A masterful piece of conformist propaganda, this poster discourages individualism, and promotes conformity and groupthink. it rubs off on those who read it by aligning their personality traits (neat, outgoing, active, playful, nice) with the group trend - so if the group is, for example, mostly neat, the sim will him(her)self start adopting an exaggerately strong neat position. (this, btw, is designed to be a highly divergent system - those exaggerated values will further influence others who will try to conform to them, leading to even more exaggeration, and so on.)
The poster will make every sim adopt a similar, strong personality matrix - where everything tends towards 0% or 100% activation. furthermore, because this alignment is a function of the group's average personality, all sims' personalities will converge towards the same, exaggerated value system.
How about that for herd mentality?
There is one exception - highly logical sims will see right through
the web of lies, and the poster will have no influence on them, except
for headache and nausea (ie. -fun and -comfort :).
On the plus side, watching the poster will make all of the sims feel
more invigorated (though perhaps for different reasons), as reflected
in increased energy. the propaganda also dupes poor sims into believing
that the poster will increase their fun, social standing, and mood in
general.
Files for the object: paitingspropaganda.iff
I decided to implement a love potion machine. What this machine does is it causes the person drinking the potion to fall in love with the closest person to them in the same room as them. If there's no one in the same room, then they simply don't fall in love. The base class used for the object was the espresso machine. I changed the advertisements and the text that comes up when a player tries to use the object to drink potion. I changed the attributes so that the person drinking the potion now has their energy, hunger, comfort, social, fun and mood increase slightly. I also made it decrease the player's bladder (make it worse), and their hygiene based on their music skill (yes it's random but I wanted behavior that would be somewhat unpredictable to a player who doesn't understand how I implemented this point system). Finally, the one easter egg I added that makes this object really fun to play with is that there's a possibility that the feeling of love is so strong that a fire spontaneously breaks out. If someone drinks from the machine and the closest player is someone who the drinker hasn't met yet, this player turns towards their new love and a fire ignites (and they still fall in love with that person). I thought that this would be something fun to do because I enjoy watching the sims run around when fire breaks out, and it seems pretty original as far as behavior for an object (plus I was actually just trying to get the player to step forwards one step, but instead found the command for starting fires, as explained in the next paragraph).
The reason that I ended up using the fire mentioned above actually was kind of by fluke. My original intention was to have the player faint after drinking the potion and turning towards the person who they fell in love with. The problem was that the faint animation causes the player to fall backwards, which looks unrealistic if there's a counter or something behind that player. Thus, I wanted to find a way for the player to turn towards the player, take a step forwards, and feint (guaranteeing that the space behind the player would be free so the animation would look more natural). However, when I was looking in the global function "Move Forward n steps", I found something very unexpected, the burn command. I decided that this would be just as fun (as mentioned before I really enjoy watching the sims run around and get burned by the fire). So, instead I decided to use fire. The only problem I had with designing this mod was just that I wanted the animation to look natural, but in attempting to implement this I ran across something even better and ended up using it.
Files for the object: CoffeeEsp.iff , lovepotion.iff
Realistic Bar, a mockery at the non-chalant attitude surrounding drinking. I cloned the bar in the game but made it so Sims with drinking problem could go on binges and instead of making A drink they make MANY drinks... So basically they go and keep making themselves drink until the player stops them by cancelling the action... or until their bladder explodes.... Also, children Sims can Sneak an Alcoholic beverage, but if they aren't feeling well (low comfort) then they can get sick. Problems with it, I tried to make all the drinking animations happen but it just wouldn't work. I think maybe children just don't have alcohol-drinking animations. But the adults still wouldn't work so perhaps, cloned objects just can't use animations. Instead of animations I just have it play sounds of the bar being opened, drink being poured, bar being closed...
Files for the object: AlcoholicBar.iff
Vengeancia Mirror: "Your husband having an affair? Your neighbor keeps littering on your lawn? Want to bring that uppity, supermodel friend of yours a few notches? Buy the Vengeancia Mirror for only $25 more than the regular wall mirror and slowly and subtly get your revenge on your enemies. Anyone who looks in this mirror will have his reflection distorted so severely and horribly that his only response can be to break down and cry, and apologize profusely thereafter to you for coming into your home even though he's so horribly disfigured. Guaranteed to be the death of any party!" I modified the wall mirror so that it entices people to check their appearance in it and then it horribly distorts their reflections, causing them to cry and lowering their self-esteems. I also modified the mirror graphic to reflect the sinister nature of the new mirror, making it darker and more foreboding and tinted green (the color of greed, envy, and revenge). Since children aren't usually as concerned about their appearances and do not base their self-esteem on it as much as adults, children are not affected by this mirror.
