While my American friends are celebrating the 4th of July, I spent my long weekend for Canada day (July 1st) playing video games, knitting, reading, and just relaxing over all. I’ve never been a big one for crowds, and I thought it would be best to just stay home.

That meant lots of time with my Sims 4 legacy family (their last name is Little, in case I haven’t mentioned it yet). They decided to do something a bit.. drastic. Their home was worth around $160,000 and I downsized it and emptied all but the essential rooms so that they could purchase their very own restaurant. That’s right, the Little’s are now property owners (well, besides the house). The ability to purchase and run a restaurant came with the ‘Dine Out’ expansion, and until now I’ve never owned any of the restaurants, I just had my sims visit them (which was pretty fun). Unfortunately this is where the expansion falls short (IMO).

Your sim (and their family) can’t actually work at the restaurant unless you do some fancy modifications to your town – something I don’t want to do as I’m playing this as a legacy game (with as little involvement and modification as possible). They can mange it – but that’s it. I was hoping my Sims with high cooking could get in on the action to help turn the place around. No such luck.

Basically you head to the restaurant whenever you want, open it (if it’s closed) and hang around greeting people and doing a few chores here and there. You can offer patrons free meals, drinks, discuss what they think of the place, and other owner-like activities. You can help clean up, and you manage your staff. You can train the staff, give them raises, praise them, fire them, or tell them they’re doing a shitty job. You can customize the outfits everyone has to wear for work (be careful with this, I customized my female wait staff and suddenly they were all naked for the duration of the opening..) and you have the choice of either building a restaurant from the ground up, or using the gallery or a pre-fabricated place.

The restaurant can stay open while your sim goes back home to do some essentials like sleep and eat, but if you leave it open too long your staff gets cranky (they need to go home too after all), and bad things can happen. I wish you could set hours at the place, so it would open automatically from say noon to 10pm or something. It’s basically a job that isn’t really a job. The “goal” is to raise your standing. I started out as a one star establishment and after a few days of running things I’ve clawed my way to 3.5 stars.

It doesn’t make a lot of money, so I wouldn’t suggest this as the main job of the family (yet). There are also quite a few glitches. Once night the place got really busy and so everyone sat down at the bar. That’s where they stayed for the next 12 hours, no one moved, no one was seated at a proper table, no one ordered anything. I ended up closing the place and re-opening it to fix the weird glitch of no one moving.

My sims don’t regret giving up their posh lifestyle to run their new restaurant into the ground, after all change is nice even if it doesn’t work out quite the way you imagined it would – but future families may think twice. It’s a shame because I feel that ‘dine out’ has so much potential that just remains untapped and it could have been so much more than what was given. Still, it is pretty neat to take your sims out for a meal, I’ve had no issues with that portion and enjoyed it quite a bit.

As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Once again somehow my legacy family ended up with a flat, boring, rectangle of a house. As I’ve said many times before I really love to decorate homes, but I am just not that good at designing them from the ground up – thankfully a good friend shared with me some of her favourite designers, and thanks to her I was able to plop down a shell of a house (ie: no furniture), tweak the things I wanted changed, and decorate to my hearts content (or at least until I ran out of money). Before I really got started on decorating I just had to purchase the latest stuff pack which is all about the kids. It included new decor, new outfits, new games, and a lot of fun. One of my favourite objects is the Voidcritter battle station pictured above. Your sim has to go online and purchase booster packs, open them, and see what cards you get. Some are common and some are rare. Then you train your voidcritters and you can play against your friends. Really fun idea. There’s also a puppet theater (I haven’t played with this one yet) and a lot of neat room objects like nightlights. The bright vibrant colours suit kids of all ages, and I think it’s one of the better stuff packs released so far.

What’s new with my legacy family? Emily managed to reach level 10 in painting. She picked a career path, and finished her aspirations. While she’s still not pulling in quite as much as her mother Jessica used to make, it’s nothing to sneeze at. Tristan (her husband) on the other hand is still a constant battle. His non-committal trait leaves him moody and gloomy pretty much every day. He’s barely been at a job for two days before he starts freaking out. Thankfully he has an award winning garden outside, and with the help from his club they keep it in tip-top shape. It pulls in a lot of cash when the harvest is ready.

The family recently went on a camping vacation to Granite Falls. Many hours were spent telling ghost stories, cooking hot dogs, fishing, and exploring. They also ran into the local crazy bear. What a face!

Now that the house is no longer a rectangle, I’ve been able to spend more time (and of course money) outfitting it to last a few generations. Emily has finally aged into a proper ‘adult’ and her young son is about to become a teenager. Unfortunately the map doesn’t seem to have many children around, so meeting people his age has been hard. Most of the friends Emily has on her phone are ghosts.. I may have to intervene and do something about that if it becomes an issue with future generations. Both ghost Alonzo and ghost Jessica have been making appearances in the house at night, haunting various appliances, sleeping in peoples beds, and generally being a pest. I like these little generation reminders.

