Strangetown 03.01: The Surprise

Right, so how many rotations did I play the Surprise this time? I really need to start learning how to count. On the plus side, at *some* point once I've blogged my backlog, I'll switch to 1-day rotations like I do with Widespot. Should be much easier.

Last time Deirdre gave birth to Svanhild. In my previous iteration of Strangetown / Surprise, Svanhild burnt to death. I hope this one won't do the same.

Strangetown 02.08: The Singles

We haven't seen the Singles in a while. There's only two of them left at the moment: Chloe and Erin. Lola is married to Malcolm and permanently pregnant, and Kristen is making beautiful babies with General Buzz Loste. Chloe's son, Elvis, is staying with Daddy Fabulous.

The Singles live an exciting life.

Strangetown 02.07: Lazlo Curious

Lazlo and his wife, Arianna the super-duper-good-witch -with-a-name-long-like-my-monthly-shopping-list moved out of the main Curious home while Arianna was pregnant because of a case of Too Many Rugrats.

Strangetown 02.06b: Curious and Curiouser

This is the first time since Pascal gave birth to Tycha that there's no baby or toddler in the Curious's household. There's at least one big kid, though:

My Sim personality

That would be me if I were a sim, apparently! I don't think I'm that playful, though.

Strangetown 02.06: The Curious... yes they're still around!

It feels like forever since I've last blogged about the Curious, especially as so many things have happened:

• Stezka (Vidcund's daughter) grew into a child; she's still a handful;
• Nervous and Pascal had a son, Ariu, who's now an adorable toddler;
• Lazlo moved out with his wife and daughter because I couldn't cope with the numbers anymore.

Oh, and Vidcund is having an affair with Circe Beaker. But you knew that.

Strangetown 02.05b: More Fabulous!

We're back at the Fabulous, just after Antay and Shaska's birthday. In fact, they haven't even finished the birthday cake yet!

Feeling bloated? Must be all that chocolate.

Strangetown 02.05: The Fabulous (and more)

So you may remember that Chloe Single gave birth to little Elvis, her and Yann's illegitimate son. And that Yann dropped in just to prove that, although is a lousy husband, he's a great dad.

Problem: he already has three kids at home, who need him just as much as Elvis.
Solution:

Strangetown 02.04: General Buzz... lost.

Finally, my very bad pun grand plan comes together!

We're back at the Grunt, and General Buzz is being his usual awesome self with glowing babies:

General Buzz Grunt and Midnight Loste

Strangetown 02.03: Surprise Surprise ties the knot!

Phil Jitmakusol has wanted to marry Surprise Surprise since the day they met, so I gave them an extra mini-rotation just for that. It also allowed me to catch up a bit with the Fabulous, as I want to keep them in sync.

Finally, I was curious to see the results of some new default replacements I had installed.

So that's Darren, in his new default hair, cuddling baby Svanhild. And being adorable, as usual. He's cute like that, but this haircut isn't quite him... I've found something better since.

Strangetown 02.01, take two: more eyebrows

Mary Beaker has turned into a child, and baby Azophi into a green, Loki-brow toddler. With about 400 nice points. His is going to be a tough life. Oh, and Circe was demoted.

So what do we need to spice things up?

*Pop*!

Strangetown 02.01: The Beakers

Last time we saw the Beakers, (and that was a while ago, what with all that College thing!), Loki was being a fantastic father to Mary. Who isn't his daughter, but whatever. He was also all kitted in manternity wear.

La Fiesta Tech 01.04: Graduation, finally!

So, Ocean. I cheated him out of his teenagehood. I didn't have the heart to cheat him out of his young adult years as well - so he got to play catch-up with the others, in his own, bespoke little dorm.

La Fiesta Tech 01.03: Greek house

Marsha is Tank's girlfriend, and I'm a little bit jealous of Tank. Because Marsha's got it all.

Fiesta Tech interlude: back at the Smiths!

There's one kid left in the Smiths household, and I need to move him out to Uni quick if I want his parents to turn platinum before they turn into ghosts! So let's go back to Strangetown for a couple of days.

 Jenny isn't a very happy elder. I sent her to the community lot to shop for jewellery, to cheer her up a bit. She meets Vidcund, who's clearly just as happy as she is.

La Fiesta Tech 01.02: Buck and Jill join the gang!

It's time to tamper Ophelia's shenanigans by adding two sane students to the mix: Buck Grunt and Jill Smith. Well, not so sure about Jill, sanity-wise. At least her idea of fun is more innocent that Ophelia's.

La Fiesta Tech 01.01: Smiths and Grunts in the same dorm, oh my!

Finally, it's time for college for the oldest Strangetown teens!

I got the teens into Uni gradually - first the oldest (Tank, Johnny, Ophelia and Ripp), then Buck and Jill, and finally Ocean Smith. While this made some kind of sense, story-wise, it turned Uni into the longest I've ever played. Meaning: I certainly won't do that again!!! Uni's long enough as it is.

It also means that some parts of Uni take place roughly at the same time as events unfold in Strangetown. Confusing. (But you should be used to that by now, right?)

