Sims Sunday: Vertigo House and Generation N

I had an idea for a wacky house. I spent hours in Build Mode, bringing it to life.

Welcome to Vertigo House! Both Mandy and Murderface have the “Loves the Outdoors” trait. Living in a platform house without walls gives them a constant +20 mood boost.

You just want to be careful to roll out the right side of bed.

Say hello to the neighbors! Here at Vertigo House, we bring the inside out – way out!

All the benefits of an outdoor painting studio – indoors!

Unfortunately, Vertigo House proved to be extremely hard on the player. Even though I have a pretty good computer, the graphics engine had a lot of trouble. Every object in the house would frequently disappear for minutes at a time as the game tried to keep up.

I also had difficulty with the camera controls. The game tries to refocus for you automatically, without you having to constantly click “up level” and “down level.” Vertigo House confused this system terribly. It could take five minutes for me to position the camera in order to get a clear screenshot.

Worse, the camera kept “falling backwards off the edge” down to one or several levels below. Which was both frustrating and nausea-inducing.

So we left Vertigo House behind, and moved into a real house.

I chose the house at 70 Long Island Drive, right in the middle of town. It’s nice to be able to just walk across the street to the shops! Or the river, which is right on the other side. Here’s Murderface fishing with their house in the background.

The juice bar is right across the street. Here, Mandy met Robi Schuster. He wasn’t very engaged with her gardening talk at first. But it turns out that he has the “Hopeless Romantic” trait.

Ever wondered what happens when a “Hopeless Romantic” meets a “Flirty” girl at the juice bar?

About two hours after Mandy introduced herself, they were set to Woo Hoo. Alas, Robi’s job called him away. But look at her smirk!

Around this time, Lonnie finally re-died, leaving the house ghost-less for the first time in ages. I was enjoying the quiet. The problem with ghosts on the lot (whether playable or not) is that they’re constantly playing this loop of “scary music and sound effects.” Oy.

I decided to take a pass on the “ghost baby” project. I’m ghosted out for the moment.

The next day, I had Mandy invite Robi over.

“Hi, how are you?” “Great, you?” “Fine. Wanna make a baby?” “Sure!”

Mandy was indeed pregnant. But that didn’t keep her from watering the garden in her nightie. Right across the street from the police station.

By the way, the gardening channel on TV is a show where a Martha Stewart clone gets eaten by a Cow Plant. I miss Makoto!

I’m thinking about having a holiday special in December. I’ll go back to Sims 2 and wrap up all the loose ends. I haven’t decided whether to let Makoto finally die of old age, or to close up before he dies. I suppose the former would be better from a storytelling perspective, but I’m not sure if I’m ready yet.

Um, anyway! Mandy invited Robi over the next day. He showed up at her doorstep OLD!

She told him about the pregnancy. He was thrilled!

Later that night, she proposed marriage. Murderface was skeptical. (At least I think he was. It’s hard to tell, with those eyebrows.) But those crazy kids were in love, and unstoppable.

The next day, I tried to hold the wedding at the juice bar where they met. But once again I set it as a “Destination Party” instead of a “Wedding Party.” Everyone just stood around drinking juice outside.

As soon as they went home, Mandy and Robi had a private wedding on the front porch.

And the next day, baby Nick was born!

Later, Lorne turned into an elder. He looks so sad about his new senescence.

Babies are boring. I totally wasn’t paying attention, and the next thing I new, Nick was a toddler.

Aren’t his sandals adorable?