I love decorating homes but I don’t have very much patience for building a home from scratch. I was getting frustrated at having multi-floor homes, and so I decided to (once again) re-do the entire legacy home from top to bottom. Their lot is work a whooping $94,000 give or take, so I had plenty of money (and space) to play with. I put all of the rooms on the main floor and by the time everything was sufficiently decorated, the home consisted of two bathrooms, three bedrooms, a kitchen with a dining room, a computer room, living room, and a lovely outdoor pool / BBQ area. I saved the gravestones of both Alonzo and Jessica and placed them outside in the yard, so the ghosts can still come around and visit. I’ve since added an outdoor garden as well, harvesting fresh fruits, vegetables, and herbs is very handy. Now the fridge is stocked and meals cost a lot less with supplies on hand. Since Jessica used to do most of the cooking, Emily has taken up the craft. She’s still working away at her painting career, selling works of art to galleries and museums across the world, while Tristan plunks away at being a programmer.

He has two negative traits that are making life difficult. One is non-committal, which means every day he gets sad with his job, his life, his wife and his family in general unless something changes. His second negative trait is the gloomy trait, which of course puts him in a constant sad mood. Thankfully his family is pretty understanding, and they’re learning to cope with his moods. He also seems to have a weak immune system because he has caught more colds and ‘itches’ from things out in the world than any of my other sims combined.

Their son continues to go to school and attempts to make friends. He’s another creative soul, much like Emily. His differs in that he tends to focus more towards music and instruments than the arts, but there are plenty of both around to hold his attention either way.

I’m not 100% happy with the new house, so I may look for one that suits what I want in the gallery, and then decorate it myself. I’m not good at designing the properties, but I could spend hours decorating them. Might as well do what I enjoy doing! Especially in a video game.

As always, happy gaming no matter where you find yourself!

It was bound to happen sooner or later. Death came for Jessica Little who was out in the garden, one of her favourite places to be. Why he’s hiding behind an apple tree with his ipad, I have no idea, but that didn’t stop him from whisking her off someplace else. I’ve placed the urn beside her late husband Alonzo’s urn (pictured bottom right) with a description of what she was doing at the time of death so that as I continue playing this legacy family I remember the little tidbits that make them all unique.

Before Jessica died her daughter Emily did manage to get married to a young man named Tristan Givens, and together they had a baby boy. Right now he’s turning out to be quite the little musical prodigy, although Tristan joined the family with no job and no skills to speak of. A real winner there. For a few weeks he wanted to be an astronaut but now he has switched careers into programming. Emily continues her painting career, and the family already misses the royalty cheques that they were used to getting with Jessica. In fact it was that money that enabled the family to build a few addons to the house, including the garden plot, a new bathroom, and an outdoor patio. Now they’re back to saving up for things although they certainly are not lacking in their enormous house (I believe it’s got 4 bedrooms and 4 bathrooms as it stands).

This means I’ve finally passed on to the 3rd generation of my 10 generation game. I believe I made it as far as 3 before way back when in the Sims 3, but I’ve never actually stuck with a family long enough to make it to the 4th generation (let alone the 10th). I’m hoping that eventually the family will be able to purchase a restaurant and have it become some sort of family business, but it will take quite a bit of funds to get to that point, and I’m not sure the Little family has that sort of discipline.

As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

The legacy family I started way back when continues on, still only in the 2nd generation (while the goal is to make it to 10 generations). Jessica Little is an elder now, and still pursuing her novelist career. Her husband, Alonzo, died some time ago but he still comes around the house and to take Jessica out for dinner every so often. I caved and ended up buying the ‘Dine Out’ pack, which is a whole lot of fun. Their daughter, Emily, is now a young adult and is looking for love. Neither Jessica nor Alonzo approve of the teenage boyfriend Emily has at the moment, but it’s not their fault that he hasn’t aged up yet. Emily is an artist, and her paintings are famous all over the place.

Dine Out allows your sims to visit restaurants, own them, and work in them. So far I’ve only been to one, Cafe Llama. I know there are various themes, and I love the interactions you can do at each one. You get seated at a table, pick a drink and a meal, pay your compliments (or insults) to the chef, and interact with your sims and other sims while you do it. I know I keep wanting an animal expansion, but in the meantime as long as they provide interaction like this one, I’ll be happy.

The legacy family home has grown by leaps and bounds since Jessica first started out with only a few dollars to her name. Each time either Jessica or Emily come home with a paycheque I immediately decide on a room to furnish with high end furniture. There are four bedrooms and bathrooms, as well as a fancy patio with a grill and a nice garden along the side of the house. Emily’s art studio is set up on a balcony so she can have a great view of the world going on around her, and Jessica does her writing in the family room. They’ve taken to hiring a maid as well as a professional gardener to tend to things so that they have more time to enjoy life. Of course I have no idea how much longer that will be, in Jessica’s case. Now that she’s an elder, she could go at any time. Still, it’s been a nice long road playing the character so far. Hopefully Emily is up to the task of keeping the family line going.

