one.

I have the week off from work! My parents drove me back home and I'm just chilling for about a week before I go back to work for the remainder of the summer (And school in September). Hopefully I will be able to get another family or two done during this week. Stay tuned!

Your hood looks really nice. I love the detailed family stories and your storytelling style. You really brought the personalities of your sims to life. I really felt sorry for Cody Day's children. I think this might be the story I'm most interested in, and I think my favorite part of your posts is the glimpse into the daily life of each family. I have a fondness for taking family meal pictures, and I enjoyed seeing yours. I look forward to reading more.