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Test Subject
Original Poster
#1 Old 11th Jan 2015 at 7:59 PM
Default Greystone Retreat Challenge
“After suffering through the awful treatment at Riverview Hospice, well known illustrious author Frank Greystone converted his grand stately home into a beautiful retreat for mentally unsound teenagers and young adults. The retreat is a peaceful, quiet place just out of town where troubled young sims can live until they are ready to face the world on their own. At the retreat residents receive effective, appropriate therapy from friendly live-in staff - who are available 24/7 to provide care and support - and are provided with plenty of entertainment and educational opportunities. Teenagers continue their high-school education, while those who have graduated are supported in finding part time work, should they wish to do so. Residents and their therapists decide together when they are ready to leave the retreat, at which point they will be assisted in finding a new home. Everyone who leaves the retreat leaves with a new sense of stability, along with a vast array of new skills and even a few new friends."

While playing through this Asylum challenge (http://modthesims.info/t/450267) I was inspired to build a bigger, more… up-market style mental health institution.. which then inspired me to write a challenge for it! Since I’ve allowed the use of a lot of cheats and mods this might not be the most challenging challenge out there but I found it fun to play through and you can always alter it to make it more challenging for yourself. I haven’t come up with a scoring system since I never really play with scores, but I suppose I always could do if anyone was interested, or you could come up with your own system. If anyone does play this challenge I’d love to hear about your game
Also, I realise that on the Sims when their hours fly by so fast, it can be tricky to stick to such a specific time schedule such as the curfew rules, so feel free to bend those a little if that’s too hard.

The goal is simply to control only one sim, a resident, and guide them through their time at the retreat to sanity.

GAME SETUP

1: Download or build your retreat.

If you’re building your own, make it as lavish and luxurious as you like - remember, this is a high end facility. There should be a kitchen, dining room, tv/entertainment room, a gym, a music room and an art room, as well as a room for each resident and member of staff/therapist. There should be adequate bathroom facilities as well, although it isn’t necessary to have a separate one for every sim. There should also be enough outdoor space for residents to practise gardening, and a pond to practise fishing. Basically, you need everything available for sims to develop all the required and hobby skills.
Feel free to name your retreat whatever you like; “Greystone Retreat” is just what I called mine as it fitted in with my game’s storyline.

2. Create your household.

There are two options for this part.

Moving in pre-existing sims. If you want to use sims already in your game, maybe sims you have been playing as and have families, etc, I suggest creating a household containing the two therapists, having them purchase the retreat lot, and then merging the other sims into this household.

Creating your entire household at once in CAS. Two members of the household must be therapists, and you should have at least four residents. All residents must have the “Insane” trait, and be teenagers or young adults. Therapists should have the “Good” and “Genius” traits, and be adults.

If you have a mod allowing you to have more than eight sims in a household go ahead and add more, but the ratio of therapists to residents should remain at one therapist to every three residents, and remember you will probably only be controlling the one sim.

3. Move everyone in!

Set free will to high, check “disable autonomy for selected sim”.
I would also suggest setting the lifespan to “Long”.
To avoid lots of routing errors and invasions of privacy, I suggest assigning each sim a bed, and locking their bedroom door to allow only them.
You should control only your selected sim (unless you choose an alternative way of playing), however feel free to check up on the others.

RULES/GAMEPLAY

Retreat Rules

1) Curfew

a] All residents must be on the lot by 8pm every night (no nightshift jobs)
b] All residents must be in their rooms (allowed to visit bathroom, allowed to be up and using objects inside their rooms) by 10:30pm every night
c] Lights off at 12 midnight

Exceptions: curfews extended by 1.5 (til 9.30pm, 12am, 1:30am) hrs every Friday night
On some Sundays therapists may arrange to take out a group of residents for an outing e.g. to the spa, theatre or stadium, in which case curfews are more flexible. If some residents are staying behind one therapist must also stay behind. Residents should never be unaccompanied.

If curfew is broken more than once in the same week, visitation privileges will be lost for that weekend.

