Playing the Sims Can Help Your Plot!

Two elderly people, who’ve both had a rough go in life, become roommates in a new town.  They start tepid towards one another, but grow into lovers who nurture each other’s dreams.  As the woman celebrates achieving her lifelong goal, the man asks her to marry him and their life is headed down the road to bliss.  During the most lavish wedding ceremony the town has ever seen, the elderly groom, who is a supposed  “hopeless romantic”, is found nude in the hot tub with his (much younger) boss.  The entire wedding party (sans the bride) is outside bearing witness to this transgression.

I stared in outright shock at my screen.  This wasn’t in the vision I had for my sims’ life together.  To me, they’d already went through their past trials and I was their fleshy fairy godmother, guiding them safely through their belated happily ever after.

Can anyone say “plot twist”?

I never thought of playing The Sims to break through writer’s block or get story ideas until that moment.  Putting a cardboard protagonist into a world where they have actions with no author-input could be very illuminating. Perhaps, the ending I’d imagined for them was too boring, even for a computer.  Perhaps, anything remotely resembling humanity can make a hash of the future.

So, what did I do after the slutty wedding?  I let the guy do what he wanted!  He wanted his boss to move in with him and his new wife, so I made it happen.  He wanted her to have his child, so I had them get pregnant.  But, I was going to have the last say, or so I thought.  I was going to have the wife divorce him, have him die, kick out the mistress and have the old lady raise the child as her own.  Unfortunately, the game froze and wiped my save file before I helped my jilted bride get revenge.  Such is life.

It was a more fascinating plotline than I had in mind originally, that’s for sure.  Next time I make characters, I’m not going to aim them towards a euphoric forever.  The road with sharp curves and no speed limits is much more interesting.

Do you play The Sims?  Have you ever gotten a story idea from the game?