Files for the object: evilmirror288297.iff
The Osaka Sushi Farm is an innovative addition built along the traditions of the Sim Aquarium. The Sushiarium has all the perks of a regular aquarium with one added feature: the fish are edible. And I don't just mean cookable. I mean sushi edible. Grab a bite of homegrown sushi and feel your hunger disappear, not to mention the hormonal and aphrodisiacal powers raw goldfish has. Feel your mood lift as you take bite after bite of Osaka goldfish. Mmmm, yummy. Of course, everything has its price. Most people find the experience of ingesting live raw fish somewhat discomforting. Also, Japanese pet goldfish tend to give its eaters a nasty case of gas, much to the discomfort of everyone else in the room. Not to mention the sliminess and bloodiness of ripping apart a goldfish with your bare hands. But unleashing your carnal instincts does have its price. And of course, the high water content of seafood could make you run to the bathroom. The code utilizes the usual "feed fish" code from the aquarium, and tacks on attribute modifiers at the end before quitting. The code then loops through all the people and for everyone who is in the same room as the person will experience a reduction in comfort, due to the gas eruptions encountered while eating sushi
Files for the object: Sushifarm.iff
My new object is the BodyElectrics Energy Booster, a device that will raise the Sim's energy to full in about an hour. It also boosts fun and comfort to some degree. And, of course, it sets up a powerful addiction in whoever uses it. I chose to do this because it seemed like an interesting thing to do. It would be nice to know how many people would buy the thing, then wonder why a week later their Sims were all taking a hit every 2 hours.
The "object" consists of two parts: the Energizer and the Energizer Addiction. The Energizer was copied from the VRHelmet, with most of the routines replaced or renamed. The Addiction was initially copied from Social Attack, then it was almost completely rewritten. More on that later.
The Energizer, when created, makes sure an Addiction object is available. If one doesn't yet exist in the house, it is created at this time as an "out of world" object. Energizer has only one behavior, "Energize".
By default, Energize advertises 0..70 for Energy. However, when the addiction timer has expired, it instead advertises -100..100 for Mood, Energy, Comfort, Hygiene, Room, Social, and Fun. The routine itself is almost exactly the same as VRHelmet's "Play", the differences being that it doesn't check for refusing a fun object and that it increments the addiction counter and sets the addiction timer to 120+1320/addiction minutes.
The Addiction object is rather more complex. It keeps a 45-bit time index with one-minute precision (so it'll last for a million years of simtime) to compare against addiction timeouts. Each minute, it will also loop through all people present and cause various effects. After T+120, the Sim will lose 1 point of Comfort and Fun per 5 minutes, and with a 1% chance will shout about wanting a hit from the Energizer. After T+300, the Sim will lose a point of Energy at the same rate. And finally, after T+360, the addiction will decrease at the rate of 1 point per 180 minutes. All these constants are implemented as tuning parameters, so they can easily be adjusted by someone who has the patience to see if the Sims are behaving well or badly. The addiction level and timer are stored in the relationship between the Sim and the Addiction object.
The reason for the separate, out-of-world Addiction object is so the Sims can continue suffering the ill effects of this diabolical device even after the device itself is sold (as opposed to the Joybooth pseudo-addiction, where the Sims would immediately forget about it). And, just like the wisdom pertaining to alcoholism, your Sims are never cured. Buy them a new Energizer and they'll rush to take that critical first hit again.
Improvements would likely involve adding some randomness to the various timings, tuning the constants for best performance (addicting, yet subtle), graphic adjusting so it doesn't look exactly like the VR Helmet, and adjusting the shouting graphic to be the red flashing style rather than a static image of the helmet. It might also be interesting to make the thing randomly break once the family has a very high level of addiction.
Files for the object: energizer.iff
The Greek myth of Narcissus tells of a man of immeasurable beauty whom no one could resist. Now his powers can be yours! You will be gorgeous beyond imagine! All your friends will fall hopelessly in love with you! We're practically GIVING these away! [side effects may include spurning of all affection. mirror may be cursed. consult your doctor before using Narcissus mirror]
Some background: In this Greek myth, Narcissus was so overwhelmingly beautiful that nobody could resist falling in love with him. However, in his arrogance he cruelly spurned all affection, believing no one's love was good enough for him. Angered by this, the gods cursed him to forever love himself, giving at his own reflection.
The Cursed Mirror is a duplicate of the Mirror - Floor - Moderate object. It modifies the tree table such that the "Practice Speech" selection option becomes "Love Self" and is only available to adults. The "Practice Speech" behavior has private behaviors called "Affect House People" and "Affect Neighbor People" inserted in the middle.
Files for the object: akendall_cursedmirror.iff
My object, according to its description, is exactly what the Sims need! It increases their energy, comfort, hygiene, fun, and mood (with most of those being advertised as strongly changing whatever), and it decreases their hunger and bladder! Oh wait, in the code, it actually decreases the character's hygiene, social skills, and logic. It also increases the person's age as well as slightly increasing the person's fun. In other words, like most drugs, it creates a dependency cycle where the Sims "see" this drug as providing what they need whereas it actually makes them need it more. There's actually one more surprise, too. Drugs kill, and there's a 1/50 chance that this electronic drug will electrocute your Sim.
The question you're probably asking yourselves is why would I make something so sick and twisted? Well, the idea came from two places. First of all, the first time I saw the VR helmet, which this object is based off of, I thought it looked like the drug tek from the TekWar series. Secondly, when we made "Sim Heroin" with the Joy Booth, I started wondering if it'd be possible to create a dependency cycle in this world. Turns out it is.
However, there were a bunch of things I couldn't figure out how to have this drug do. For instance, at first, I wanted to have it affect your relationship with the person standing closest to you. I found out how to get the closest person, but I couldn't figure out how to affect your relationship with that person. There is the relationship primitive, but it doesn't seem to work. Furthermore, in the code from the other interactions (eg kiss, tickle), there is some weird stuff going on to create social interactions. Well, I finally figured out what was happening in those other functions, but the problem came down to the parameters being passed in. I couldn't figure out a way to make the user absolutely start to like/hate the closest other Sim more.
After that, I decided to really mess with the Sims and make this drug randomly change the user's gender. That wasn't as interesting, though, even though it worked. Finally, I sat back and thought about what else I could make this drug do to people, and that's when I found the kill functions.
I started playing around with the kill object functions. My first goal was to try and make your Sim kill another Sim. That didn't work. Trust me, I tried really hard to create virtual drug-induced homicide. Next, I worked on getting the drug user to kill itself. I got that working, but when you just use kill object, it removes the object and still lets it exist in the world (in fact, the Sim became VERY happy, full, etc, etc when I just removed it). I looked around a bit, and I finally stumbled onto the do electrocution function. Man oh man, what a perfect way for an electronic drug user to die! I added it in, tested it, and it worked! Next, I added a random factor so that it only kills the Sim 1/50ish times, and it works!
However, if your Sim uses the drug 50 times and still doesn't get electrocuted, because it ages by a year every time it uses the drug, the Sim will still die shortly anyway! It's pretty funny because the ghost then walks around the house, and the corpse lies right in front of the drug. It's amusing to watch the other Sims interact with the ghost. Furthermore, sometimes, the Sim will mourn over the urn and then need to use the drug to get over the pain.
I also used the interactions the Sims had to tune Sim Drug. Namely, I tried it with a few values, watched it run, and changed them accordingly. What I wanted was to create an object that people would keep on coming back to, that would change their interactions with others, and that could consistently cause some other behavior. After a while, what I finally created was an object that at least one Sim (usually Mortimer, although sometimes Bella) would think of from a distance. Secondly, after using the drug, the Sims would suddenly have a desire to have contact with one another (probably because the drug decreased their social level so much, and even though it advertises that it increases it, I chose that the Sims couldn't use it consecutively). Next, after using it, the Sim would also feel dirty, and it would suddenly go and take a bath or shower.
Ironically, after letting the game run for a while, I started to see other real-lifeish things. For example, the other Sim would get hooked on the drug too. Then, if the other Sim wasn't around to comfort the user after it "felt the speed," the Sim would choose to eat.
Eventually, the Sims feel into a balance that still had them using the drug multiple times per day, perhaps even striking a balance between pushing, sleeping, bathing, talking, and eating. Then, a day or two would pass with the Sims not using the drug again, yet suddenly, one of them would rediscover it (perhaps with a little dues ex machina), and the cycle would start over. All in all, it's a rather interesting experience to see the similarities between a virtual world with drugs and the real world.
Files for the object: simdrug.iff
My personal object was the evil lamp. It first only allows those who are selfish to use it (those too generous pee on the spot and run away), and the object is advertised as such. On use, a person becomes more logical, more selfish, less nice, and develes a greater affinity for violence. In fact the more a sims uses the object, the nastier they get. I had one sim just whomp on every neighbor that came by for lack of anything better to do, so it's a fun one =)
Files for the object: evilmirror.iff