It also, also means that we're back to square one, picture-wise. I.e. thumbnail-sized, wall-less, ceiling-less, plumbbob-heavy pics. It won't look pretty! Except for Johnny Smith's buttocks.

Strangetown 01.12: Popular!Buck

One last Grunt post before we meet our teens at Uni. That should have probably been posted before the last Smith's update, as Jill is still a teen here. Ah well.

Tank is here, looking all serious. Ripp is here, looking all silly. And Buck, looking all sweet, is holding his little sister. Must be birthday time!

Strangetown 01.11: Pure love.

This post will be about Ripp Grunt.
Because Ripp needs some TLC. His plumbbob is so red he could apply for a job as a fire-fighter truck.

Screenshot grabbers

So after almost 10 days without my computer, I wanted to play the Singles (OK, I admit, I wanted to see more of my twisted OTP : Yann!Chloe). Unfortunately Raptr, the screenshot grabber, forced an update on me... and the new version is definitely not compatible with Sims 2. In fact, Sims 2 won't even start if Raptr is running.

After much complaining, I installed Bandicam. Seems to work flawlessly, and is actually a lot less intrusive than Raptr (with all its social stuff I don't care about).

Chloe approves

YAY!!!!!!!

Strangetwon 01.10: The Smith family

Last time we saw the Smiths, they adopted a cat and a boy. Johnny went off to Uni, and Jill stopped jumping on the bed long enough to turn into a teenager.

I don't think I've mentioned it... but I've given PT#9 a secondary aspiration. Apparently I chose well. At this point I think he could talk to Jenny about glow-in-the-dark cockroaches, and she'd approve.

Strangetown 01.09: The Singles have a baby

Last time we saw the Singles in their household, they were fraternising with the locals. Except Erin, who was fraternising with her diary. We then followed Chloe to the Surprise households, who were completely oblivious to her and her lover's presence.

Back at home, it's the umpteenth time I've sent Kristen to the mirror, and I still don't have a clue what look I want for her. Nothing feels right.

So I get her to pain *Erin*'s portrait rather than her own. Erin's cute. Not the sharpest pencil in the box, but adorable nonetheless.

Strangetown 01.08: the fox in the henhouse.

We left the Surprises shortly after Deirdre gave birth to *yet another baby*, Svanhild. She didn't waste time handing the infant to Surprise, as she had to go back to work.

It's almost time for Phil to come back from *his* job.

Random Sims

OMG this is brilliant. Ten years after everybody else, I've found out about Pooklet's method for creating random sims.

Some Before and After pics:

Strangetown 01.07: The Surprise

Last time we saw the Surprise family, they'd just acquired a stretch of bare land. We now have walls and a roof - though I made a mess of it and will have to redo the house. We also have two new family members.

The first one is Phil Jitmakusol. He moved in and dyed his hair.

Phil being autonomously awesome with Duanan

Strangetown 01.06: The Fabulous and the Specter

Yeah, I don't have any idea how to name my posts. There's some sort of hidden logic... Basically it's still the first generation of "my" CAS families. And I'm counting the rotations. Roughly. Anyway, back to the Fab', with a rare picture of Nina interacting with one of her children:

Strangetown 01.05: The Grunts

Typical first day at the Grunts, I suppose... I managed to get Ripp and Tank out of their poke-feast by giving Ripp (and Buck) something to do.

Strangetown 01.04: The Singles

This is a short update - still before I got into the habit of taking pictures.

So, the Singles. It should be simple, right? Four Three girls living together with no man in sight, just like Charlie's Angels.

Why only three? Because Lola grabbed herself a Landgraab while she was shopping for clothes:

Malcolm's "I just got engaged" face.

Strangetown 01.03: The Curious and the Beakers

The Curious

The Curious are such a fun family to play! I love them to bits. Unfortunately I don't have many pictures of the early stage. It doesn't help I lost a lot of them in a clumsy clean-up. Oops.

Anyway, Vidcund got abducted (duh!) and rolled wants for Lazlo to Meet Aliens Come on little brother you'll love it you know you want to!!!! . He was pregnant up his eyeballs, but no matter. Seriously Vidcund, that's just mean.

Strangetown 01.02: The Fabulous and The Smiths

Previously, I introduced the Surprise family (Take Three), the main "legacy" family of my Strangetown. They have companions. As I'm kind of trying to reproduce Take Two of my town, I've recreated Marvin Fabulous, an unstoppable Romance sim. At the moment he's all sweet and innocent, as I've shrunk him back into a toddler!

The Fabulous household

The CAS Studio Shot - with Marvin being held by Nina, a fortune sim, and Yann, a knowledge sim. I can't quite remember what their stats are like, but I know they're not very neat!

Strangetown 01.01: The Surprise family

Sims 2: My Strangetown - origins

Sims 2. What an addicting game! Anyway, like many before me, I've fallen in love with my wacky little sims in general, and with Strangetown in particular. Might as well inflict my silly little stories upon us :-P

Basically, this is the third iteration of Strangetown. I'll first tell you about the two "failed" versions, as I still miss them a bit, and I'll introduce the next version in a new post.