2) Visitation

a] Non-resident visitors are allowed on Saturdays. Visiting hours are from 9am til 6pm
b] Residents may leave the retreat to visit/go on an outing with their family (blood relations only, eg parents/children) on Saturdays if their therapist allows it
c] Therapists will allow a resident to leave for a visit if the resident achieves one of the following throughout the preceding week (as well as completing therapy exercises):
• resident gains a skill point in each mandatory (see section 5) field
• young adult receives a promotion/raise at work
• teen maintains a grade A at high school all week
• teen stays on the honour roll for 3 days
• resident makes 2 new friends and maintains the friendships throughout the week

Exceptions: a day's visit will be allowed at any point if the resident is informed that their family member may pass on soon.

3) Therapy

a] All residents have mandatory sessions with their therapist on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday. therapy times are tailored to each resident's needs. Each session consists of a one or two hour talk in a private therapy room. (Along with 'chat' this can involve actions like 'get to know' 'tell story' 'hug' etc.)

b] All residents have therapy "homework" exercises to complete in their own time through the week outside of school or work.
Each week residents must complete the following exercises:

• gain at a skill point in at least two of the mandatory areas (see section 5)
• gain a skill point in their chosen hobby area (see section 5)
• read at least three books (including skill/recipe/music books)
• go jogging on three separate days

If these exercises are not completed, visitation privileges will be lost for that weekend and the resident will not be allowed Friday's extended curfew. If a therapist deems that a resident's job is hindering their progress, they may have to find one less time consuming, or quit work altogether.

4) Leaving

a] Residents are declared sane and certified to leave the retreat if

• they have at least the relationship level of "good friends" with their therapist, maintained for a week or longer

• one or more of the following criteria has been met:

teen only: graduated high school with a grade A

young adult only: reached highest level in part time job & maintained until birthday

• reached at least level 5 in all of mandatory skills including hobby skill
• achieved lifetime wish
• mastered two mandatory skills (one can be hobby skill)

When the criteria has been met teen residents remain at the retreat until their birthday, unless they have a family they can move back to.
Unemployed young adults remain until they get a job and keep it for three days.
Employed young adults may leave straight away.

At this point you have completed the challenge! You may use cheats to swap your sim's "insane" trait for whatever other trait you like, move out of the retreat and continue to play however you like! If residents you are not controlling somehow manage to meet a criteria on their own, you can go ahead and kick them out. You could leave their space empty, or move someone else in.

b] If the criteria is not met by the resident's birthday:

• teens who age up into young adults may remain at the retreat until they meet the criteria
• young adults who age up into adults must leave; however, they are sent away to another mental health facility for people of their age (you can just leave them in the family bin, or create another facility and play as you please… as long as they leave the retreat and keep the "insane" trait)

5) Mandatory Skills

a] The first set of mandatory skills residents must develop are skills essential for a stable adult life:

• cooking
• handiness
• logic
• charisma

b] the following are "hobby skills"; each resident may choose one to pursue:

• guitar/other instrument
• fishing
• gardening
• painting
• writing
• athletic

Each resident will be provided with ample opportunities and equipment required to develop their chosen hobby skill.

Gameplay Rules

6) Permitted Cheats

a] You may any mods and cheats EXCEPT:
Mods that make skill gain faster (NRaas’ Study Skills Online is okay as long as you don’t up the learning speed.)
Mods that improve relationships faster
You may not turn ageing off, however I you can play on the Long life setting if you like.
I recommend using NRaas’ Homeschooling mod, but if you don’t want to download mods feel free just to send your teen sims to high school.

b] You may not use mood cheats on your main sim, although you may for any sims you aren't actively controlling, since the household is quite large.

c] After moving everyone into the retreat, you may set familyfunds to any desired amount up to $100,000

7) Side Challenges

To mix things up a bit you could try:

A romance in the retreat - start a romance with another resident. You could take control of both sims, and try to have them ready to leave the retreat both at the same time. Residents should not have children while in the retreat - they will be taken away by social services - nor should they get married, but getting engaged is fine.

Maintaining relationships with a family not in the retreat - maybe play on a different lot for a while before moving your selected sim to the retreat.

Make it harder - try turning free will off and controlling/caring for the needs of every sim in the household! Or you could up the skill requirements to say, mastery of every required skill, or not allow sims to leave the retreat until they have met all of the required criteria instead of just one.

Have fun!

NOTE: I designed this challenge using the base game only, so if you have expansions that offer other skills you think would make good hobbies, I’d love it if you’d let me know in the comments so I could add them in here! Any other suggestions involving EPs are also welcome.
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Test Subject
#2 Old 4th Mar 2015 at 12:34 AM
Awesome Challenge! Trying!!
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