As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Last night I decided to relax with a little Sims 4 – and play my legacy family, the “Little’s”. When we left off, Emily was about to age to a young adult, and Jessica was quickly approaching elder status. Yep, my legacy family is still only on the 2nd generation. The “goal” is to reach the 10th. I’ve never made it past the 2nd before, I normally start a new family or I lose my save or something happens to the family. In the screenshot above you can see deceased Alonzo hanging out, having dinner with his wife. Even in death the Little’s are nothing if not persistent.

Emily got a job as a hungry artist. She spends a lot of time covered in paint. Jessica is still writing novels, but she’s contemplating retiring. Emily also has a boyfriend, but the relationship is a bit awkward because he’s not a young adult yet, he’s still a teenager. It means they’re restricted to hugs and watching TV together. She may have to move on to someone more her own age before too long. I’m hoping to see him age up.

I grew frustrated with their house yesterday so I removed the important items (Alonzo’s urn, Emily’s birth certificate) and I demolished the lot, then re-built something I enjoyed more. The rules of the legacy family state that they have to live on the same lot the entire time, but it’s perfectly fine for you to build and re-build the place. After all, families grow with time.

Besides work, neither Little has much free time. I know there are vacation days, but I rarely take them. I haven’t explored much outside of the lot, but I know with more game time that will change. Especially as the family amasses more money and it becomes less of a requirement to work. If I ever make it to that point.

The Sims 4 is still one of those games that I can play for hours and discover new things all of the time. Plus, it’s entertaining. Both Emily and Jessica had franks and beans as a dinner and the entire evening was filled with odious clouds of green toots that they would then waft towards each other, while giggling.

Sometimes, this game emulates real life just a little too much.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

It has been a little while since I posted about my Sims 4 legacy family, but they’re still around and I still play them. When I last left off, there was Jessica with her daughter Emily, and Alfonzo had passed on and turned into a ghost. He was buried in the family crypt in the back yard, and comes over frequently – as a ghost, of course. Making use of the bathroom and even helping himself to cooked meals in the fridge. Somehow he manages to keep up his relationship with his daughter even from beyond the grave.

Emily is about to have a birthday and will soon see herself as an adult. She has a boyfriend, Tristan, who will hopefully be continuing the family line with her. Jessica is about to become an elder, and spends most of her day writing books with titles like “Farty Arts: It’s all about the gas”. I’ve managed to upgrade the house quite a bit. If you remember, Jessica started with almost no coin, and was living in a sleeping bag and a house without windows (or a door). Now they have a modest mansion with three bathrooms and five bedrooms. Not bad for this mother daughter team.

I’ve never made it to 10 generations before in any of my legacy Sims games, but I’d really like to. The problem is it takes so much time to go through a single sims life. I know I could shorten it so they don’t live as long and they age faster, but I’d like to keep as many of the default settings as possible.

Emily hasn’t joined a club yet, but her mother joined the Avante Guard club. She went to a few meetings and enjoyed the chatter very much. I’m thinking Emily may just start up her own club, and what their activity will be, I have yet to decide. Have you created any clubs yet? What are some of your favourites? Let me know in comments!

As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself.

I’ve been spending a lot of time playing The Sims 4 lately, it is after all one of my favourite games. Last night the family was up to their typical shenanigans. They had a bite to eat, the kid was trying to watch TV, the wife leaned over and gave the husband a big kiss – and she promptly farts, and wafts it his way. There’s nothing that says I love you quite like a big smelly fart (hence the green coming out the rear of the lady in the screenshot, I captured the moment just a second too late). Then Nelson (the son) proceeded to let his own stench rip, quickly followed by his Dad who completed the family circle of gas sharing. Thankfully there were no casualties in the family fart wars.

The Get Together expansion means there’s a lot of opportunity for sims to (you guessed it) get together. I’ve created the “Knit Happens” club, and members come over daily to watch TV, read books, fish, and garden. Good times are had all around. I’ve even started building a club house out back with a door for members only. I hope to expand it in time, but since I’m playing without cheats they’ll have to raise money for it the good old fashioned way, through digging up crap in the back yard and selling it.

Of course the session wouldn’t have been complete without a neighbour coming over during club meeting hours to set the house on fire while trying to cook grilled cheese. I forgot that there’s no actual firemen that come in this version of the game, so the kitchen slowly burned while my sims danced around frantically until I discovered the “extinguish” feature. Whewps.

I stayed up way too late, and played way too long, but dang if I didn’t have fun doing it.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself.