Revisiting the Sims Torture Test

A co-worker came to see me today. She's a gamer, I'm a gamer, and she wanted to know why (insert game title here) was crashing at the load screen. So I pointed her in some directions (video drivers, video drivers, video drivers) and hopefully she'll get it to work. In the conversation she was telling me about her humungous Sims save-game. She has been playing this game for years. She asked me if I'd ever played it, to which the answer would be yes. But.. I quickly tired of trying to keep the demanding little ingrates happy and switched over to finding interesting ways to torture them and make them pee themselves (I'm too lazy to click on the bathroom, just GO dammit!).

Now I'm not psycho(much), and I've heard people comment that the way an individual plays a simulation game offers an interesting glimpse into their psyche, but I think it's just a question of probing the game mechanics, and finding out if the programmers and playtesters have thought of everything the general public at large did after game release. You test with hundreds, beta with thousands, but you turn your game over to millions? Well, someone is gonna think up some pretty weird stuff to do with your code that it wasn't intended to do.

Way back around 2003 or 2003 I had made two roomates featuring the person's of Lifto and another neighbor, an obsessively neat jock (they were dressed accordingly, Lifto with Leather Chaps and Peter in a 3 piece suit). I played them pretty much normal-like until I got the idea to see if I could make them fall in love with each other and turn them into a gay couple. A few backrubs, stolen kisses and one hot tub later... They were an item.. They even adopted a baby when someone phoned with one, but the government took it away soon after when they both went to work and left it home alone all day.

This other Sim neighbor, Mrs Goth, kept coming over so I made SimLifto(the tart) cheat on his same sex partner with her. Who's have thunk it? SimLifto was BI! Goth's husband came over later and punched Lifto out and SimPeter was so upset, he ran out of the house.

I felt sorry for him so after awhile I made a large shed out back, installed a wall to wall swimming pool, and took the door away when Peter went in for a swim. He pretty much swam for two days, using the pool as a toilet when he couldn't help it any longer. To make a long story short pretty soon I had a gravestone in the back yard.

I removed the front and back doors of Lifto's house, took the phone off the wall and installed about 4 large wood-burning stoves amid several large fire-places. Pretty much what this person did. Hehehehe. SImLifto was a pretty bad cook and soon joined SimPeter pushing up the digital daisies.. I have some screen shots somewhere, I hope i can dig them up..

I loved the Sims.. I should re-install it!